Donic Testra AR Plus or Stiga Allround Classic?

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How's everyone doing?

My friend is looking for a blade and we can't decide between the Testra AR or the Stiga allround classic.
She's a beginner and she plays mostly close to the table with a lot of blocking, pushes, and some driving.
She would prefer a lighter and an all around blade for now, but we can't find any thorough reviews for the Testra and we can see that the Stiga is a solid all around blade.
FH will be Focus 3 Snipe (2.1). BH will be a Milky Way 955 LP (1.0). Is this a good set up? Should she get the OX for the LP?

Thanks guys.
 
says Spin and more spin.
says Spin and more spin.
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Allround Classic is a great blade. It is well worth it, especially for someone learning to play.

But a question, even if she wants to play defensively, why would she use long pips as a beginner. If she needs to learn good strokes, she should probably learn with basically regular rubbers: Sriver 1.8 or Sriver FX 1.8. Soft is good for learning.

If someone who is starting to learn how to play starts off with a long pips setup, it could be detrimental to the development of good strokes. From a technical standpoint, specializing should only happen when someone knows basic strokes like a counter hit, a block, a drive, a basic loop, a push and a chop, on both the forehand and the backhand. When you are more than proficient with those strokes and can play solidly at a level of about 1500 (USATT rating) then it might be okay to switch to a long pips setup, although a player who does switch at that level should continue working with an allround setup to continue developing their technique until that player hits about 2200 (USATT rating), where the player basically would have to have very solid fundamentals to reach that level.
 
says Spin and more spin.
says Spin and more spin.
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Dec 2010
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Read 11 reviews
Thanks Carl for that informative answer!
And to answer your question, I never knew that learning with a long pip would be so much different compared with inverted rubber.

A lot of the time, when someone starts out with a long pips or anti-spin set up, because you can basically just block everything back slow, and it makes it hard for the opponent even though you have done nothing but put the racket on the ball, you end up getting a lot of easy points and then thinking that your technique is good when there is really not much technique there. Then, that player would be handicapped if they wanted to twiddle and use the smooth side because they have not learned how to use a normal and technically correct stroke.

Once you can do all the strokes pretty well with an allround setup, and your footwork is decent, if you decide you want to specialize, it is okay to do that.

Offensive players make a similar mistake. When first beginning to learn, they decide they want to be an offensive player and get an offensive setup. A beginner should start out with a good allround setup. The blade should be somewhere in the speed range of All, All+ or Off-. The rubbers should be versatile rubbers that can do everything proficiently so you can learn to push, chop, counterhit, drive, loop and block. You do not want to learn how to do any of the offensive stokes with long pips. Once you have the technique, in the appropriate situations, with long pips, you can do any of those offensive stokes. But that is more advanced play than a beginner should be worried about.

If a player learns with an allround setup then they can develop their game in any direction they want. I know guys who can play at a high level with a long pips setup and can play at just as high a level with an offensive setup. I also know players who started with long pips on their backhand because it was easy and then they tried to change to smooth and they could not hit strokes with their backhand (pips side) at all and they could not break those habits from having played with the long pips. I have seen the same with the forehand.

I do know a few players who decided to switch to pips fairly early, after they were playing for about a year, who continue to work on offensive strokes with their smooth side and are developing good strokes with both their forehand and their backhand with both the smooth and the pips side. But it is very rare and these guys actually work very hard at being able to do everything with both sides. That really takes a lot of technical skill.

So I would stick to an allround setup for a beginner.
 
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