Soft return

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I just wanted to share some of my thoughts about TT, my experience, burnout and soft return. Perhaps others can relate.

Back around 2012-2015, I became obsessed with TT. Around 2013 I stepped away from premades and started assembling my own. I had a few coaching lessons to develop some basics, and turned to chinese style cpen. Had my ups and downs with it, enjoyed it and hated it... and when the poly ball came around I noped out. One of the things that sucked for me was service return. Playing with tacky, high throw rubbers and off blades was fun in rallies, but sucked for service return. I was both good at the game and sucked at it, and around 2016 I was just burnt out.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend just assembled a TT table in his game room, and we hit a few using some sucky cheapo premades... but you know what? it was fun! Nearly a decade and and 20 pounds later, Ive realized I don't care anymore about hitting USATT 2000 or pulling xu-xin style FH bullets (which I had my amazing moments), or playing competitively. All I want now is an allround blade with decent, high gear rubbers, go to my friends and hit some rallies. I'm even abandoning cpen and tacky rubbers, because its too much work!

The same day, I taught my 11 year old daughter a decent backhand. In less than an hour she went from being unable to hit the ball to decent rallies! (I'm a good coach). Now I'm looking to assemble her a paddle with focus 3 snipe rubbers so she can play and not be hindered as she gets better. I'm also looking to assemble a similar paddle for my friend and myself, just so we can have some fun getting together with friends.

So my question is:
What is a decent allround+/off- blade with cheap rubbers good for both control and looping? I've been happy with the yinhe w6 and e3vb, I'm thinking some focus 3 snipes or some yinhe moons, idea being non-tacky, low-mid throw so service return isn't hell. Should I go with soft sponge for my little girl, or will medium work? What are some other decently priced good equipment worth trying? SHIT! MY EJ IS RETURNING!
 
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Are you sure the return issue is about the rubber and not trouble with reading and adjusting to swing?
 
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I have heard lower bounce rubbers make short touch returns easier than high powered tensors.

But in the end it helps a lot learning to read spin. Keep in mind I'm not a high level player but it helped me learning what motions produce what spin. High level players can disguise it but for us lower level players it only can be a few kinds of spin like underspin, "inside sidespin" (pendulum), "outside" sidespin (reverse pendulum and hook serve) or topspin. Of course there can also be combinations.

Take my advice with a grain of salt but I think when it is underspin you hit more straight under the ball and with inside spin (pendulum) you hit the right side of the ball and reverse or hook serve you hit the left side of the ball.

Doesn't work all the time but sometimes :)
 
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Buy any allround all wood 5 ply blade with rubbers without inbuilt glue effect and not to soft. Regarding serve return, try to play against a lot of different players and try different ways of returning: against, with the spin and so on.
 
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Buy any allround all wood 5 ply blade with rubbers without inbuilt glue effect and not to soft. Regarding serve return, try to play against a lot of different players and try different ways of returning: against, with the spin and so on.

Excellent idea.

I've been using mostly yinhe blades and rubbers, but I would also like to hear about good quality mid priced blades and rubbers as well. Note, I'm not looking to spend more than $50 USD on a blade and more than $20 USD per rubber, since I'm doing this as a leisure activity. (So none of that butterfly gear).

I've also felt like returning servers using shakehand is easier than cpen. It could have been partly why I've struggled to return serves. Has anyone else noticed this?

 
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For me it is vice versa, I switched to cpen and return better with it but I'm a lefty so maybe the angle fits better by coincidence.
 
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For me it is vice versa, I switched to cpen and return better with it but I'm a lefty so maybe the angle fits better by coincidence.

I was a left handed cpen rpb player to. I think it was just my inability to pivot the racket properly such as forehand flicks traditional blocks.

 
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I have heard lower bounce rubbers make short touch returns easier than high powered tensors.

But in the end it helps a lot learning to read spin. Keep in mind I'm not a high level player but it helped me learning what motions produce what spin. High level players can disguise it but for us lower level players it only can be a few kinds of spin like underspin, "inside sidespin" (pendulum), "outside" sidespin (reverse pendulum and hook serve) or topspin. Of course there can also be combinations.

Take my advice with a grain of salt but I think when it is underspin you hit more straight under the ball and with inside spin (pendulum) you hit the right side of the ball and reverse or hook serve you hit the left side of the ball.

Doesn't work all the time but sometimes :)

Seth Pech has some great serve return tips

1. Ability to let the ball come to you. Don't chase the ball
2. Ability to predict the future location of the ball/go to that position and be very passive with the ball

And a lot of tips on how to deal with heavy backspin serves, sidespin serves, how to easily FH flip heavy backspin, return dead/topspin serves short, how to practice and so on.

As for blade and rubber advice:
Yasaka Sweden Extra + some medium hard rubbers. Instead of classic rubbers like Mark V you could try some more modern rubbers like Yasaka Rigan Spin or Xiom Vega Intro

 
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