LGL playing sandpaper tt

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Would it be a handicap for Liu if he plays sandpaper and then using penhold?

IMHO I would say yes, because one of the big advantages of penhold is the amount of spin that can be generated by wrist usage, especially on serve/receive and short game. And this advantage will be strongly diminished with hardbat/sandpaper.
 
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So I plan on doing this to Liu Guoliang as well, and this morning I had a session with Andro Classic both sides, on a Tibhar IV-L Light (not mine).

It's a whole different game, and you have to rethink your stroke patterns from scratch (there's a group of aficionados at the club I train with, and several told me it has impacted their game with "regular" equipment quite a bit). But apart from that, it's great. Rallies were tipically long to very long, and the game depended a lot on placement. 'Takes you back to school days, too.

On backhand I had to resort to a "pulling up my hand from a shirt-sleeve" stroke somewhat, with a fairly vertical forearm and sort of pulling upwards when I couldn't hit head-on, in a more classical way (of course, you can also chop). If you really feel like it, you can add a lot of wrist and get a minor kick off the bounce, but it is just for the show. Whacks are where it's at. "Loops" are also possible and my opponent was pretty good at that on forehand, but on that wing I'm still not set. The pips obviously have very little grip and even that still comes a bit irregularly for me, but it is mostly the lack of sponge which is so disturbing at first. Here, I am talking mostly about mid- and long-distance play, as it is a very different affair close to the net. The kick is there if you can find it (strictly coming from the blade of course), but you have to become a master of sweetspot as the margin with bat angles is super thin, at least coming from one hour playing with Rakzas. Thinking of which, it is probably good training for touch, unless you go overboard and mess up your normal play entirely.

I progressively switched to a lot of defending from both wings (better have your legs on when you do that, as angles and placements can be very wide for the opponent, not to mention the dead-easy dropshots), and it is fantastic for playing chop-blocks on both wings. I loved it so much, I am seriously considering either short pips with sponge (type Waran or Moristo) or going half-way (please don't laugh) with a Spinlord Marder or something, on backhand (I know there'd be very different results, I am talking more in terms of incorporating more variation in the game), with something even a little more aggressive than Rakza 7 on forehand to compensate. Not sure yet about the over-sized blade and bandana.

But back to hardbat: my clubmate told me there is a national championship which will be hosted in Strasbourg in around April, in case any fellow Eastern-Frenchmen or West Germans feel like shaping up by then!
 
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