Picking opponents and equipment upgrade/change requirement???

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Hey all,

How are you doing during this COVID crisis? hope you are staying safe but still enjoy table tennis from wherever you are.

Well, i can't stop playing table tennis, but i have many bad situations in my life that prevents me to play it very regularly, but i try my best to keep going in it as much as i can.

Recently or let's say this year, i started to play with only two players or friends i know them as i know their styles and they are not strong, but they just play for fun and i do, and i just like to keep playing with them only and not thinking about trying stringer/better opponents or to get a membership in a club where i can play with more players of all levels if possible, so is that a good idea or i have to change? My point is to play for fun, not to play for championship or tournaments or playing for "I will only play to win or get my level so high", i am 40 now and i really don't have time for taking training with coaches or to pay them a lot only to know if i will keep playing it or not, i have another hobby or passion that i try to save money for, so in that case i will not think about playing stronger trained players because i know i won't have any chance against them, what the point to play regularly if possible against higher level opponents without training as well?!!!

For the same reason above, is it really necessary to change or upgrade the equipment [i mean racket overall] just to match lesser opponents or only to have fun trying different equipment? Already have two rackets that i consider them as my top best and favorite so far, only i have to think about having a replacement rubbers for backhand on both, because both have almost hard rubbers, means my skill is weak to control it,losing more points than gaining points, not a good way, even with those weaker opponents i feel like they deceive me by giving me so easy ball to attack with my forehand, and i end up to kill them with my softer rubber or defensive racket, i don't know if not playing against skilled ones means it is no point to try different rubbers when i am still dominating and winning over them.
 
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Tareq,

Thanks for posting and glad to see you still around.

What you are asking is an age-old question that the "answer" (as if there is any single amswer that is right) depends on your objectives and what is in hte "Appropriate" zone for what one is trying to do.

Developing offensive players "Middle Zone" of "Appropriateness" is always debated hotly among effective coaches, but the same process is followed by most. Define appropriate and purchase something near the middle of that zone.

For weak players, it really doesn't matter as the timing, perception of impact zone, footwork, grip, feel, swing mechanics and tactics just to name a quick top 5 list are not in order, thus it really doesn't matter. Just get something those people like and play.

For developing offensive player, something that is blade more all wood and allround oriented and modern control oriented rubbers are the middle zone.

More developed offensive players at a more mature stage may have their middle zone more developed to include more dynamic rubbers and a specific sponge hardness for their kind of impact... plus a blade that is faster and more specific towards the kinds of shots they make given their impact and position to table and what they are trying to do.

My guess is, for you and your friends, for right now, get what you like and enjoy it if you are not traininng to be the prototypical offensive juggernaut.
 
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Tareq,

Thanks for posting and glad to see you still around.

What you are asking is an age-old question that the "answer" (as if there is any single amswer that is right) depends on your objectives and what is in hte "Appropriate" zone for what one is trying to do.

Developing offensive players "Middle Zone" of "Appropriateness" is always debated hotly among effective coaches, but the same process is followed by most. Define appropriate and purchase something near the middle of that zone.

For weak players, it really doesn't matter as the timing, perception of impact zone, footwork, grip, feel, swing mechanics and tactics just to name a quick top 5 list are not in order, thus it really doesn't matter. Just get something those people like and play.

For developing offensive player, something that is blade more all wood and allround oriented and modern control oriented rubbers are the middle zone.

More developed offensive players at a more mature stage may have their middle zone more developed to include more dynamic rubbers and a specific sponge hardness for their kind of impact... plus a blade that is faster and more specific towards the kinds of shots they make given their impact and position to table and what they are trying to do.

My guess is, for you and your friends, for right now, get what you like and enjoy it if you are not traininng to be the prototypical offensive juggernaut.

Thank you very much, Der_Echte!

Until now and still i don't know what is your real name, but doesn't mater if others know and i don't.

Well, i am still not deciding if i will join and get the membership in a club/academy locally or not, i did have membership before in another club similar anyway and i wasn't happy there, this one the coach told me it will be more friendly, but i feel like none of both clubs/academies are trying to be friendly for beginners, they try to push all players to be high levels so then beginners are less and less playing, and i drive so far to play, so it seems for me i am avoiding to go there as i won't enjoy at all for long term, even if i take a one year membership which i did in the past i will end up to play almost 4-6 months only and not at best too.

I have 2 types of rackets now, something very fast, and something very slow or more defensive and no BH attack, so i am trying to get into that "Zone" where i feel i can have control in all styles, offensive or defensive, and i am access to my backhand, because sounds i always go to my defensive blade and pimples is to avoid spin serves by some or just to transfer damage and confusion to my opponent, but when i started to go to defensive style i lost my dominance in offensive, my attack became less effective until just recently i got it almost back, but i still think that i am not yet controlling balls as it should be, i remember last year i lost badly to choppers and very spin serves players, offensive players are just fine but they are more consistent that is why they won more as i lost my attack touch, but i am getting them back just not yet good at receiving spin serves with inverted rubbers yet, i have one softer that make it less damage, but the racket is all round mainly, and it is amazing against those weaker players.

Bottom line is, as long i play with those less levels players i will always be in top and i can attack comfortably and effectiveness but that may turn me into a weak player too, i will try if i can find another player who is in same of my level so i can have kind of competition somehow, i had one before who i train with but he went back to his country [Philippines], now i feel like i only play rare or occasionally with my friends who aren't high level, they are not bad and we all enjoy, but is that what i should keep doing really and stop suffering by driving far and lose badly because off mood and not comfortable in the clubs?!!! who knows
 
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I have two DHS blades, one is Hao III and the other is Long 5X, both are amazing, i have T05 on FH and Victas 01 stiff as someone offensive recommended to me on my HaoIII, while for L5x i have T80 on both, old rubbers i didn't use/open for nearly 3 years, i feel like i lost my control for BH with both, FH became fast and dangerous with me, so it is like i have just to depend on FH mostly, before i was using T05-FX on my Hao III and it was like perfect, but both rubbers died so i replaced them, kept T05 on FH same but changed to Victas as recommended, nice rubber no doubt but it is hard and fast, i can attack if it is high or easy balls, but lower and/or spin i can't.

Someone told me to try Dignics, something telling me that they think i want only to go so fast, faster, maybe with Long 5X yes, but not with my Hao III which was my top favorite racket and not it became like a backup but still can use it for play, i feel that either i change the rubber or i buy again third DHS racket maybe Long 5 [not X] and try to have softer rubber on BH and normal rubber on FH which is T05 itself, it is my best rubber for FH, that Filipino friend told me to try Hurricane rubber for FH on DSH as they are matching, one big coach warned me against it saying he knows better, so FH isn't the issue here, it is BH simply, i may try play longer with those hard rubbers on BH, but if i can think about changing them or having new racket with softer less spin sensitive then i may get my game in control more again.
 
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For rubbers, use what you wan't, but unless you have BANG impact, you will NEVER get even HALF the offensive capabilities out of a hard rubber. Still, since many hard sponged rubbers have a relatively linear performance on low to medium impacts, the blocking, passing shots, and hitting would feel easy. So a hard rubber overall could be used if a player mostly blocks, pick hits, or uses less forceful shots as those are very stable and predictable with hard sponged rubbers for those shots in general. One has to know what they do for most situations to determine what to use and there is no single correct answer to it all.

For the spin shots, especially where you need to use topsheet and or sponge, a modern dynamic softer spnged rubber with a softer or thinner topsheet, such a rubber masks that task easier.

T05 is a classic example of a soft sponged modern dynamic rubber that makes it easy to spin the ball.

If I had the setup in your signature, I would be using T05FX on FH. I achieved my highest ever rating with a new sheet of T05FX on FH in the 2019 LA Open.

People can say what they want about me for choosing such a SOFTIE rubber for FH and think I cannot pound the ball... well those jokers can get on the table, give me some long underspin balls and watch me give them McDonalds QUARTER POUNDERS to eat. Sure, powerlooping with 05FX has a little less top end speed, but for me, that just lets me pound it even harder and still land it with extreme spin and more safety. That is why overall, I play better with a softer sponged modern dynamic offensive rubber for how I impact the ball.

On BH wing, it really doesn't matter, my range of impact and how I impact the ball, I can use pretty much any rubber inverted offensive rubber I choose there... but ultimately, I notice my landing percentage is a little higher with the softer spnged rubbers... I generally play close to table when I am hitting BH shots... and at that range, good placement and enough pace with overwhelming spin will do it... and it will do it all day long like money in the bank if I have a high landing percentage.
 
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For rubbers, use what you wan't, but unless you have BANG impact, you will NEVER get even HALF the offensive capabilities out of a hard rubber. Still, since many hard sponged rubbers have a relatively linear performance on low to medium impacts, the blocking, passing shots, and hitting would feel easy. So a hard rubber overall could be used if a player mostly blocks, pick hits, or uses less forceful shots as those are very stable and predictable with hard sponged rubbers for those shots in general. One has to know what they do for most situations to determine what to use and there is no single correct answer to it all.

For the spin shots, especially where you need to use topsheet and or sponge, a modern dynamic softer spnged rubber with a softer or thinner topsheet, such a rubber masks that task easier.

T05 is a classic example of a soft sponged modern dynamic rubber that makes it easy to spin the ball.

If I had the setup in your signature, I would be using T05FX on FH. I achieved my highest ever rating with a new sheet of T05FX on FH in the 2019 LA Open.

People can say what they want about me for choosing such a SOFTIE rubber for FH and think I cannot pound the ball... well those jokers can get on the table, give me some long underspin balls and watch me give them McDonalds QUARTER POUNDERS to eat. Sure, powerlooping with 05FX has a little less top end speed, but for me, that just lets me pound it even harder and still land it with extreme spin and more safety. That is why overall, I play better with a softer sponged modern dynamic offensive rubber for how I impact the ball.

On BH wing, it really doesn't matter, my range of impact and how I impact the ball, I can use pretty much any rubber inverted offensive rubber I choose there... but ultimately, I notice my landing percentage is a little higher with the softer spnged rubbers... I generally play close to table when I am hitting BH shots... and at that range, good placement and enough pace with overwhelming spin will do it... and it will do it all day long like money in the bank if I have a high landing percentage.

Your playing style is different, i am very sure that you are either trained well for that, or you played for very long time to be adjusted to styles, so it is like a nature for you, i am trying to play with my experience as well, but as you said, my higher percent winner shots in BH are from softer sponge rubbers or even softer rubbers in general, and that is why when i go defensive using pimples i can easily return with m backhand, i just can't attack with my BH anymore because it is a long pimple, and i better not try to keep attacking with pimple and losing so many points instead, my friend told me to twiddle, but i am slow reaction in that, and to my safety even against those weak players i keep my BH with pimple mode all the time.

I think net time i play with my friends, i will try to use more of that harder rubbers, hopefully to get used to it more, i am in love with my T05 on FH so i don't need to change that, i was happy with T05F on BH but i don't know why didn't i use the same again, i just listened to a skilled offensive player to use harder heavy rubber on my BH without watching my playing level really, he tested it and loved it, so it suits him more than me, and that was not very long time ago, and thus i have to keep using it more then, otherwise i have either to change it again or just buy another racket same/similar and put softer rubber on BH side.

One friend who i play with which is less level than me was able to almost defeat me using my Hao blade and i used my new blade of Long 5, but once i return back to my defensive blade then she is unable to get a game from me no matter what racket she is using, and i am very very surprised she adapted to my Hao blade even with that hard rubber on BH, she is more likely a flat returner, flat hitting, she is attacking flat or chopping, no variety which i use to my advantage, but i have more control with Hao than my newest of Long, maybe i will let her try my Long blade and i use my Hao to see.

And last, the surprise is, recently since i think 4-5 months ago, i played with my other racket which is Primorac EX having average hard rubber on FH and softer rubber in BH, i get much better BH attack and control with it, the blade has a lot of feeling, but it is never close to control or speed of DHS blades i have, so i use it like for fun sometimes when i go all round mode.
 
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To me, this sounds mostly like you just need to train the BH so it improves. But I am not sure why you have questions about rubbers for BH. T05fx is a fine rubber for BH. If that rubber worked for you on BH then why not use it and then train your BH to improve.

I am not sure you need any more info than that.

==

I decided I wanted to add more information anyway. ZJK definitely used T05fx for a while. You actually also might like T64 on BH which is faster and maybe a little less spin sensitive.

If you want to play with pips on BH then do it and forget about attacking with BH. But if you want to attack on BH and don't feel comfortable learning to twiddle for attacks, then you should just stick to smooth on BH and not mess around.

Using the pips will give you response habits for pips on your BH which will interfere with the development of offensive skills. Training the act of twiddling can be done.

One way or another, you sort of have to choose how you want to play. It sounds like your FH is just natural and you did not have to train for it. There is something nice about that. But there is something unfortunate about that. It causes you to think you don't have to train for BH. Or it causes you to not know how to train to improve your BH.

Whether you choose Pips or smooth makes no difference to me. It is your choice. If you choose pips with no attempt to learn how to twiddle, that will take no work, but it will limit the offensive potential of your BH. If you choose pips and focus on learning how to twiddle, then you also need to work on your offensive BH skills.

Or, you can choose smooth rubbers and then you focus on learning and improving your BH. If you BH has trouble with returning serves, with handling heavy spin, with creating heavy spin, those are all related and training to attack heavy backspin will help you overcome all those troubles. Learning to read different sidespins will come with practice and training.

But having a BH that can spin through spin would take TRAINING. It would just magically happen. But with the right training exercises, that is really not so hard to improve. That you have trouble with those things with BH simply means you need to train to improve your BH.

The biggest key is, if you are receiving heavy, deceptive spin, you need to have good racket speed and tangential contact to put your own spin on the ball. The ability to read the spin so you can contact where the spin is weakest on the ball would help. But if you have quick acceleration and good brush contact (tangential) and can control the depth of contact, you should be able to contact where the spin is strongest and loop any heavy spin serve.

If your racket meets the ball flat, and/or, if your racket is just put out there, the way you could do with LP, that will stop you from learning what to do vs incoming spin while using smooth rubbers. What works with LP against incoming spin will not work with smooth rubber.

So, the LP could stop you from learning how to respond with smooth rubbers if you develop the habits from the LP and cannot apply the correct actions for smooth when using smooth.

So, you may have to choose. And once you learn BH with smooth, then going to LP and learning to twiddle so you can do both will be much easier. Which is why the general recommendation is that you should not use LP until you have Mastered all the basic strokes with smooth and are at a decently high level already.
 
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says Spin and more spin.
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A last detail. There are people who choose pips for the right reasons: because they simply enjoy playing the style that pips allows them to play.

But there are sometimes people who choose pips for what I might consider the wrong reasons. They are people who would rather win as a result of causing an opponent to mess up because the opponent doesn't know how to respond to the pips and/or don't know what the pips do.

That second category of person, when they face a player who knows how to play vs pips will be in trouble. Because the things that will give him/her easy points against people who don't know how to play against pips, will cause them to lose points against a player who understands how to play against pips.

So, from that standpoint: do you want to win points because your opponent messes up and just does not know how to handle pips? Or would you rather have the skill to win points because of your own good play?

With learning to play offensively with BH and then learning to twiddle with pips so you can play all shots, you would start to be the person who has skill with pips. But if you are just using the pips to put the ball back and let your opponents make simple mistakes, then I am not so sure if there is much skill or merit in that.
 
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Carl,

Thanks a lot for that long posts.

Well, the game is game, whether it is by own skill or by others mistakes, imagine if all Chinese have same skills and none of them do mistakes then no one will win, but most likely the one with less mistakes win over those who has better skills anyway.

Saying that i doesn't mean that my play style is only about defensive and waiting opponents mistakes, but if they did then that is bonus, i just don't wait their mistakes always, i rather prefer to attack, and i have FH attack too, so, if i can't attack with both FH and BH then i attack with one, FH, my friend told me to try for fun and switch, means putting pips for FH so i can have access to attack with BH, i didn't think about it really, but it could be done or i can try.

Another thing is, who said i don't want T05FX? I just had it for years but rubbers went dead, and i thought maybe i can try something else different than that rubber, also Tenergy rubbers are epensive, so i didn't want to have all my rackets with Tenergy and spend more, i even was thinking about changing FH from T05 to DHS Hurricane rubber, but maybe that also will make troubles for me, in all cases i used old rubbers i kept which are T80 on my new blade, not bad, but really i have to train more with BH, they are so fast to my BH, i mean for drive and chop and return, but for attack and loop they are just perfect, it was much easier for me with T05FX to have almost full control, that is all, and with my other racket of Hao i just listened to a guy who recommended me Victas because he is using one, but he is trained and i am not, it became very fast, and yesterday i played with my friend opponent and i gave her my Hao blade to play for entire games we played, we played with old system of points, 21, we played for 2 hours like i think 16-18 games i can't remember, i lost to her like 4-5 games, i changed rackets during those games, changed 3 times, and every change i lost only one game to her, so she didn't know how to use my racket perfectly but she did play with my racket so so much better than her normal one, that means her style is suiting the blade for just attack, while for other things i felt like i always have a control, i mean i can easily defeat her if she played with her own racket, but giving her my rackets it became like she is playing different, i am happy my rackets made the difference to her, but there is one thing, i always dominate easily and control the game easier with my defensive racket over my offensive racket, and i have all round racket which making my play more open and fun, but that one i feel like it is a waste, it doesn't improve anything more than just having fun, not great for attack and not best for defensive, they call it all round and i never consider it as my favorite blade anyway.

Bottom line is, as long i don't change the rubber on my BH side for my DHS rackets and i don't train then i won't benefit, but if i keep using them to pass time until the time for them to die and replace then i can do that and see if i can return back to softer rubbers again later, but i can try to train with them, but that is not training, it is called having fun with friends so it won't be training, the only training will be if i can prepare a place and my robot and having a collecting net then i can really train on my BH with those hard rubbers for a while, and when i asked here in the thread i just wanted to see more options only, if you said only T05FX then that's it, but i don't think all people in the world playing with this rubber only on their BH, and i saw many non trained players don't have any Tenergy rubbers, so, there is either options i didn't test or heard about or someone just doesn't want to tell me, few coaches suggested me to try Stiga Calibra sounds, i got enough positive reviews or feedback from them about it, so later when i have the time to decide i hope i can have some options rather than only one which means there is no options or choices or to decide what.

Thanks again.
 
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says Spin and more spin.
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You might like:

AndroRasanter R48
Tibhar Evolution FXP
Tibhar Evolution FXS
Donic Baracuda
Tibhar Aurus Soft or Sound
Joola Dynaryz ACC
Gewo Nexxus EL Pro 43 or 38
Gewo Flexxon FX or Soft
Nittaku FastArc C-1

Any of those should work. Have fun. :)
 
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You might like:

AndroRasanter R48
Tibhar Evolution FXP
Tibhar Evolution FXS
Donic Baracuda
Tibhar Aurus Soft or Sound
Joola Dynaryz ACC
Gewo Nexxus EL Pro 43 or 38
Gewo Flexxon FX or Soft
Nittaku FastArc C-1

Any of those should work. Have fun. :)

Ok, i will read more about those and see or compare to T05FX, then i will pick something, i still have long time for that.

Thank you
 
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