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Hi everyone,
Apologies for what's probably going to be a long post, I will highlight key points you can read to get the full picture and add a TL;DR at the end.
I've been playing in a club for 4 months, twice a week, 2-3 hours per session, with a cheap pre-made JOOLA Carbon Pro (€ 25 on Amazon). Being very enthusiastic and fairly new - I only played casually as a kid - I can say I've made a lot of progress in a short time and was finally able to play with some experienced players without the feeling of wasting their time.
Couple of weeks ago I decided it was time to get a proper blade and last week I went to a well known table tennis store in Berlin. I showed them my cheap blade and told them I wanted something around the same weight to start learning/applying some spin.
They gave me a blade and we had 5 mins of basic fh and bh. It felt great and it was on sale for €69 (from € 100) so I got it. While they were assembling it they told me they ran out of that particular blade but they had an identical model from Joola and I said it was fine.
Blade: Joola Holz O-Allround (Allround, OFF minus)
FH and BH: Tibhar Game 2.0mm (74-041)
I went to the club to test it out and I couldn't get a ball over the net. Now, after some hours of playing, I can only play defensively and block because as soon as I do or even think of something slightly offensive the ball just won't get past the net - especially if I'm playing with a Joola flash ball rather than something softer.
Why is this happening? Are the blade and/or the rubber too fast for me? Should I keep trying or should I just get a blade that's better / easier / fitting more my playstyle?
Thank you very much in advance for all the support, opinions and critiques.
TL;DR going from a cheap pre-assembled blade to a "good" one is proving to be very... challenging
Apologies for what's probably going to be a long post, I will highlight key points you can read to get the full picture and add a TL;DR at the end.
I've been playing in a club for 4 months, twice a week, 2-3 hours per session, with a cheap pre-made JOOLA Carbon Pro (€ 25 on Amazon). Being very enthusiastic and fairly new - I only played casually as a kid - I can say I've made a lot of progress in a short time and was finally able to play with some experienced players without the feeling of wasting their time.
Couple of weeks ago I decided it was time to get a proper blade and last week I went to a well known table tennis store in Berlin. I showed them my cheap blade and told them I wanted something around the same weight to start learning/applying some spin.
They gave me a blade and we had 5 mins of basic fh and bh. It felt great and it was on sale for €69 (from € 100) so I got it. While they were assembling it they told me they ran out of that particular blade but they had an identical model from Joola and I said it was fine.
Blade: Joola Holz O-Allround (Allround, OFF minus)
FH and BH: Tibhar Game 2.0mm (74-041)
I went to the club to test it out and I couldn't get a ball over the net. Now, after some hours of playing, I can only play defensively and block because as soon as I do or even think of something slightly offensive the ball just won't get past the net - especially if I'm playing with a Joola flash ball rather than something softer.
Why is this happening? Are the blade and/or the rubber too fast for me? Should I keep trying or should I just get a blade that's better / easier / fitting more my playstyle?
Thank you very much in advance for all the support, opinions and critiques.
TL;DR going from a cheap pre-assembled blade to a "good" one is proving to be very... challenging