Liu Shiwen blade *confussed*

Vrael said:

Hi,
I have question regarding bty Liu Shiwen blade. On the one hand, on almost all the forums people write it is awesome looping blade, with great dwell time and flex allowing to generate huge spin, on the other hand, Liu Shiwen is known for her close to the table machine-gun like speed, counterhitting like monster. Isn't it contradiction ? I thought that stiff/hard blade are much better in close to the table game, giving your opponent less time to react.
Also what rubbers would You reccomend for such a blade ? Tenergy05 would be of course, great for looping, flips etc. so it would be probably 1st choice for fh, but what about bh ? In't that blade to soft for something like rakza 7 soft, tibhar fx-p ? And I think the short game/recieves would be really hard with t05 on bh. What about t64 or t80 here ?
I will be able to test that blade (83g) and I am thinking which rubbers should I pick for that, taking into account those 2 different playing style I wrote about at the beggining. What am I missing here ?

Click to expand...

It's sure Liu Shiwen use her blade close to the table machine-gun like speed and she have an Hurricane 3 blue sponge on forehand and a Butterfly Spinart on backhand!

Maybe she use a custom blade my friend! I don't know...

Tiago Apolonia also uses the Liu Shhiwen. Also, despite playing fast and close to the table, spin is still a major part of Lui Shiwen game and thats why she is using H3 and Spinart and not a Short Pips rubber......

Well, ironically, many Butterfly Player currently not playing with ?blade which bear His / Her name?.

Vrael said:

Hi,
I have question regarding bty Liu Shiwen blade. On the one hand, on almost all the forums people write it is awesome looping blade, with great dwell time and flex allowing to generate huge spin, on the other hand, Liu Shiwen is known for her close to the table machine-gun like speed, counterhitting like monster. Isn't it contradiction ? I thought that stiff/hard blade are much better in close to the table game, giving your opponent less time to react.
Also what rubbers would You reccomend for such a blade ? Tenergy05 would be of course, great for looping, flips etc. so it would be probably 1st choice for fh, but what about bh ? In't that blade to soft for something like rakza 7 soft, tibhar fx-p ? And I think the short game/recieves would be really hard with t05 on bh. What about t64 or t80 here ?
I will be able to test that blade (83g) and I am thinking which rubbers should I pick for that, taking into account those 2 different playing style I wrote about at the beggining. What am I missing here ?

Click to expand...

Vrael, you can be 99.99% that LSW isn't using the kind of blades we buy in common tt shops. Butterfly makes custom blades for top players. I remember a post regardin ZJK blade, we all know he is using Viscaria, but from a photo of his racket we could see that his blade had way thicker carbon layers than the common Viscaria. Who knows, maybe LSW is using a completely different blade with the handle of the Liu Shiwen blade. We all know Butterfly know how to make money of top players' names.

Its not the blade... its the skill
The explosiveness of the skill execution matches the coordination of her body

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Rajah* said:

Its not the blade... its the skill
The explosiveness of the skill execution matches the coordination of her body

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

I agree it depends on the skill, but the blade is still quite fast. You see a lot of good players play with the Petr Korbel blade and this is a step up from the Korbel in speed, but with even more control and feeling. It is slower than Timo Boll Spirit.

Liu Shiwen used to play with the Innerforce ZLF back in 2010/2011. The Liu Shiwen blade is basically the same except from the glueing proces according to the German Butterfly site, making it a bit faster and more direct.
Also when you look closely towards the technique of Liu Shiwen most of her backhand balls are not hits, but topspin balls with short strokes and a lot of wrist action. Her forehand is also a really fast and short topspin stroke. There is 1 video of her which shows great slowmotion action from her technique where you can see this up close.

The Innerforce ZLF is in my eyes a perfect blade which mixes speed, feeling and control. While I dont play with power, for me its easy enough to already hit direct backhand opening winners because of the mix speed and control. Playing a fast backhand opening down the line just goes so easy with this blade. For forehand its also good to mix up fast and direct topspin balls with slower balls with more topspin and arc. Also a lot of control during the blocks and gives possibilties to counterloop from near the table.
If you play mainly from 3-4 meter away from the table, than you should go for a faster blade which you can keep more pressure on the opponent. But if you play in first and 2nd position topspin game than this is the blade for you. Even if you get more than 3 steps away from the table the control and spin during counterlooping can win you points.

Netbal said:

If you play mainly from 3-4 meter away from the table, than you should go for a faster blade which you can keep more pressure on the opponent. But if you play in first and 2nd position topspin game than this is the blade for you. Even if you get more than 3 steps away from the table the control and spin during counterlooping can win you points.

Click to expand...

An interesting thing about the InnerForce ZLF, when you are further back it kicks into a higher gear because the larger swing gets you to use the Zylon more. So it may be good enough from further back as well.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I was thinking about LS blade while ago when i got back to TT this year, and i was very close to order few blades including this LS, but i didn't rush and later one i found out that it wasn't the best option to go with, and i started to believe that those top players aren't necessary playing with what we can buy in market, they sure can have something unique or custom made as they want, so i stopped to run after what those companies trying to promote.

BTY is one great company in promoting, marketing as a strong weapon, i do follow their promotions most of the time, so it is not about if the item i buy i exactly the same as pros using or not, i play with what i feel i like and feel comfortable, it is not like a car or a camera where i can use almost exactly the same as top drivers or photographers using, but here skill and talent can have a rule too beside the equipment, i bought many already and tested them all, some i liked and some didn't, but none made me a higher level player suddenly, just one blade made my playing slightly more consistent, but i need a lot to improve to make it even perfect.

Back to LS blade, i think it is great for close to table and mid, and if you are good enough then you can use it for loop or far too, in my club i see players using different blades, either for close hard ones or flex for far, and they play in any distance with any blade smoothly asif the blade is for everything, so i am sure LS is trained very very hard to make this blade for far perfect for her close to the table machine-gun like.

Vrael said:

I didn;t order LS because LS plays with it . I tried Mizutani blade and the dwell time was just not there (not as much as i wanted), i switched to innerforce zlc and it was still lacking that "something" and I thought taking out that carbon would do the trick. Will test during weekend. also my playstyle is totally different than LS so it wasn't also why I picked it (not to mention technique xD)

Click to expand...

So even you can see or feel there is something missing, so it is about feel too, not just buy any blade and play for skill, but feeling is something else, i too have enough several blades and with each i feel different and, 2 or 3 are good enough and the rest is like i have to practice or train harder to make them good enough.