how to know if equipment is worn out

It varies from rubber to rubber and usually you can notice the dip in performance and playing characteristics. In terms of the look of the rubber, I know from the usual sheets of p7 that I buy (and airoc beforehand) that when the rubber looses all of its shine and looks very dull when the light is reflecting on it that it's time to order new sheets

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If you loop, there is an easy way: When your rubber is clean, it does not grab the ball anymore. A good rubber will grab the ball when you loop. As the rubber starts getting dead, the topsheet stops grabbing the ball and spinning it. So, if you are looping and you contact the ball with a brush contact and get the ball to sink into the topsheet and sponge and then the ball drops off instead of getting grabbed and catapulted out, if it does this when your rubber is clean and it starts doing it a lot, that is a dead rubber. Sometimes you can put something on the topsheet like WD40 to get it to grab the ball again for a time, but, after a few times of doing this, there is no more reviving a dead topsheet.

As long as you like the way it plays, there really is no problem.
The rubbers I'm using now are pretty old (one of them is >2 years) but it still plays great (or rather I play great with them, at this moment).

When you're at that stage, it doesn't really matter that much if your equipment is still at its full potential or not, in my opinion. This point can probably be proven by some players in your leage with 4 year old rubbers that can still win from you. (not talking about when your racket is falling apart or the rubber is deteriorated to a point where it has less grip than your actual blade, but at that moment you can clearly see the problem).

The loss of maximum spin (and spin sensitivity), is compensated by an increase of control (for most rubbers).
When you've been playing with them for a while and you really notice the quality of your shots going down (over a longer period of time, and definetly not linked to your technique), you should buy new rubbers or upgrade to a more 'demanding' and faster/spinnier rubber.

... But it's easier to blame your equipment when having a bad day. I do this too often myself.

Oh boy, I have too much to say about it. The simple answer is, if you can't tell, it is not that big a deal. But if you can't tell, you want to start learning how to brush the ball and loop with heavy spin. I will give a fuller answer when I can.


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So, I know a bunch of people who play out this outdoor location. When you play outdoors your rubbers wear out faster because of the sunlight and the changing temperatures. Now, all of these guys have bad equipment. Even the ones who have "good" equipment, after a few weeks of playing outside, it is bad. But they play pretty well with it. All of them have rubbers that are totally dead and more than just totally dead.

Part of why these guys play well with the dead rubbers they have is because they might not know it, but their rubbers have turned into ANTI-SPIN rubbers. And, without knowing exactly what they are doing, they have learned to play an interesting Anti-Spin game.

It is really funny to play one of the guys who has two year old Tenergy that has been used outdoors for...well....two years, and now functions entirely as ANTI-SPIN.

The advantages are exactly the same as anti-spin. Easy to return serves, easy to push anything. You don't really have to read the spin. If someone gives you backspin it is easy to attack and you don't need good technique. If someone pushes to you and pushes back, it is quite likely that the opponent will misread the spin, (you will be pushing back mild topspin with a stroke that would have normally produced backspin).

There is a reason why anti-spin is easy to use. But there is a real downside to using rubber that is so dead it is functioning like anti-spin. You will not develop good technique even if you can develop "effective" game skills. For some people this will actually get them to a higher game skill level. But if your goal is to learn good technique in looping, then you want to:

1) learn how to REALLY loop as soon as you can. What do I mean by "REALLY loop"? I mean to really get a ton of SPIN.

2) You need to learn to really loop backspin, heavy backspin.

The sooner you learn those skills well, the sooner you will have no question about when your rubber is done and you need to get new rubber.

If your goal is to learn good technique and get better at the art that allows you to hit a sidespin loop that curves 4 feet towards your opponent's forehand and drops hard onto the table and accelerates a crazy amount off the bounce, then you want to use fresh rubbers and learn to loop, counterloop and loop backspin well as soon as possible.

This is the key to getting your technique and your level higher and this is thing thing that is hardest for some people--especially people trying to learn to play as adults--to learn.

So, if you want to learn bad technique and sneaky game skills and become an anti-spin player--and there is nothing wrong with that--then just get anti-spin and bypass the period of having to wait for the rubber to be dead beyond dead. But if you want to learn higher level technique, then you don't want to use your rubbers till the point where they are dead.

A simple test, if you take a ball and gently press it against the topsheet, just a little, not enough to push into the sponge, if the topsheet grabs the ball, then it is good. If the ball slides on the topsheet and the topsheet doesn't grab till you push fully into the sponge, then the rubber is dead. When I get a chance I look for a video that has another way of testing the grip of the rubber.

By the way, I have a feeling that the scenario I described with guys using rubbers so long that the topsheet has as much grip as ice, is probably how they got the idea for anti-spin.


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Here, the first exercise in this video, if your rubber can't do that, where the racket is almost parallel to the ground and the ball goes straight up, and then when it is falling your racket is facing almost straight to the side and is at just a little angle but the rubber grabs the ball and propels it straight back up, if your rubber can't do that, and you are brushing the ball, then it is probably dead.


But it is probably worth watching the whole video for things that develop touch.


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By the way, someone who already has decent technique can loop with anti-spin or dead rubber. But it is not good to try and learn with dead rubber. And if you are good enough to do what I just said you would also know when your rubbers are dead simply by feel.


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Carl LOVED my dead sheet of Aurus/Elpis on NYC Adventure 3.0 at NYISC haha... I could loop with it just fine and hit too, but I never learned to play with Anti, but some say I am a headache vs anti players.

I can usually tell my rubbers are deadish when i start bottoming out more frequently

UpSideDownCarl said:

By the way, someone who already has decent technique can loop with anti-spin or dead rubber.

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I know a girl who loops with an anti-spin rubber -- that is a part of her style. And her BH blocks are really deadish. You can even loop with long pimples if you move the racket really really fast and the ball comes fast to you as well. Sometimes I play with an LP bat to have fun. From time to time I forget that I have LPs on BH and try to loop with it. Most of the time balls go straight into my half of the table. But if it is a counterloop attempt against a hard shot, the ball is likely to clear the net.

Der_Echte said:

Carl LOVED my dead sheet of Aurus/Elpis on NYC Adventure 3.0 at NYISC haha... I could loop with it just fine and hit too, but I never learned to play with Anti, but some say I am a headache vs anti players.

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That Aurus felt really nice. But you have used special anti-goon squad--Korean/Washington DC Mafia-techniques and doctored those rubbers or they would feel more like hot garbage. Yep, olive oil and Lemmon and what not. Tell us how it's done.


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I had a little Olive Oil left, so OK there, but I waz out of lemon Juice. You don't wanna ask about the substance I substituted for it. If you knew, the Goon Squad would make you confess it along with the location of one of your Safe Houses you no longer use and the TT world would be able to cleanse and restore their rubbers like a champ... all for FREE. We don't want THAT, do we ??!!!

The Aurus sheet was indeed 500 hrs old, likely 5 times the useful competitive half-life of that great rubber, the sponge wasn't yet dead and Kim Jung Hoon himself must have left some persistent chemical agent on the face of his namesake blade.

A Korean older gent who just left USA to coach Mayanmar jr team told me he will bring KJH to the DC area for a month, so it is likely we will get a pic or three.