Medium Pips... for?

LordPippington · Jul 31, 2016

I've been doing some tinkering with medium pips, but am a little confused as to how they 'should' be played! My game style is a close to the table blocker/looper on the backhand side and a blocker/hitter on the forehand. Would they be a good fit?

They don't really have enough spin reversal to play a long pip close to the table style of chop blocking. And not enough grip to do a top spin loop with any real potency. The blocks are usually dead/no spin balls or very light spin in one direction.

So when playing with medium pips, are they more effective at blocking than other rubber types (disregards more of the incoming spin/more forgiving)? If you wanted to block 90% of the time, what rubber type is ideal for this? Block, block, and smash home a winner on the loose pop ups. Is that basically how medium pips are meant to be played? Dead spin blocks and no spin smashes?

darnner123 · Jul 31, 2016

do you mean short pips?
Short pips are for fast direct hits compared to inverted rubbers.
However they sacrifice a bit of spin so it is harder to loop backspin balls with them.

Hope this helps

JMC · Jul 31, 2016

Ive only tried a few medium pips, but they've all been bad at looping. What they're great at is hitting through spin and giving the ball a weird sink / skid effect. If you want to use your opponents spin to attack every serve and counter hit every spun ball off the bounce, medium pips might be for you. If you want to loop, at all, they are a bad idea.

lyh · Aug 1, 2016

Can long pips be used to attack through spin like that??

LordPippington · Aug 2, 2016

lyh said:
Can long pips be used to attack through spin like that??

Not well from what I've experienced. Especially against top spin! The LP returns the ball with back spin (when receiving a top spin), so your attacks are prone to floating long. I get this effect with the medium pips at times (floating long), so I was curious if that is their main function: to attack flat and fast.

I use the pip side mainly for blocking. My issue with short pips, is that they're pretty spinny (modern ones anyway). So the blocks don't really disturb anyone too much. They don't block it into the net, basically. It might even be several games until they finally ask if I'm using a different kind of rubber!

pingpongdingdong · Aug 2, 2016

I've played medium pimples only a handful of times; and there's not much information online. They play halfway between short and long pimples, so they're supposedly far harder to use. However, they can do quite a bit once people get the hang of it. They can reverse spin a little bit but also attack and hit through spin like short pimples. I've seen quite a few people wrongly use medium pimples. Don't make the mistake of using them if you're trying to attack everything like with short pimples of trying to reverse spin like long pimples. They just won't do either of it to such an extent. However, they can do both fairly well, and that's who it's for. But once again, apparently they're insanely hard to learn how to use properly.

LordPippington · Aug 3, 2016

pingpongdingdong said:
I've played medium pimples only a handful of times; and there's not much information online. They play halfway between short and long pimples, so they're supposedly far harder to use. However, they can do quite a bit once people get the hang of it. They can reverse spin a little bit but also attack and hit through spin like short pimples. I've seen quite a few people wrongly use medium pimples. Don't make the mistake of using them if you're trying to attack everything like with short pimples of trying to reverse spin like long pimples. They just won't do either of it to such an extent. However, they can do both fairly well, and that's who it's for. But once again, apparently they're insanely hard to learn how to use properly.

The ones I've played with can't really be chop blocked. Or at least no better than a short pips would do. Most mediums kill the spin more-so than reversing it. You send back deadballs, and when chopping they don't really add much spin. I see why some people say you get the worst of both worlds with them!

From what I've seen, you basically do just use them for ball wacking and blocking. Unless there are some players I haven't heard of, using them differently?

Ilia Minkin · Aug 3, 2016

Watch Ai Fukuhara's backhand.

Giovanni Greco · Oct 24, 2022

Middle pimples are for rythm variations speed/slow, long/short and counter hitting hard with backhand.
See this example:

Kush · Oct 24, 2022

Miao Miao also used this rubber. You can watch her matches and training.

Draycott old man · Oct 25, 2022

I'm using Spinlord Orkan 1.8 I can loop backspin really well block with soft hands to provide a knuckle ball.You can chop with it and I'm practicing my chop block, which is improving all the time!!!! I use my Medium pimples to attack with mostly with great success!!!! I think there very underrated rubber,that gives a lot of satisfaction when you start to learn how to get the best out of them !!!!

Dominikk85 · Oct 25, 2022

Didn't 2 time Olympic champion deng yaping use medium pips? Her game style seemed to be a bit like mima ito, definitely offensive.

WingTT · Oct 25, 2022

All the above. You can have variation in how you play medium pips, They are just not the best at what long pips or short pips do. You also need quite a bit of stamina to keep attacking with medium pips. If you have it, it's great. Those pros make it look easy to attack but you also need pro level energy.

Draycott old man · Oct 25, 2022

WingTT said:
All the above. You can have variation in how you play medium pips, They are just not the best at what long pips or short pips do. You also need quite a bit of stamina to keep attacking with medium pips. If you have it, it's great. Those pros make it look easy to attack but you also need pro level energy.

I'm buzzing tonight as I've played some top players at my club and they have all struggled with my medium pimples.Ive attacked really well,but also chopped and blocked at a level I've not been at before!!!! I think you can do a lot more than you can with short pimples,as you give your opponent a lot more difficult shot to play!!!

IB66 · Oct 26, 2022

Perhaps a nice 'golden nugget' of info regarding medium pips I came across, supplied by a fella that has basically ALWAYS used medium pips and is a very strong player.
I was trying out some long and medium pips on a couple of bats, so I could use them (try and use them!!!!) for coaching players to get use to playing against LP/MP.
I was chopping and blocking ok with both, but struggling to play a BH topspin stroke with the MP's against incoming topspin (didn't even try with the LP's!!!) Anyway he was watching and told me to play the BH topspin stroke with a slightly more open face, but contact the ball right at the tip / end of the bat and boom over they went!! added bonus is that there is slight backspin on the ball, the fella I was playing with kept netting them!!

Draycott old man · Oct 26, 2022

IB66 said:
Perhaps a nice 'golden nugget' of info regarding medium pips I came across, supplied by a fella that has basically ALWAYS used medium pips and is a very strong player.
I was trying out some long and medium pips on a couple of bats, so I could use them (try and use them!!!!) for coaching players to get use to playing against LP/MP.
I was chopping and blocking ok with both, but struggling to play a BH topspin stroke with the MP's against incoming topspin (didn't even try with the LP's!!!) Anyway he was watching and told me to play the BH topspin stroke with a slightly more open face, but contact the ball right at the tip / end of the bat and boom over they went!! added bonus is that there is slight backspin on the ball, the fella I was playing with kept netting them!!

My B.H with inverted was weak,so I tried Short pimples and I improved almost straight away!!!! Really helped with my service return!!! My B.H stroke seem to really suit short pimples,for the first time I could now attack on both wings!!!! I can't say exactly how I'm contacting the ball when I attack with the Medium pimples but I get so many balls from my opponents that go in the net!!!! They still struggle even though they are playing me for over 30 mins.I personally think there are a lot more benefits from playing with Medium pimples as they give your opponent a more difficult ball to play!!! I use my M.P to attack and I'm still learning as I'm going along!!!! I'm having so much fun learning to play with M.P !!!!

Peter93 · Oct 29, 2022

lyh said:
Can long pips be used to attack through spin like that??

Of course they can, but different long pips have different purposes, The range of friction levels (so long as they are not frictuonless), pimple density, and aspect ratio create completely different pips. Rubbers like Grass DTecs and Desperado 2 are completely different from say, 755 and P1. I currently use P1V on my backhand with 0.5mm sponge and it's really a dream to play with. It makes up for a lot of LP shortcomings, such as dealing with dead balls and short balls, at the sacrifice of deception (but at a higher level, you're not really going to be deceiving people much IMO). You can look at Yang Xiaoxin (Yinhe Qing) and He Zhuojia (Feint Soft) to see how versatile long pips can be.

I've tried a number of MP myself, including Do Knuckle, Super Do Knuckle, Curl P-2 and 388C-1. Personally, I preferred long pips because you get more control, more effect, and a long pip like P1 can be used to attack just as easily. If you want more examples of MP players, look at Minami Ando (Attack 8 L), Ayami Narumoto (Super Do Knucle) and Airi Abe (Curl P-2).

MP rubbers can really fall anywhere on the spectrum between short pips and long pips. I'd consider something like the following

(More like Short Pips) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (More like Long Pips)
Curl P-2 / 388C-1 / Attack 8L / Super Do Knuckle / Attack 8M / Do Knuckle

Oh, and then you can think about SP rubbers that have tremendous knuckle effect like MP, such as VO > 101 or Killer.

Funk Fu Master · Oct 30, 2022

Peter93 said:
Of course they can, but different long pips have different purposes, The range of friction levels (so long as they are not frictuonless), pimple density, and aspect ratio create completely different pips. Rubbers like Grass DTecs and Desperado 2 are completely different from say, 755 and P1. I currently use P1V on my backhand with 0.5mm sponge and it's really a dream to play with. It makes up for a lot of LP shortcomings, such as dealing with dead balls and short balls, at the sacrifice of deception (but at a higher level, you're not really going to be deceiving people much IMO). You can look at Yang Xiaoxin (Yinhe Qing) and He Zhuojia (Feint Soft) to see how versatile long pips can be.

I've tried a number of MP myself, including Do Knuckle, Super Do Knuckle, Curl P-2 and 388C-1. Personally, I preferred long pips because you get more control, more effect, and a long pip like P1 can be used to attack just as easily. If you want more examples of MP players, look at Minami Ando (Attack 8 L), Ayami Narumoto (Super Do Knucle) and Airi Abe (Curl P-2).

MP rubbers can really fall anywhere on the spectrum between short pips and long pips. I'd consider something like the following

(More like Short Pips) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (More like Long Pips)
Curl P-2 / 388C-1 / Attack 8L / Super Do Knuckle / Attack 8M / Do Knuckle

Oh, and then you can think about SP rubbers that have tremendous knuckle effect like MP, such as VO > 101 or Killer.

What are you thoughts on Dr.N K.O Pro (1.5mm), and how does it compare to Killer

aliastheaka · Oct 30, 2022

I think that with this new ball MP are really more efficient and versatile than with the oldest one. They permit a large variety of strokes. You can play them with short pips strokes as the Keiler or similarly as long pimples as the Aggressor for example. Some find they are the worst of the two worlds but I think the contrary. That’s my opinion and I agree with it 😄

Brs · Oct 31, 2022

I have never played with medium pips, but playing against them is my *least* favorite by far. First off hardly anybody uses them, so I don't get enough experience to get used to them. 100x more people use either long or short pips as medium. About the same as anti. But I know what anti does and how it works. Decent MP players can get some spin reversal, or make some of their own spin, or attack with those sinky knuckle balls. MP aren't especially great at any one thing compared to more single-purpose rubbers. But it's so mentally hard to prepare for all kinds of spin or not spin when the strokes and contact doesn't look right the way it would with another material.

Maybe they are very hard to learn for the same reason, you have to have every technique to get the benefit of their unpredictability. And they are probably pretty unforgiving on the bat angle like SP are. But they won't be fun to play against if you master them.

Medium Pips... for?

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