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Pros
  • Spin & Mild Tack
  • Control
  • Lightweight
Cons
  • Low Catapult
  • Not best power
  • Euro ball feel?
Heavily overshadowed by other Hexers thanks to Andro themselves. Andro tried promoting this rubber by means of durability which is the biggest mistake ever, and official ratings were also complete BS. In fact depending on the players/blades this is still the best Hexer contender alongside even the latest Hexer Grip/Powergrip. It's also one of the top 3 Chinese-Euro Hybrid rubbers in my mind alongside Joola Golden Tango PS and Tibhar Hybrid K2 (the latter one might be rare but I can guarantee it's good), although Duro does give quite a different softish hitting feel from the other 2.

Spin: The mild tackiness of this rubber isn't only for durability as Andro suggested, but also helps Chinese-style brushing strokes / spinning, and believe it or not this still has the best surface grip among the Hexer series. Even Grip/Powergrip you would have to sink into the topsheet/sponge a little bit to get the grip while Duro doesn't require such. Although still a bit offf from spinniest Chinese rubbers like Hurricane 3, Battle 2 etc, the overall spin level is still higher than even my Omega 7 Pro for my current backhand which is already real spinny. Short games spin potential is unquestionable (better than Grip/Powergrip), and it's even a bit spinnier under harder impacts as the ball sinks even just a bit deeper into the 42.5 sponge. The mild-tacky topsheet/soft sponge combo surprisingly works here despite this is usually the recipe that fails Chinese topsheets.

Speed: Low catapult but by no means slow. Still faster than Hexer Powersponge at least. A bit bouncy at lower gears if comparing to Chinese standards I would say it's closer to medium/medium-slow Euro rubbers' standards. You wouldn't want the sponge too fast anyway with the topsheet which favors Chinese-style strokes when it comes to spinning. It's worth noting however that the sponge doesn't easily bottom out, which has always been the strength of Andro (even for their 37.5deg sponge), so there's more speed than you expected once you drilled through the 42.5deg sponge a lot under very hard impacts. Behaves a bit like Chinese rubbers in that regard if you ignore the extra amount of sponge compression in Duro's case.

Power(Spin+speed):
If considering purely from rubber perspectives then ultimate power would be lacking when compared to Chinese Provincial rubbers such as Battle 2, Sanwei's Target National and a boosted H3 due to the medium-soft sponge, so ultimate spin/speed are a bit below the likes of above, however Duro offers better power at softer strokes. Hard strokes it's more comparable to Hexer Grip while Grip would ultimately edge out with its noticeably faster sponge. For reference Grip is even easier to generate power at medium impacts.
However Duro is more geared towards hard spinning than speed, so having a fast stiff blade can make up some of the power disadvantages.

Arc / Throw:
By general standards it's closer to the range of Medium to medium high depending on the blade chosen. However deadly low-arc topspins can be executed at will.

Control: Always been best aspects about Hexers, even till now there're hardly any rubbers that can match Hexers' forgiveness when comes to (counter) topspin games. Some Chinese rubbers maybe even better at short games due to much lower bounciness but Duro is still very good at that, even flicks are easy as hell despite 42.5 sponge, and overall controllability wise Duro is easily one of very best in the market right now.

Weight: At not even 43g after cutting Duro is very light for a rubber which resembles Chinese rubbers' behaviors. Even Grip/Powergrip weighs close to the 50g mark and only unboosted non-Neo H3s can come just a bit closer to Duro's weight. Most other Chinese rubbers (even without boosting) easily go beyond the 50g mark or above. If you don't have beastly arm strengths of the pros then the weight savings from Duro might make quite a profound difference in actual match play.

Hexer Duro may not have the best power of top Chinese rubbers but there're other strengths (such as control and easily extractable power, comparing to Chinese rubbers at least) which makes it an (almost) top-performing Chinese-Euro Hybrid rubber which performs like nothing else on the market, even when comparing to Tango PS or Hybrid K2. I personally don't pay much attention to durability but I'm on my 3rd sheet of Duro and I can say its durability is more than good enough, if not best.
Suggest pairing Duro with blades that have still top ply to facilitate sponge engagement for spin/power. Duro is also a great backhand choice for those who have good looping techniques on backhand and meanwhile want do things with great safety and not too fast. If u're used to other European rubbers for backhand u shouldn't have difficulties with transitioning to Duro thanks to its hugely forgiving nature as well as retaining Euro-type feedback when impacting the ball.
Speed
6.8
Spin
8.9
Durability
9.1
Control
9.6
Pros
  • Soft shots slow
  • Hard hit=power
  • Good control
Cons
  • Worse short game
  • than old version
  • Heavy
It's great rubber on its own but I found it disappointing in several aspects especially when you compare it to previous version of Target(Ultim/Force).
I'll try comment on its performance while comparing some aspects to Target Ultim 47.5/50

Weight:
Although not as heavy as some Chinese rubbers and Tibhar Evolution series, it's still pretty heavy (u can check Dan's review) which is quite a letdown especially when u compare to Target Ultim which was (almost) 10g lighter per uncut sheet ... even lighter than Target Pro S39.

Loop:
Very high dwell time thanks to very flexible topsheet, even more than Ultim which I already found to be pretty elastic already. This makes hard loops very controllable while really powerful when u need it (easier than Ultim as well). Under stronger impacts (drive-loop) Spin is also one of highest among Euro rubbers alongside Victas V>15, Omega VII and you don't need aggressive Chinese strokes to extract the most out of it.
Softer loops however, especially lifting backspin , could be an issue sometimes. The topsheet is very grippy only when it deforms up to certain extents, meaning on slow loops the rubber doesn't deform enough to offer sufficient grip for highest-level of spin, it's still stronger than most cheapish/last-gen rubbers, but definitely much less impressive than drive-looping with it.
Target Ultim in contrast, has excellent surface grip which allow incredibly spinny slow loops. Spin is about just as high as Target pro in drive loops but you would need more accurate shots than Target Pro to keep the ball in play as well as getting the spin you want.

Block/Punch:
Not best / direct rubber for this due to elastic topsheet, but still top-class control with lots of speed on tap when needed. Not too spin-sensitive. I would say it's friendly than quite some top-class rubbers such as V>15(also pretty good in blocking), MX-P and Tenergy (except T25) in this aspect.
I do find myself blocking/hitting even better with Target Ultim though due to stiffer topsheet.

Serve+Short games(chop, flicks):
This is the most disappointing part for me as short games is my biggest strength as well as my favorite "shots", and Target Pro felt like a significant downgrade from Target Ultim.
As mentioned earlier the topsheet lacks a bit of grip until the ball dwell into the deeper "layers" of it, meaning that to get the most spin out of the serves, you would need to do high-toss serves just like Hugo Calderano would do. If the opponent was returning the ball short with low/no spin and u want disturb the game flow by adding strong backspin to the ball it would also be a pretty difficult task. In Dan's video you might've seen Can Akkuzu chopping the ball with plenty of backspin in short games but that's because Dan gave him strong backspin in advance which makes deforming the topsheet for the receiver quite a bit easier to do. Flicks are easy with plenty of safety margin because of soft topsheet, but again it's a bit hard to generate strong spin unless your stroke really lets the ball "drill" through layers.
Target Ultim on other hand, can easily generate very strong spin in short games thanks to very grippy top layer. Medium-toss serves are more than enough to generate incredible spin and with some practise it's feasible to generate REALLY short ghost serves. It's also very easy to keep the ball short and flicks are more direct on harder impacts (again thanks to stiffer topsheet).

Conclusion: If u must buy Target Pro as Ultim/Force is discontinued, I suggest picking the hardest 51deg sponge version to get the best "surface spin". Also to extract the most out of Target Pro, you would probably need a blade which is pretty slow in lower gears as well as having a REALLY stiff top ply in order to allow the ball to have the best dwelling time on the topsheet, but even then the Target Pro does not really offer more spin than the previous Target Ultim/ Target Force. Pro is more friendly / easier, and maybe a bit spinnier in topspin rallies under very strong strokes (thanks to high dwell time) but that's about it, and even that seems a bit pointless in my case due to the massive weight addition to my racket setup which actually upsets my racket balance as well as reducing my stroke speed(as well as spin) and my forearm's agility when it comes to counteracting unexpected shots(I don't have the pro's stamina after all :p). My range of toss height variations for my serves, which I often used to throw off my opponents, was also being reduced, as well doing some crazy moves during short games which was possible with Ultim but not with the Pro.

Target Pro is still a pretty good rubber that can compete with many top-class rubbers out there, but having moved back to my Target Ultim right after the Pro, I still see no reason why Cornilleau had to make all these changes to the topsheet.
Speed
10
Spin
9.1
Durability
9
Control
8.5
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