Need help on building my first racket

[Steinway]

Hello, I have been playing and training with a coach for around a month. My friend introduced me to the game, and I have been borrowing his racket and some other club member racket for a while. Since I got hooked to table tennis, I was thinking on investing on a racket, since I'm a beginner I want to buy something easy to play and that I can use for a long time. So after looking around for a bit, I'm planning on getting this combination:

Blade: Tibhar Stratus Power Wood
FH: Yasaka Rakza 7
BH: Yasaka Rakza 7 soft
Our club is sort of Tenergy & Dignics cult, but I couldn't find any advantage of those rubber when they lent their racket to me. I wished to avoid those as well since the price is pretty expensive. I like to stick to something for a long while so I can worry more on training my skill rather than my equipment. Is the above setup a good choice for me? Or do you have any suggestion for me? Thank you in advance.

 

[Caracas]

Not overthinking and enjoy

 

[turbozed]

A table tennis blade is just pieces of plywood. The a racket is just that with foam and rubber attached.

You don't want to be switching your racket often while you're learning since you want to change any variables for your body to have to adjust to.

At the same time people go out and buy stuff that's expensive and then stick with it even it it doesn't feel comfortable or is hard to control.

When I first went to research a racket to buy I prioritized the following useless considerations:

1. What is everyone else playing with?
2. What is rated highly on websites?
3. What are the good brands and models?

These are the questions I should've prioritized:

4. Does this handle feel comfortable?
5. Can I swing the racket freely without the ball shooting off uncontrollably?
6. Does the racket feel stable?
7. Do I enjoy hitting with it?

I bought one of the most popular and expensive all wood blades as my first blade which checked off all the useless criteria. But the actual important questions it failed at miserably. I ended up abandoning a $200 setup in favor of a $35 one because it beat out the expensive one by a wide margin.

Play with as many all wood and reasonably priced setups you can find at your club. There's at least a few guys at the club who have a dozen different rackets and will let you try them while talking your ear off about the subject. Then come back and tell us which is best when it comes to questions 4 through 7. After that you can actually get good recommendations. Otherwise people will just give you recommendations based on questions 1-3 which imo are too general to be useful.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Hello, I have been playing and training with a coach for around a month. My friend introduced me to the game, and I have been borrowing his racket and some other club member racket for a while. Since I got hooked to table tennis, I was thinking on investing on a racket, since I'm a beginner I want to buy something easy to play and that I can use for a long time. So after looking around for a bit, I'm planning on getting this combination:

Blade: Tibhar Stratus Power Wood
FH: Yasaka Rakza 7
BH: Yasaka Rakza 7 soft
Our club is sort of Tenergy & Dignics cult, but I couldn't find any advantage of those rubber when they lent their racket to me. I wished to avoid those as well since the price is pretty expensive. I like to stick to something for a long while so I can worry more on training my skill rather than my equipment. Is the above setup a good choice for me? Or do you have any suggestion for me? Thank you in advance.

Good set up.

 

[JJ Ng]

Hello, I have been playing and training with a coach for around a month. My friend introduced me to the game, and I have been borrowing his racket and some other club member racket for a while. Since I got hooked to table tennis, I was thinking on investing on a racket, since I'm a beginner I want to buy something easy to play and that I can use for a long time. So after looking around for a bit, I'm planning on getting this combination:

Blade: Tibhar Stratus Power Wood
FH: Yasaka Rakza 7
BH: Yasaka Rakza 7 soft
Our club is sort of Tenergy & Dignics cult, but I couldn't find any advantage of those rubber when they lent their racket to me. I wished to avoid those as well since the price is pretty expensive. I like to stick to something for a long while so I can worry more on training my skill rather than my equipment. Is the above setup a good choice for me? Or do you have any suggestion for me? Thank you in advance.

I am the third person say, it is a good set-up.

I have played with Tibhar Stratus Power Wood. it is a great blade. I have like 5 of them.

I have also used Rakza 7 soft on my BH. I like it.

 

[Steinway]

A table tennis blade is just pieces of plywood. The a racket is just that with foam and rubber attached.

You don't want to be switching your racket often while you're learning since you want to change any variables for your body to have to adjust to.

At the same time people go out and buy stuff that's expensive and then stick with it even it it doesn't feel comfortable or is hard to control.

When I first went to research a racket to buy I prioritized the following useless considerations:

1. What is everyone else playing with?
2. What is rated highly on websites?
3. What are the good brands and models?

These are the questions I should've prioritized:

4. Does this handle feel comfortable?
5. Can I swing the racket freely without the ball shooting off uncontrollably?
6. Does the racket feel stable?
7. Do I enjoy hitting with it?

I bought one of the most popular and expensive all wood blades as my first blade which checked off all the useless criteria. But the actual important questions it failed at miserably. I ended up abandoning a $200 setup in favor of a $35 one because it beat out the expensive one by a wide margin.

Play with as many all wood and reasonably priced setups you can find at your club. There's at least a few guys at the club who have a dozen different rackets and will let you try them while talking your ear off about the subject. Then come back and tell us which is best when it comes to questions 4 through 7. After that you can actually get good recommendations. Otherwise people will just give you recommendations based on questions 1-3 which imo are too general to be useful.

Hello, thanks for these points. I agree overall, and the consideration of why I chose that specific tibhar blade is because it's the blade that my friend is lending me to use with. I'm pretty comfortable with the handle and don't want to really change something that's not wrong.
5 and 6 I will be completely honest since I'm still learning I might overshoot sometimes. And by stable I assume you mean there're no rattles when I hit the ball? Then yes. No 7 I'd say yes, since I like the rounded handle on tibhar and it doesn't hurt my hand even when I try to drive/loop hard with it. And also my coach suggest me to use all wood blade first and no need to look for carbon blades atm, hence why that blade just fit the bill I guess.

As for why I choose the rubbers I read people say that Rakza 7 is quite a forgiving rubber and good for developing technique (but again, my main consideration would be cost afterall, my friends on my club actually suggesting me to learn using Tenergy 05 since most of them plays with it, but it's just a bit too expensive to me).

 

[Steinway]

I am the third person say, it is a good set-up.

I have played with Tibhar Stratus Power Wood. it is a great blade. I have like 5 of them.

I have also used Rakza 7 soft on my BH. I like it.

Thanks for the input. I guess I will just go ahead with it

 

[JJ Ng]

Thanks for the input. I guess I will just go ahead with it

Yes go ahead and get it.

Do NOT learn your strokes using T05 like your clubmates suggested. You will be better off, yes, using all wood blade and using Rakza series right now.