TLDR: It does NOT
lol
The only truth about your level changing from equipment is: Bad equipment can make you play worse
I facepalm everytime someone says "Ma Long would beat you with a frying pan or empty paddle"
One of the players in our club's top team gives training sessions to the top youth players. He beats the top kids with his multiball blade which has rubber on only one side, and really rips balls with the wood side too
Same guy took my bat the other day to show me something, and just flawlessly executed right off the bat (pun intended). That's with a lightly boosted, so slow, H3 on a slow blade, vs his usual D05 on Innerforce ZLC...
I have a lot of respect for his level of touch.
Like, no he wouldnt. BUT, give him a Tibhar MXP or Tenergy, yes he will figure out how to use it well, within a couple of shots, MAX. But, that might cost him the game at any level CLOSE to this level because the margins are so tight at such a high level, and everyone at that level can perform every stroke and all types of plays.
When the club level player does it, truth be told its just used as a cop out instead of doing the uncomfortable and tougher work of finding out what is really costing them matches (hiring someone if they can't figure it out themselves - if you have been stagnating for anything more than 3-4 months - something is wrong and you clearly do NOT know what you're truly doing wrong, otherwise you wouldn't have stagnated like this for this long), and then training step by step using the right methods, to fix those issues that cost you matches, and then knowing how to actually handle things when awkward and difficult match situations come up.
Probably makes sense as to why TT is so complex and takes years to get good at/reach your goals at. Most stagnate and never really reach their goals, due to lack of awareness of what is causing the stagnation. Sad reality.
But to the point of equipment, it's natural but also silly to question THAT is the reason for your disappointing results or think that will be your ticket to success. It simply won't
Here's what I think about "good" or "bad" equipment.
A player needs the right equipment to make something click, and this is where you can sabotage yourself, a lot.
Learning to feel how a rubber grabs the ball? Don't use a hard rubber that shoots it out before you can feel it, but also don't use a rubber that gives you the same grabby feeling regardless of whether you're doing it wrong or right. Your equipment should be difficult enough to challenge you to improve, yet easy enough to access that improvement.
Same goes for every stroke, feeling, and other improvements.
This is what makes, in my opinion, rubbers like Dignics and Hurricane 3
so good: the performance ceiling is very high, but the entry level is perfectly accessible to most players.
As for blades, I'm honestly a little confused nowadays. All-wood used to be the easy answer 20y ago, but I'm not sure if that still holds true with so many sensible carbonated options on the market and fast 5ply blades like Korbel are actually feeling slow on the current ball.
I think the same basic idea holds true, it should be challenging enough to improve, yet easy enough to access that improvement.
