Interesting topic.
10 years ago or so, I switched to composite blades to see what that was all about.
I converged a bit between faster and slower composite blades, and eventually ended up playing an Andro Treiber CI, which in my personal opinion sits somewhere between an Innerforce and a Freitas.
For me, these kinds of composite are a nice fit.
There's a good balance between dwell and directness, between speed and control.
And as a short pips player, I can easily get a good "flat ball" with a bit of sinking effect.
As my level went up, I have however noticed some things:
(To give an idea, my current ELO is around 2000. We also get a rank indication, consisting of a letter+number, that currently puts me in the 96 percentile in my country)
There's a shift when playing in higher divisions and playing higher ranked players:
- rallies tend to last longer
- opponents get better in finding your weak spots and trying to exploit them
- you get less time, pressure is on, you're constantly being pulled out of your comfort zone
For me, this translates into some drawbacks playing (fast) composite blades:
Because I'm under pressure, have less time, and rallies last longer, I lose a lot of points due to "unforced errors".
I personally believe, apart from focussed training etc..., transitioning back to all-wood might be a way out.
I started experimenting with some all-wood blades, but haven't found a good fit yet.
Some adjustment issues I experienced:
- the crispness, the easy of playing is gone
- I have to work really hard to produce a fast shot, often resulting in an error or not recuperating fast enough for the next shot
- during slower play, there's just way too much dwell, causing me to easily pull the ball over the end of the table when looping an open-up
- the same with blocking, it feels less direct and more spin sensitive
- short pips balls are not so flat anymore
So, in short, unless I find a magical all-wood blade that fixes my composite problem without introducing new issues, I'm either in for a looooong adjustment period, or I'll have to satisfy with the double edged sword that is composite ;-)
I've also tried some softer carbon blades, e.g. Donic Waldner Senso Carbon (which I'm selling btw), but that gave the same adjustment problems.
My next experiment will be a Petr Korbel blade, let's see how that goes...