Help me find a pimples rubber for my grandad

Hi guys,

my grandad recently turned 80 and has been playing with a dead bat for a long time. I let him play with my old stiga allround classic with a tenergy 05 and stiga calibra lt sound. He loved it just because it was faster and I was just feeding him balls so it was easy for him to get the ball back. I told him that if I start serving to him he wouldn't be able to handle the spin.. which was the case and is the case where he plays at the local club, unless the ball is set up well it's too difficult for him.

I've told him for ages that he should consider pimples on his backhand (he almost exclusively uses his backhand to counterhit/punch the ball, no forehand other than for the serve). Anyway, as he's now realized he can't return serves with my old bat he's looking to replace one of his rubbers on his bat with pimples.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what pimples he should be getting?

Thanks guys,

my grandad has never really played seriously just for fun at this club and on cruises etc so he has never developed proper technique, so really I just want something that's simple and will do the job which his previous dead bat sort of did but I reckon pimples will suit his backhand "technique" better than an inverted rubber.

He almost only plays doubles and can't move around much because of his age, he's not going to learn how to use new rubbers, he will just use the same technique as before. He doesn't really play to win, so as long as he can get more serves back/balls on the table/ hit some winners by being able to bypass spin more easily as this is his weak spot then he'll have more fun.

First of all thank you all a ton for the nice responses, I shall let him know about this haha.

So I think I need to clarify a bit about what kind of level the table tennis that he plays and the people he plays is.
I've tried to improve his forehand, but he pretty much plays every single shot backhand, he will either push or sort of do a strange counterhit involving his whole arm.. or swipe across the ball. Where he plays only one person really knows how to loop and this same guy is the one who he struggles against with the serves.

I don't think his block can be in any way compared to those legends haha. He is not really aware of the different names and types of shots.

His current bat (which is my very old bat) which is now dead has friendship 729 fx on it and I've told him to just get the same rubber.. but once he tried my old stiga allround classic with the tenergy and the calibra sound (I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to let him try this), because it comes off faster and takes less effort for him he's convinced himself that it's better despite me telling him how much more consistent he is with the old dead one..

so eventually I was just like **** it I want him to have fun, but of course he's annoyed that he can't return a single serve. I have tried to teach him but I don't see him often enough and he only plays once a week and only sometimes against the guy whos (mainly tomahawk) serves he can't handle, so it's a tricky dilemma.

The blade is allround on both setups btw. Maybe a defensive rubber is the answer. At the moment he wants to only use this other pimples/or whatever setup when he's up against this one guy and then he'll swap back.. which is not a good idea. But again.. he's too stubborn so I just want to do what I can to get him to enjoy himself as much as possible haha.

chuckjordan2 said:

May I make a suggestion? Buy / make 2 hardest setups and just play with him at his level. You'd make his day.

I only get to see my son once/twice a year since he graduated and got married. And I'm grateful doing anything together.

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I do this everytime I go and see him . This is why he likes the old bat I gave him so much because when he plays me I just stand back and lob.. or block his shots and let him hit them hard as much as he wants .