Equipment of the players in the 2019 Men's World Cup

What does tell you it is a carbon blade? I can't see any pointers to wether handle has been replaced nor I can't any indicator it is a carbon blade :| I may be blind though :(

Your not blind, it doesn't show up on the pictures in this thread, but closeups have shown up enough, that we can at least be pretty sure it's a carbon blade of some sort (though people seem to be pretty sure it's a viscaria or viscaria clone underneath).

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/fo...ty-Viscaria-2019-(blue-Arylate-layer-spotted)
 
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Pretty sure you are not allowed to "switch" the rubbers, due to the fact that rubbers must be approved by ITTF; hence why LARC exists

Yes but according to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTCbpWmPzTY, rubbers are only checked wether they are listed on LARC (apart from physical properties test). Is there a check wether the rubber exhibit properties same as were shown in ITTF test? If no, who would notice if you are using different rubber than the rubber says it is...
 
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[...]If no, who would notice if you are using different rubber than the rubber says it is...

I believe you underestimate some people, there's definitely people that notice these things. It's way easier to see what kind of top sheet there is on a rubber, if it says TO5 and is very tacky; something is definitely wrong. I don't see why players would take the risk of "swapping" rubbers, and they don't really win on it due to the fact that it's against the rules
 
I believe you underestimate some people, there's definitely people that notice these things. It's way easier to see what kind of top sheet there is on a rubber, if it says TO5 and is very tacky; something is definitely wrong. I don't see why players would take the risk of "swapping" rubbers, and they don't really win on it due to the fact that it's against the rules


Thus I noted in the original post, that they don't seem to put a lot of effort into having convincing fakes.

If they cared, FZD could pretend to have at least a carbon blade from Stiga, rather than an Infinity VPS, which anyone paying attention would quickly realise he's clearly not using. The actual branding on their equipment seems to be a mere handwave targeted towards the undiscerning observer (which are probably the overwhelming majority of the market over actual EJs).

The convention seems to be, you need to do enough that you appear to be using equipment from your sponsors (at least for a high profile player like FZD), that only has to stand up to the most cursory inspection. Neither their sponsors, nor the manufacturers of the equipment they actually use seem to make much of a fuss about this very casual attitude towards branding to meet sponsorship requirements.
 
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