Marcos Freitas using Marcos Freitas ALC

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Hello,

I know that some (understatement) professional players, eg. Zhang Jike do not use blades named after them. I know that previously when Marcos Freitas was with Tibhar, he did not use Tibhar equipment and instead used his Michael Maze OFF. In the European Championships he still used his Michael Maze. But with Butterfly releasing the Marcos Freitas ALC, has Freitas made the move to his own signature blade? Or, is he still using the old Michael Maze? And if so, why? From the description, it sounds like it is a re-badged version of the Michael Maze:

May 2016 The veneer composition of FREITAS ALC is, as with his popular predecessor Michael Maze, the proven Arylate carbon synthetic fiber used which gives the wood its characteristic "ALC-Touch"...

But does Marcos Freitas ACTUALLY use it? In the Nittaku Pongcast when he did the ball bounce I saw it but for these promotional things players regularly change their equipment to their sponsor's anyway- like in Dimitrij Ovtcharov's interview there was a scene with him gluing on a Bluefire on his Ovtcharov Senso V1, where he obviously uses Tenergy (or Hurricane... :p )
 
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Hello,

I know that some (understatement) professional players, eg. Zhang Jike do not use blades named after them. I know that previously when Marcos Freitas was with Tibhar, he did not use Tibhar equipment and instead used his Michael Maze OFF. In the European Championships he still used his Michael Maze. But with Butterfly releasing the Marcos Freitas ALC, has Freitas made the move to his own signature blade? Or, is he still using the old Michael Maze? And if so, why? From the description, it sounds like it is a re-badged version of the Michael Maze:

May 2016 The veneer composition of FREITAS ALC is, as with his popular predecessor Michael Maze, the proven Arylate carbon synthetic fiber used which gives the wood its characteristic "ALC-Touch"...

But does Marcos Freitas ACTUALLY use it? In the Nittaku Pongcast when he did the ball bounce I saw it but for these promotional things players regularly change their equipment to their sponsor's anyway- like in Dimitrij Ovtcharov's interview there was a scene with him gluing on a Bluefire on his Ovtcharov Senso V1, where he obviously uses Tenergy (or Hurricane... :p )
If you have used a blade for any significant period of time, you will know that the longer you use it, the more it becomes like a part of your body. He is not going to change his blade unless he is forced to do so. As long as the Maze and the Freitas ALC are similar, I don't see what the harm is. Some pros will just change their handle to accommodate questions like yours, but Freitas is probably too hardcore to bother with such nonsense.
 
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If you have used a blade for any significant period of time, you will know that the longer you use it, the more it becomes like a part of your body. He is not going to change his blade unless he is forced to do so. As long as the Maze and the Freitas ALC are similar, I don't see what the harm is. Some pros will just change their handle to accommodate questions like yours, but Freitas is probably too hardcore to bother with such nonsense.

Ok. I didn't mean insult or upset anyone - it was just a curiosity. I just thought that if a blade is named after you, designed for you, it would be a shame to not use it.
 
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Ok. I didn't mean insult or upset anyone - it was just a curiosity. I just thought that if a blade is named after you, designed for you, it would be a shame to not use it.
I am fairly sure, even though I have no hard evidence, that part of the reason he left Tibhar is that Tibhar forces you to use Tibhar equipment. He probably didn't want to switch to MX-P.
 
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I am fairly sure, even though I have no hard evidence, that part of the reason he left Tibhar is that Tibhar forces you to use Tibhar equipment. He probably didn't want to switch to MX-P.

It is kind of sad how everyone uses, or thinks they have to use Butterfly, even the pros like Marcos,at and how apparently that Tenergy is so superior that even a professional MUST use Tenergy, or Michael Maze, or Timo Boll ALC. I personally think that it is disrespectful that a company will go through the time, and effort, to design, market and produce a signature blade for a player, yet they do not even use it.

However, I do also see that a player can get attached to a particular blade- good memories, particular playing qualities difficult to replicate due to the irregularity of wood come to mind

Even then, it is still a betrayal of trust I think, and a lack of "moral fibre" on the part of the guilty athletes. Sponsors pay the players substantial sums of money, I ASSUME, only for the players to practically snub them because they think something else is better, or even worse, fake it.

NOTE: This is just opinion...
 
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It is kind of sad how everyone uses, or thinks they have to use Butterfly, even the pros like Marcos,at and how apparently that Tenergy is so superior that even a professional MUST use Tenergy, or Michael Maze, or Timo Boll ALC. I personally think that it is disrespectful that a company will go through the time, and effort, to design, market and produce a signature blade for a player, yet they do not even use it.

However, I do also see that a player can get attached to a particular blade- good memories, particular playing qualities difficult to replicate due to the irregularity of wood come to mind

NOTE: This is just opinion...

I'm sure if you see that a player can have good memories with a blade, you can also see that they can have good memories with a rubber or just believe that a rubber suits their style better than another rubber. It's not necessary to consider it Butterfly brainwashing.

But I do agree that if the time was taken to design a blade to suit the player's requirements, then the player should use it. This is not always the case unless you think that every blade that has a player's name when through an arduous design process.
 
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I'm sure if you see that a player can have good memories with a blade, you can also see that they can have good memories with a rubber or just believe that a rubber suits their style better than another rubber. It's not necessary to consider it Butterfly brainwashing.

But I do agree that if the time was taken to design a blade to suit the player's requirements, then the player should use it. This is not always the case unless you think that every blade that has a player's name when through an arduous design process.

I think that, to a degree, it is a mental thing. As seen with Vladimir Samsonov (Tibhar MX-P/MX-S) and Jakub Dyjas (Donic Bluefire) it IS possible to play at a top level without Tenergy. It is just that they are unwilling to try, I guess, or they cannot get the idea that their equipment is inferior to others, where I do not think it is, it is just different. They just don't want to try.

On the other hand, I do understand that they may be used to Tenergy after all their time playing though.
 
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I think that, to a degree, it is a mental thing. As seen with Vladimir Samsonov (Tibhar MX-P/MX-S) and Jakub Dyjas (Donic Bluefire) it IS possible to play at a top level without Tenergy. It is just that they are unwilling to try, I guess, or they cannot get the idea that their equipment is inferior to others, where I do not think it is, it is just different. They just don't want to try.

On the other hand, I do understand that they may be used to Tenergy after all their time playing though.

Maybe the part you need to close the gap is that these guys are making their money doing this and can be extremely conservative in order to avoid hurting their daily performance?

It has always been possible to play at the top level without Tenergy especially if you want to boost. Samsonov never did and credit to him for going through years of using inferior equipment. The issues are more complicated than you realize unless you either play close to that level or understand some of the details of rubber research. After reading some of the posts by the owner of Nexy on how he worked at designing Nexy Karis, I appreciated better why Tenergy was so popular and why some pros will not leave it. Just because pros are using a rubber doesn't mean that it is good equipment. IT just mean that ultimately, a lot of stuff can be individual preference or written into your contract.

What a pro wants is a rubber that performs according to his intuitions, especially when blocking and spinning very powerful shots. Feeling the subtle differences in how a rubber affects your block is something top level players can see and you may think (like me) that the rubbers play mostly the same.
 
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Maybe the part you need to close the gap is that these guys are making their money doing this and can be extremely conservative in order to avoid hurting their daily performance?

It has always been possible to play at the top level without Tenergy especially if you want to boost. Samsonov never did and credit to him for going through years of using inferior equipment. The issues are more complicated than you realize unless you either play close to that level or understand some of the details of rubber research. After reading some of the posts by the owner of Nexy on how he worked at designing Nexy Karis, I appreciated better why Tenergy was so popular and why some pros will not leave it. Just because pros are using a rubber doesn't mean that it is good equipment. IT just mean that ultimately, a lot of stuff can be individual preference or written into your contract.

What a pro wants is a rubber that performs according to his intuitions, especially when blocking and spinning very powerful shots. Feeling the subtle differences in how a rubber affects your block is something top level players can see and you may think (like me) that the rubbers play mostly the same.

I do agree that I m not at that level, and I guess all we can hope for is an honest discussion with the player's face to face :)

BTW, who is the owner of Nexy, can you send me the link to the mentioned threads?

Thanks
 
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I think that, to a degree, it is a mental thing. As seen with Vladimir Samsonov (Tibhar MX-P/MX-S) and Jakub Dyjas (Donic Bluefire) it IS possible to play at a top level without Tenergy. It is just that they are unwilling to try, I guess, or they cannot get the idea that their equipment is inferior to others, where I do not think it is, it is just different. They just don't want to try.

On the other hand, I do understand that they may be used to Tenergy after all their time playing though.
You can play with another rubber, but everyone who uses tenergy 05 know how different it is to any rubber in the market. I don't like the tenergy feel, MX-P suits me a lot better but I understand why so many pro's use tenergy.
PS: tenergy 05 have the most unique feeling but all the spring sponge feel different to others rubbers

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I'm sure if you see that a player can have good memories with a blade, you can also see that they can have good memories with a rubber or just believe that a rubber suits their style better than another rubber. It's not necessary to consider it Butterfly brainwashing.

But I do agree that if the time was taken to design a blade to suit the player's requirements, then the player should use it. This is not always the case unless you think that every blade that has a player's name when through an arduous design process.

And sometimes it is rather inexplicable. It is odd that ZJK does not want to use even a ZJK-ALC. Pretty much all they need to do is dye the wood on the handle a gray color.
 
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So a lot of good info. NextLevel's explanation of how stuff a mid level player may not feel is something a pro level player may really feel, lines up with how Wang Chen explained the difference between Commercial, Provincial and National H3. She said a pro would feel the difference and it is subtle. But it should not matter to a mid level amateur.

But I am looking at something else here. So, hopefully this information is useful to you.

I see a big interest in table tennis equipment. In one thread I made a joke about EJ virus and the goon squad. Here I will talk about equipment.

The first thing to understand is, deep inquiry to try and understand equipment is valuable if it is because you are the type of person who likes to know and wants to understand. But if it is about thinking equipment is more important than it is, this can be an expensive route to follow. And it will likely not help your technique improve.

It is worth knowing that blades that are in the same class are, well...in the same class.

What does this mean?

Blades that have the plies:

Limba-Limba-Ayous-Limba-Limba

Will have more in common than they will have differences.

ZJK ALC, TB Spirit, TB ALC, Viscaria and a few other blades are almost identical aside from the handle. Other companies have tried to create the same effect. The only blade that has done that successfully so far seems to be the True Carbon.

When you have a blade and rubber setup that works for you, sticking with it will be better for your developing technique and improving than searching out new equipment.

Developing technique in this sport is more important than what equipment you use. One way that this is often expressed is: "It is not the racket it is the person with the racket in his hand."

I know this info is simple and you really already get this stuff.

More on subject to this thread is that, for whatever reason, the pros don't always use what they appear to use. Fan Zhendong uses a Viscaria with a Stiga Infinity handle. ZJK seems to use a Viscaria but rumor has it that it is a custom blade with a Viscaria handle. Whether this is true or not doesn't really matter to me. But what is for sure is that he does not use any of the blades with his name on them.

I could go on and on because there are so many pros who pretend to use one thing but really use something else. Why? I am not really sure. Sponsorship cobtracts? Probably for someone like FZD or Wang Liqin or Dimitri Ovtcharov. Probably not for ZJK since he absolutely does not hide that he doesn't use any of the blades with his name.

One thing I can tell you is, whatever racket you are using is probably okay. Is it optimal for your development? I am not sure because I don't know your level or what you are using. But most offensive players who are not yet at the elite amateur or semi-pro level would probably be best served by using a 5 ply, all wood blade that has decent flex and good feeling with any kind of modern offensive rubber.

Often people talk about how the pros get special rackets and rubbers. I am not 100% sure that is always exactly true. But there is some truth in it. And the bigger issue is that most top pros get dozens of blades to try and reject dozens blades before the choose 3-4 for themselves.

One time I got to try a blade that had been specifically made for Xu Xin and had been rejected. Not sure what he didn't like about it. But it still felt awesome.

That chance to try and choose is really the bigger issue for the pros. Once they have selected a main blade and a few backups, they probably use those for quite a while before changing.

But the more important thing is, this kind of inquiry can be fun. But don't let it interfere with the fact that working on technique is much more valuable than worrying about equipment.

Someone like NextLevel is an expert at finding different setups that enhance different aspects of his game. But NextLevel has a physical handicap that makes what he chooses slightly more important than it is for most people. Because he needs a setup that gets the job done while allowing him to keep his joints protected. Which is also part of why he knows so much about equipment and why his opinion should be valued and respected.

But for most people, especially young, developing players, whatever equipment you have and use, your technique will adjust to your equipment and that equipment will work for you.

So don't worry too much about this stuff or what the pros use and why. Inquire. Enjoy learning. But don't think it is too important.


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But most offensive players who are not yet at the elite amateur or semi-pro level would probably be best served by using a 5 ply, all wood blade that has decent flex and good feeling with any kind of modern offensive rubber.

But for most people, especially young, developing players, whatever equipment you have and use, your technique will adjust to your equipment and that equipment will work for you.


That's got to be 1 of my favourite all time posts. I need to print it off so I can read it whenever my finger is hovering over the "buy it now" button for the upteenth rubber that promises both more speed and more control.
 
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Some players are more selective with their equipment.
Ma long proved none of this matters, he's used 5ply, 7ply, carbon outside, carbon inside and he beats them all.

As for marcos, based on the podcast with Dan, he's probably not interested in changing his blade or in blades at all.
The guy was playing Bundesliga and went to a tt shop to buy his mazes lol, that's what any of us would do.
 
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Got my old setup when I was getting back into training but I think I reached it's limit. Now I upgraded to the True Carbon with a bit harder rubbers and I already see an improvement in the quality of my balls.

Certainly you shouldn't buy a setup just because of being a fanboy, but I wouldn't underrate equipments importance (at least if you play for a long time and your technique is pretty much developed). It is always important to know your weakness and if there is equipment that can help with it then why not?

My biggest weakness was my forehand flip, I could play slow spinny topspins but lacked the power to attack over the table so I pushed medium high balls which made it easy for my opponent to attack, the mx-p helps me a lot with that (played Airoc S before with an OFF- blade)
 
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