Nice quality, durable, good grip it is all about this model. Also one of the few having big sizes (which was deciding factor for me). However I prefer heel part being higher (maybe I need a little bit more cushioning there too), this model is too flat for me. Also I felt that there is too much room inside this shoe for my feet (more up, than wide). Also my knees started to ache after about 4-5 month in these shoes. Solved all of that using custom orthopedic insoles which took that additional room, made my heel higher
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I've used this rubber quite long ago (probably around 2011), it was second in my list of potential Tenergy 05 substitutions that day. Used it on a BH side for approximately 6 month, replacing it with a new one every 3 month. Blade: Timo Boll Spirit
I could play with it and it was better than the one I tried as T05 replacement before (Palio Macra Era 47.5 was a complete disaster for me). It had quite a high throw, not as high as T05, but not bad, just enough I didn't miss about T05 throw angle. It was quite good at blocking, pushes, and close to the table game in general (probably due to high throw and its small speed)
But I often go to the middle zone and trying looping from distance wasn't good for me. Moreover looping in general was far from being perfect: first of all it lacks speed and I wouldn't call spin extraordinary. Combining those two resulted that my bh loop was not as dangerous as I used to. And the worst thing about it was that sometimes ball was simply falling of the racket without any apparent reason and going to the net. Usually I feel quite well a part of stroke that failed: either it was body position or wrong attack angle or wrong wrist movement or wet rubber or anything else. I always know what I must change in the next ball to make it work. That was the only rubber where I didn't: I thought that my position is right, that racket angle is good, wrist doing right movement: everything was good, maybe not perfect, not sure, but definitely good. And as a result ball goes well into the net. Every other rubber I've ever tried would produce normal trajectory, maybe slightly lower than ideal one, maybe not as fast as usual, but good enough to go over the net for sure. That not always happened to me, just let's say 1 out of 5 would be that weird. But still that was really frustrating (so frustrating that I decided to write a review 9 years after I stopped using it
)
Also recently I had ~10 training sessions with a guy who uses Baracuda on his bh too, but on Korbel blade. And it looks to me that he has very similar problems. He has problems with the first loop regardless spin it has and he simply doesn't understand why. If his first loop goes into the table then he can produce 2-3-5 without problems. But the first one is a disaster, like if he hits 1 out of 3, then it is a great result.
It was not that bad as I might described, definitely not bad enough to force me to order something else just after 1 training session and even good enough for me to give it a second chance (which didn't work unfortunately). Maybe rubber is not that forgiving for my bh, maybe it simply lacks catapult (and probably nowadays I would try to use some booster first before switching to another rubber), but switching to Acuda S1 made me happier those days
I could play with it and it was better than the one I tried as T05 replacement before (Palio Macra Era 47.5 was a complete disaster for me). It had quite a high throw, not as high as T05, but not bad, just enough I didn't miss about T05 throw angle. It was quite good at blocking, pushes, and close to the table game in general (probably due to high throw and its small speed)
But I often go to the middle zone and trying looping from distance wasn't good for me. Moreover looping in general was far from being perfect: first of all it lacks speed and I wouldn't call spin extraordinary. Combining those two resulted that my bh loop was not as dangerous as I used to. And the worst thing about it was that sometimes ball was simply falling of the racket without any apparent reason and going to the net. Usually I feel quite well a part of stroke that failed: either it was body position or wrong attack angle or wrong wrist movement or wet rubber or anything else. I always know what I must change in the next ball to make it work. That was the only rubber where I didn't: I thought that my position is right, that racket angle is good, wrist doing right movement: everything was good, maybe not perfect, not sure, but definitely good. And as a result ball goes well into the net. Every other rubber I've ever tried would produce normal trajectory, maybe slightly lower than ideal one, maybe not as fast as usual, but good enough to go over the net for sure. That not always happened to me, just let's say 1 out of 5 would be that weird. But still that was really frustrating (so frustrating that I decided to write a review 9 years after I stopped using it
)Also recently I had ~10 training sessions with a guy who uses Baracuda on his bh too, but on Korbel blade. And it looks to me that he has very similar problems. He has problems with the first loop regardless spin it has and he simply doesn't understand why. If his first loop goes into the table then he can produce 2-3-5 without problems. But the first one is a disaster, like if he hits 1 out of 3, then it is a great result.
It was not that bad as I might described, definitely not bad enough to force me to order something else just after 1 training session and even good enough for me to give it a second chance (which didn't work unfortunately). Maybe rubber is not that forgiving for my bh, maybe it simply lacks catapult (and probably nowadays I would try to use some booster first before switching to another rubber), but switching to Acuda S1 made me happier those days
- Speed
- Spin
- Durability
- Control
