New rubbers

Hi bolterixus

I have a pimple bat (spare bat) in my coaching sessions and players who want to practice against pimples learn a lot from it. Have you practiced against pimple type players before? This will help your accuracy greatly, understanding the spin and mechanics behind pimples. This could be a good step before changing rubbers as i'm sure you must be pretty use to your setup having used it for a year.

You could look at getting a slower rubber from your current set up. I found the DF rubbers had a lot of control:


How long have you been playing for? You could also upload a video to youtube and post here, that could help users determine what you could use

Dan said:

Hi bolterixus

I have a pimple bat (spare bat) in my coaching sessions and players who want to practice against pimples learn a lot from it. Have you practiced against pimple type players before? This will help your accuracy greatly, understanding the spin and mechanics behind pimples. This could be a good step before changing rubbers as i'm sure you must be pretty use to your setup having used it for a year.

You could look at getting a slower rubber from your current set up. I found the DF rubbers had a lot of control:

How long have you been playing for? You could also upload a video to youtube and post here, that could help users determine what you could use

Click to expand...

Hello Dan. Apologies for butting in on this post. I've been desperately trying to find the best rubber for my game. Basically, I block loop, counterhit topspin and push underspin. I guess I'm one of the few people who love pushing and I'm never happier than to bore people to death if my opponent won't hit at me although I'm even happier if they will! However, I'm at my club I'm playing against people who are among the best players in a town in the UK of around 250,000 population and I'm struggling to return their serves consistently even though I currently have Geospin Tacky 2.0 on my backhand. I'm aware that this is because my technique is lacking but at my age I'm not going to get any better now (I'm a veteran). Is there any rubber you could recommend which would give me more control bearing in mind that I don't chop so still need something that I can counterhit with. I have Tenergy 05FX 1.9 on my forehand and have tried this on the backhand but it has less control than the Geospin Tacky and I have also tried Tibhar Aurus Soft 2.0 which also has less control than the Geospin Tacky. If anybody else has any suggestions I'd love to hear them also. I've looked on the table tennis database and the 2 rubbers that come out at the top for control are Donic Bluefire JP 03 and Andro Rasant Beat but I don't think the stats there are terribly reliable.

Info for Russel: when you play someone who is higher level than you there is not much that can change your ability to handle the spin they put on serves unless you wanted to go with anti-spin.


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@Bolt: try the Vega Europe on your FH see how it works and let us know. Vega Europe or Pro may be good for your FH. But Dan has a point. Knowing how to play pips is more important than changing equipment. If your equipment works for when you are playing against someone with smooth rubbers you probably don't need to change it.


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Sorry about butting in. The city is Portsmouth.

UpSideDownCarl said:

Info for Russel: when you play someone who is higher level than you there is not much that can change your ability to handle the spin they put on serves unless you wanted to go with anti-spin.

Click to expand...

I agree to a certain degree but as I certainly return against these players much more effectivley with Geospin Tacky than I do with Tenergy 05FX the characteristics of the rubber definitely make a difference. I was really asking if there was a rubber with more control than Geospin but still had a certain amount of attacking potential.

russell said:

I agree to a certain degree but as I certainly return against these players much more effectivley with Geospin Tacky than I do with Tenergy 05FX the characteristics of the rubber definitely make a difference. I was really asking if there was a rubber with more control than Geospin but still had a certain amount of attacking potential.

Click to expand...

Yeah. Well, if you are playing people your level and you can handle their serves, then getting a rubber that makes it so that you can return the serves of higher level players more easily without learning read their spin better will ultimately handicap you.

I know you said you are not trying to learn more because you are older. But anything that gives you more control and helps you return the serves without knowing what is on them will let you not pay as much attention to the spin on the serve. And so you will end up in the same place anyway.

Just start trying to learn to read the spin better. Your brain actually starts figuring that out. And as it does your overall level goes up without you changing your strokes. A lot of this game/sport is about reading and adjusting. When you can read higher level spins you get better at handling them.

So I would actually just say, look to play those players whose serves you have trouble returning and make what you do when you play them as much about learning to read and respond the those serves as you can. Let yourself mess up and not get them on the table to try new ways of returning them.

Over time your brain will sort the puzzle out.


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