Pros and cons of larger blade head size?

Lower weight so less punch but more agile, smaller sweet spot.

Larger means more safety=margin for error as you simply have "more racket", especially when you topspin or chop = when you open or close the rackethead. So theoretically it is great, but:

Larger means heavier, especially with heavy modern rubbers.
Heavier means more power if you can accelerate the racket quickly enough.

But:
If you cannot, it means more edge balls or complete misses = you play more carefully as not to miss too much = you play to passive.

To sum up, if you can handle the weight, I would go for larger head sizes. The Chinese racket often have a head length of 161 mm, as do the Donic Waldner blades with the same shape as Waldner used.

I found it awkward to do the reverse pendulum serve with a larger blade. The reason: to make this serve, one has to extend the elbow very far to the side, which is quite awkward. But with a larger blade you'd need to extend it even more so it becomes uncomfortable. It is funny how just a few millimeters in the blade's head dimensions make it appear to be large and create this feeling. To the point that it is almost like a cognitive illusion. Anyway, this is basically the only reason why I ditched Tibhar Stratus Powerwood.

Ilia Minkin said:

I found it awkward to do the reverse pendulum serve with a larger blade. The reason: to make this serve, one has to extend the elbow very far to the side, which is quite awkward. But with a larger blade you'd need to extend it even more so it becomes uncomfortable. It is funny how just a few millimeters in the blade's head dimensions make it appear to be large and create this feeling. To the point that it is almost like a cognitive illusion. Anyway, this is basically the only reason why I ditched Tibhar Stratus Powerwood.

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Not sure it's related, but you'd almost never see defenders using reverse pendulum serve (am I wrong?). I guess it does not fit into their tactics...

pgpg said:

Not sure it's related, but you'd almost never see defenders using reverse pendulum serve (am I wrong?). I guess it does not fit into their tactics...

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Joo Sae-hyuk has the pendulum reverse serve, but I don't know any others. So it may be related indeed

Well, apart from some obvious reasons mentioned above ( weight, sweetspot etc)

Regarding the actual performance, I can explain a bit:

As Milan Nemec mentioned before, some DHS rackets has large heard size.

The older generation of Ma Long 3 has 161 head size, while the new version has 158 head size.

The W968 for national team has 161 head size while the letter W968 for provincial team has 158 size.

The main feeling between head size are:

Large head size version: especially good on forehand. More powerful stroke on forehand. Because the blade is less stiff for large head size, player will be able to longer contact, thus more power will be made to the ball.
But, when you hit, or block or when you try to use the speed of the ball from the other opponent rather than putting you own power in, the return of the ball will be slower, as the blade is less stiff.

Smaller head size version: The blade is stiffer. The power ceiling will be a bit lower than then large head size version. But backhand will normally be batter. Because most of the player put less power on BH than FH.

That's why for Chinese national player, they use large head size version of W968. As they want more powerful FH stroke, and at the same time, they also good BH loop. So the cons of large head size wouldn't be that obvious. And national players has strong power to handle the blade without compromising swaying speed。

But for provincial team players or amateur, they tend to use smaller head size version as normal block / hit will be faster. And with smaller head size, you have higher swaying speed if your arm is not strong enough.


By the way, the head size effect is also explained by Butterfly recently, when they released the Yoshimura Maharu limited edition. That blade is custom by Yoshimura, which is a inner zlc with a larger head size (158x152). Butterfly said that Yoshimura asked to enlarge headsize to increase ball dwell time.

Don't do it. Keep the head size how it is. If you want a different head size, get an OSP Virtuoso Plus with a 150x157mm head size.

The larger head size gives more feeling, more flex and more speed and more spin. Yep. All of it at once. Making the head size smaller, even if you could do it perfectly, would make the blade feel nowhere near as good. Part of why that blade has such good feeling is the head size and shape. Leave it how it is. If you want something different, get something different.

The downside of the head size is more rubber so, a little more head heavy. Once you are used to the blade, you shouldn't notice that.

For reverse pendulum, if you are holding far enough towards the edge of the blade, the size of a Korbel blade face should not get in your way. If you are not sure what I mean, look for how Timo Boll or ZJK hold the racket for their reverse serve. They are totally off the handle at the edge of the blade. That hand position gives you wrist mobility for that serve. It takes a few tries to get used to re-grabbing the handle when you are holding so far away. But you get used to it and stop realizing it was ever an issue.

Here: Look closely at the grip and how these guys are holding:

For reverse pendulum, if you are holding far enough towards the edge of the blade, the size of a Korbel blade face should not get in your way.

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The blade does not get into the way. It is just this weird feeling that I get when looking at the blade, it seems too big and just this feeling makes the serving motion awkward. As strange as it sounds, it just happens this way. I said, it is probably an illusion in my head. After all, a few more mms should not be a deal. But it doesn't happen with Intensity or Ebenholz that I have.

too used to Defence Alpha, so,

Anything smaller than 17 cm * 16 cm is mini blade for me. [emoji14]

and, for those who afraid that the equipment would be too heavy,

Your wife or cook holding almost 3 kg of frying pan and ingredients inside, one handed.

Sent from my I7D using Tapatalk

Virtuoso Off- is closer in speed to Primorac Off-. V+ is more in line with Korbel in terms of speed. They don't play like each other. But they are similar in speed class.

As far as head size for the Virtuoso blades, I would say it is a personal choice.

I say go for it! Free upgrade.

Hadraw VK = smaller-head Korbel