the conundrum of buying equipment as a new player

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So my friend and I have been playing for about 6 months now having not played since childhood, we fell in love with the game, started watching youtube videos, learning technique, playing 3x weekly, the works. We even hired a coach to help us get better and he tells our prefabricated racquets are junk, we should get blades and rubber like he's got. We tried his set up and there's no doubt. Problem is, the choice today is just overwhelming and competing views make it even more frustrating. Furthermore, our coach's set up is about 15 years old and he hasn't really been following the industry trends, doesn't even speak English. He's got some Tenergy rubbers but doesn't even know which ones exactly.

I did some research and basically came up with all-wood, 5-ply such as Petr Korbel and Tenergy 05 2.1mm for myself, more of a defensive than an attacking player at this stage. Might not be the best possible choice or best bang for buck but seems like a reasonably safe one. To arrive at this conclusion, however, took me quite a bit of time and effort and I can only imagine how it would feel for someone who doesn't have the time or doesn't speak English. Shops these days, it's all online and even if they do offer advice, it's always going to be biased for obvious reasons.

The permutations are just endless and often confusing. What kind of blade to choose, for starters, if all-wood, what kind of wood, 5 or 7-ply. what kind of handle, then which rubber for which particular blade, there's enough Butterfly rubbers alone to make a new player ridden with anxiety, then there's the thickness, the glue, I mean c'mon, is it really not possible to come up with a chart with choices based on player type and budget for brands commonly sold in the West, no need to include the exotic stuff. Wouldn't that help more people get the kind of equipment best suited for improving their game and prevent them from making really bad purchasing decisions, or making no decision at all?
 
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Your choice seems well thought out, and should be fine. Stop thinking about gear and play on.
 
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Well. How many types of brown bread and white bread do you see in a supermarket?
There is a similar post like yours a couple of days ago, you can scroll to find it. It’s got more conversation.
Just stick with your Korbel Ten05 2.1. If you keep looking around you may or may not find something slightly better. But if you train with quality, 1 month of training already outpaces the gain (if there would be).

Think about trying multi-seeded loaf from different brands! Of course you will always taste the difference.
 
says toooooo much choice!!
says toooooo much choice!!
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Yes, there’s too much choice !!

any videos of you playing? Hard to advise without seeing how you play!!

personally I wouldn’t advise T05 if you are only starting out.
They are good rubbers, very popular and a ‘go to’ rubber for many, usually more technically sound experienced players. If you are at that sort of level, then it would be fine. If you want to use T05, then as the others have said go with it. But maybe with 1.9mm sponge.
To start with, a controlled forgiving rubber is decent choice, these are available with reasonable spin and speed capabilities. If you like BTY brand Rozena or Roundell could be a better starting point. You can always upgrade later.
All wood, All, All+,Off- blades are well suited to all types of players, especially those starting the sport.
 
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Have you already bought the Korbel and the T05s or are you planning? If you already bought it, I think it will be fine! But if you didn’t buy it yet, I would advise you to get something slower. I play the Korbel with T05 and it’s a wonderful combination, I’d recommend to any intermediate player. But it’s a huge step up from a prefabricated racquet. Only 10 years ago many of the top players in the world played with that combination. An allround blade is the perfect choise when coming from an prefabricated racquet.
 
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says Spin and more spin.
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Yeah. It can be confusing. The good news is, it sounds like you did really well.

Greg Letts used to have some great info up about it on About.com which I think turned to LiveAbout.com.

His old articles, like this:

https://www.liveabout.com/your-first-ping-pong-paddle-3173501

All the info is out of date. But rackets that were good 10-20 years ago, are still good today. So, a Korbel, like your coach has and any version of Tenergy would be a good setup but the rubbers are sort of best for a fairly advanced player.

Still, a Korbel with T05fx on both sides would be really nice. And the FX makes the Tenergy forgiving enough that, a player not so advanced could be fine using it.

When you say you are a defensive player, do you mean you chop and push rather than attacking, or that you take more high percentage shots that keep you in rallies rather than going on the offensive? If so, that might be more of an Allround type player. And if so, that is good setup for an Allround type of player.
 
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Hi leito, I've started my TT journey in a club just like you: after playing casually with friends, at home or school. 3 times a week also. I had some decent strokes but I've been warned to use an ALL paddle and rubbers first. The main goal was to get used to spin: what you can generate, what you receive and can control.

So I started with chinese kind of rubbers and an ALL+ all wood blade 5 ply. Tibhar IVS, Tibhar Dang 2.0 FH, Banco (french brand) China Spin (with a blue sponge !!! ;)) 1.5 on BH.

Chinese rubbers got hard sponge, are very spinny/tacky, but are also very full of control. In fact, it has to be you to generate the power, so to me it was the perfect starting point to learn how to get really powerfull strokes, loops, services, pushes, and so on. I was also playing local team competitions.

I've kept that paddle for a complete season before switching, say 1 year or so.

Then I moved to university, and there I had a pro coach playing in national league. 2 really hard training sessions/week + 1 at my club + university team competition + club's team competition. I was playing sometimes 20h/week ! It's only at that time that I switched to more advanced attacking style equipment: Mark V 2.0, Stiga Clipper, then at the end of that year/season the University coach told me to even try speed glue. (yes it was in '91/'92, quite old).

With the speed glue I stept back a bit for a less stiffer and more of a controling OFF- blade (Stiga Clipper at that era was rated OFF ++), not more than 2.0 rubbers.

I still play that kind of blade 30 years later, I've tried tensor max sponge rubbers: even with P ball it's really difficult for me so I'm downsizing to 2.0 rubbers again with more control to meet again that feelin I had in the early 90's.

To me IB66 seems right: don't use tensor or BTY high tension rubbers too early in your journey, you'll get bad habits. Work on your strokes first, your footwork, it has to be YOU to decide what YOU will generate with your equipment, not the equipment.

So yeah ALL+ blade, Rozena or Roundell if you want to keep on Butterfly rubbers, 1.9mm not more ! even 1.5 on the BH side may be enough. For the blade the Korbel is way too much fast for now, if you want to keep buying a Butterfly one: Boll Allround, it's rated ALL+, perfect start to me.

If you wanna try chinese kind of rubbers with harder sponge, I'd suggest Friendship 729: it's cheap, so you can buy 1.5, 1.8, 2.0 rubbers for each side of your paddle, then you'll be able to choose the right sponge thickness that suits your sensations.
 
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Have you already bought the Korbel and the T05s or are you planning? If you already bought it, I think it will be fine! But if you didn’t buy it yet, I would advise you to get something slower. I play the Korbel with T05 and it’s a wonderful combination, I’d recommend to any intermediate player. But it’s a huge step up from a prefabricated racquet. Only 10 years ago many of the top players in the world played with that combination. An allround blade is the perfect choise when coming from an prefabricated racquet.

No, I haven't, that's just what I kinda narrowed it down to before coming here to vent. What would you suggest? And is rubber even that important relative to the blade, there's a Vietnamese Chinese-trained TT player on youtube who claims the blade is 80% and should be paid much more attention than rubber.

Thank you everyone for your kind responses. I don't have any footage of myself playing, seems a bit pretentious given my skill level. I realized something from your comments, though, new players will often play in a TT club or other such setting where there'll be plenty of people around with a better understanding of the game and more experience buying equipment so with the mentoring there's probably no need for additional info. Where I'm from TT isn't really popular, I don't know a single player beside my friend and we play in a gym that happens to have a couple of TT tables and they're hardly fully booked and even if someone does come to play, they just rent the racquets.
 
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I agree with all of the above commenters and just wanted to add my voice to what's been suggested.

When I moved up from a prefabricated blade, I started with a Korbel and Butterfly Sriver/Sriver EL. I bought 1 sheet of Tenergy 05 right when it came on the market and noticed a big step up in spin and reactivity. At first, it seemed to instantly boost my rating, but it became more apparent over time that it was inhibiting my development. In short, it gave me pretty decent shots with mediocre technique but never really encouraged me to develop proper strokes. Against better players, I couldn't really control my shots because the rubber is so reactive to spin.

If I had to choose a blade and rubber today, I think the Korbel would be a VERY solid choice. I'd opt for a much less expensive "tensor" rubber, such as Xiom Vega Pro, Yasaka Rakza 7, or even Nittaku Fastarc G-1. As the other commenters suggested, whatever you get will be fine - just stick with whatever you buy and keep training.
 
says toooooo much choice!!
says toooooo much choice!!
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No, I haven't, that's just what I kinda narrowed it down to before coming here to vent. What would you suggest? And is rubber even that important relative to the blade, there's a Vietnamese Chinese-trained TT player on youtube who claims the blade is 80% and should be paid much more attention than rubber.

Thank you everyone for your kind responses. I don't have any footage of myself playing, seems a bit pretentious given my skill level. I realized something from your comments, though, new players will often play in a TT club or other such setting where there'll be plenty of people around with a better understanding of the game and more experience buying equipment so with the mentoring there's probably no need for additional info. Where I'm from TT isn't really popular, I don't know a single player beside my friend and we play in a gym that happens to have a couple of TT tables and they're hardly fully booked and even if someone does come to play, they just rent the racquets.

The blade is important, so do pay attention to what kind of blade you choose. It transfers the vibrations from each shot you play to your hand.
These vibrations are also transferred to your index finger ( if you use shake hand grip) by the rubber.
The blade is the direct extension of your arm/hand, so try some different handle types, straight, flared etc and settle on a shape that feels comfortable.
Once you reach higher ability levels the blade can then be considered for your style of play, but to start with, go for the middle ground, All wood, All,All+
Choose a blade that gives good feeling.
Similar with the rubbers, average speed, not fast, average+ spin, high control, softer sponge, not max thickness.
My kids use a Tibhar balsa IVL blade, but this is a very light blade, you may prefer something with a little more weight. Other blades include BTF Boll Allround (all), Stiga Allround Classic (all) BTY Grubba (all+), Stiga Allround Evolution (all+) and many more!! Which is the conundrum!!
The rubbers on the kids bats are Tibhar Aurus Sound. But the others mentioned previously are great as well.

More importantly, see if you can find a club to play and train at, continuing with the coaching is a must !!

For now just upgrade to an all wood, all/all+ blade, choose some reasonable quality rubbers and PLAY!!! ;);)
 
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For now just upgrade to an all wood, all/all+ blade, choose some reasonable quality rubbers and PLAY!!! ;);)

This would be my recommendation as well. Allround or allround plus blade with soft or medium (avoid the really hard ones) modern tensor rubbers. Any of the rubbers that Nate4s recommended will be great. T05 will be more difficult to adapt to, but I think it will be manageable.
 
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Happy new year to everyone!

I agree that it is incredibly difficult for a new player to pick equipment. Most of my club mates have been playing for many years and have well established strokes. They know the difference between different rubbers but for a new and developing player with good and bad shots it is difficult to understand the effect of varied rubbers.

I changed my equipment as my skills improved but the idea that you should try many rubbers before buying is difficult. I tried different players bats but a quick game or two would not be long enough. Changing rubbers probably improved my game but of course you can't go back to your original set up to compare.

I now have two DHS 301 Blades so can try different rubber combinations during the same session but this is not a cheap option and anyway possibly I should not be using 301's.

There are tables that list the speed, control and spin of various rubbers and you can decide which suits your style. However once you have chosen remember that going for a 1.9 or 1.7 thickness will change the performance as will the age of the rubber and even the type of blade so you might as well print out a list and throw a dart. Perhaps a better idea would be to ask a coach to watch you play and suggest equipment.
 
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You chose well. Now don't worry about it. Just play. Dont read equipment threads on forums either, all it will do is send you down an unproductive path. Just play. Watch videos of good players.
 
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Happy new year to everyone!

Changing rubbers probably improved my game but of course you can't go back to your original set up to compare.
I would bet a great deal from having played for quite a few decades and having watched lots of people do this (and doing it some myself) that it had actually had a minimal effect on your overall level except maybe some really extreme choices do make some people worse) . I don't mean any disrespect by this.

One reason is that accurately assessing if you are actually better or not is much harder than people think, and there are all kinds of biases at work.

The constant changing of equipment makes it hard for your brain to instantly compute what it needs to do. Motor learning gets disrupted. So people should find something reasonable and stick with it for months at a minimum. And there are gazillions of reasonable choices.
 
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The soul of the blade is not inside the blade itself. You transfer your own into it. If you don’t trust the blade you hold, your soul is full of doubt.

(Happy new year! Why not have a philosophical statement to start it :cool:)
 
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Wow, I have almost the same equipment which you mentioned in your post. You should definitely get all-wood things as they are the most cool ones. But one of the most important things in this sport is to choose the right shirt to wear during the game. Honestly, I don't really like traditional tennis kits and during training always wear my favorite rugby kit. I ordered it at https://agamesports.co.uk/rugby-kit/ where you can find both long sleeve and short sleeve shirts. Sadly, you can't wear these at official tournaments.
 
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