Opinions about Yasaka Atletico Speed

[BlotOnPaper]

I don't see a lot of information about this blade, and it looks quite interesting. Xu Haidong and Shan Xiaona play with it, so i want to know more. So, who tried this blade? How it plays?

 

[BlotOnPaper]

So i bought it and was extremely surprised. It's one of the best outer carbon blades that I played with. I would much prefere it over Viscaria and it's not even close.

I play penhold, so can't say about shakehand because feeling is very different. So if you play shakehand - take this with a grain of salt.

My problem with viscaria is strange feeling(i would describe it as woody and hollow, like you hit the ball with an acoustic guitar body), non-linearity and absolutely atrociously small Cpen handle. Commercial Visc has soft top layers(koto and ayus) and somewhat dense kiri core. It was a pain to sand it well. So if you hit with less force - ball goes really slow and somewhat low. And if you hit harder - ball just flies with first cosmic speed and and arc to the moon and back. I feel this transition really well and absolutely hate it, i just can't trust this blade. It's deffinetely a matter of preference, but i find it to be really uncomfortable.

Atletico speed on the other hand has non-linearity closer to something like N301. It is more even in density across all layers of wood, so the transtion is much smoother and without change in the trajectory(which i find extremely important. I hate blades that change the arc on different gears). Also it has much bigger headsize, but balance is neutral even with heavy rubbers(my setup is 198 gr and it doesn't feel like it at all, it doesn't feel any heavier than my N301 setup which is 187 gr), so it doesn't feel clunky at all when you play RPB close to the table where agility is needed the most. Also i think it preforms much better in over the table game, but it's really subjective.

So for 90$ it's the best bang for buck blade that i know.

 

[mihalichtheone]

Do have a video of you playing with that blade?

Every time I read review I am thinking about the level of the player, I can trust Table tennis Gan reviews cause he's looks like a high level player, but revspin or others I am a bit sceptical. Can a 90$ blade be consistent enough is also a good question.

I myself played with many blades and can consider good, stable (meaning ball doesn't drop suddenly sometimes, etc.) blades w968, viscaria (or any other bty top end blade), Nittaku blades, may be HL5. All of these are not cheap.

Regular YEO, cheaper DHS blades, don't go into that category for me.

I sometimes play penhold as well and been watching Yasaka blades for awhile. Apart from Yasaka Atletico Power/Speed there's also a new one: Yasaka Liu Jialiang (named after famous 'amateur' in China, who competes with pros) https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/yasaka-liu-jialiang.37557/. Would be interesting to see how that plays too.

 

[Kazama]

How is it compared to Yasaka Atletico Spin? Spin has really nice RPB but on the forehand side it shoots off quickly and goes long every time for me.

 

[BlotOnPaper]

Do have a video of you playing with that blade?

No, and in the near time probably would not make one. I don't really play tt at summer a lot, I train for my climbing season and just test some equipment so i won't need to change it in the period that i actually play in tournaments.

Every time I read review I am thinking about the level of the player, I can trust Table tennis Gan reviews cause he's looks like a high level player, but revspin or others I am a bit sceptical. Can a 90$ blade be consistent enough is also a good question.

As you are from Russia I can say that i play on about 400 RTTF with some fluctuation, so i'm deffinetely not a good player, but have some technique. My main sport is climbing and TT is more of an interesting cardio for more endurance on the wall. I have strong RPB, but forehand was always a struggle, i would probably not play TT if there wasn't a penhold grip, it really helped me. I have really strange but strong wrists, so forehand in shakehand is just unplayable for me. That extended diagonal position that gives you the angle for forehand in shakehand feels extremely unstable to me. It's probably genetics as my brothers have absolutely the same feeling with my old shakehand rackets.

I myself played with many blades and can consider good, stable (meaning ball doesn't drop suddenly sometimes, etc.) blades w968, viscaria (or any other bty top end blade), Nittaku blades, may be HL5. All of these are not cheap.

Regular YEO, cheaper DHS blades, don't go into that category for me.

I sometimes play penhold as well and been watching Yasaka blades for awhile. Apart from Yasaka Atletico Power/Speed there's also a new one: Yasaka Liu Jialiang (named after famous 'amateur' in China, who competes with pros) https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/yasaka-liu-jialiang.37557/. Would be interesting to see how that plays too.

In terms of stability my copy of atletico speed is nice and is just a bit worse than other blades in my collection, like Acoustic, N301, Visc and YuanJian Ganjiang (on my copy of Atletico koto layer on the backhand is a bit tilted but i don't see this as a problem). Not perfect, but i don't feel any inconsistency as with commercial DHS blades for example, or any Yinhe blades, all i tried was just really bad.

 

[BlotOnPaper]

How is it compared to Yasaka Atletico Spin? Spin has really nice RPB but on the forehand side it shoots off quickly and goes long every time for me.

I never tried Atletico Spin so can't say

 

[davidsyd828]

Would U chose this blade over N301 or U would still stay with N301?

 

[BlotOnPaper]

Would U chose this blade over N301 or U would still stay with N301?

I really like N301, but it doesn't play well with my favourite backhand rubber - 09c. It's extremely flexible blade, and 09c doen't have a lot of catapult on softer shots, so on blocks or brush topspins ball can easily just die if you make even small mistake. And my backhand is still the most effective with this rubber, there is nothing like 09c on the market. Just for this reason i have better results with Atletico speed, it has more stability on BH, and forehand is still good enough.

I would try something like Hurricane 8-80 on N301, chinese rubbers would probably work much better, but just for this reason i can't really play with this blade to the best of my ability. So i started trying different outer carbon blades and Atletico speed was the best to transition from N301 in terms of feeling, speed nonlinearity pattern and throw angle.

 

[davidsyd828]

I think I know what I mean. Because I was trying it out. And away from table full strokes etc were all fine. Except one shot when I was cramp and didn't have full strokes and the ball just seem to full into the net. May have to examine more.