Chinese Rubber=No Catapult : Wrong????

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Hey everone!
I am playing and thinking about Chinese rubber for a while and there are some things i dont understand.
My Basic Information was always, that Chinese rubber is very hard, has nearly no catapult, but extremly high spin. I have been talking with a lot of People about that and yesterday a friend told me about a professionel German Player who had the Chance to play with Ma Longs racket. The Problem was, that it was soooo much too fast, that he was not even close to play normal shots. And then there is also this interview by Timo Boll where he complains about everyone boosting their rubber and that they become so unbelievable fast. In this interview he said that "if the chinese take my racket with their movement and power, then the ball will fall down on their side of the table".
So the conclusion ist, all this boosted chinese rubber is super fast, much faster then even Tenergy.
I know, they are professionels and they Train everyday. But still i wonder, why i should Play with a H3 Neo, which is not really fast even when i use my full Body for the stroke. It has even that Little catapult that every stroke which is not perfectly done (and in a match thats just not normal) wont go over the net.
I dont want a rubber as fast as Ma Longs, but does it make sence to Play a rubber which is completly different in its general skills? So my final Question ist:
Isnt a normal medium-hard rubber with some good catapult like a MX-S or a Vega Japan much closer to Ma Longs rubber than a normal H3 Neo??

Maybe i am all wrong, thank you for your thaughts!
 
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This has been in my mind for a long time as well. I never have a chance to hit with Ma Long racket but really when I look at the way they swing on FH stroke and how fast the ball is, their FH rubber must be very fast and bouncy, especially when hit with a considerable amount of force. No way it's only because of their superman technique. Maybe Timo Boll exaggerated it, but their boosted H3 must be as fast as Tenergy or even a little faster.
Look at this, they don't even use 60% of their full power:

I suppose their boosted (or special version, or both) H3 rubber can be dead with soft touch, but bouncy with hard hitting. It's very far from an unboosted commercial H3. With unboosted H3, you have to develop a different style and technique because it's very hard to get good speed from it.

I have played with speed glued H3 (when it was still legal) and it's very fast and spinny. I couldn't find the same speed, spin and consistency with any unboosted Chinese rubbers since then, it's not even close. I don't like boosting, so I gave up Chinese rubber and switched to Tenergy. With Tenergy, I can't play crazy/extreme shots like speed glued H3, but it's the closest thing.
 
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It is an interesting topic. There is a moment in Ferenz Karsai's interview for TT11, when he says that when he tried a racket of CNT's player, it was very fast. It puzzled me because from my experience regular H3 is an insanely slow rubber, even boosted. But then a friend of mine gave me a sheet of "National" H3 (orange sponge, white package) and I got what Ferenz meant in the interview. When enough force is applied, it is insanely fast, way faster than most tensors. Especially a well-boosted H3N. Probably CNT's players rubbers are even faster.

But still i wonder, why i should Play with a H3 Neo, which is not really fast even when i use my full Body for the stroke. It has even that Little catapult that every stroke which is not perfectly done (and in a match thats just not normal) wont go over the net.

Don't play with commercial H3, it is junk.
 
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if the pro's dont get access to the 'special' chinese rubbers, we amateur player shouldnt care much about the aquire.

i was on the chinese rubber myth train long time until i realised how much easier and fun it is to play with faster equipment. i feel much! more confidend with my current setup after switching to a popular mid-hard tensor and to an OFF blade. i encourage to play do w.e. u feel most comfortable with instead of wisdom words (mostly playing tacky rubber + slow blade).

i do think these slow chinese rubber can be superior to tensors in a skill lvl where killing 3rd ball is the biggest winning condition, since the importance of great service and returns (the other great strenght of slow chinese rubber) reduced massivly with the plastic ball.

back to the topic: i also wonder about these magically chinese rubbers. i cant believe a big company like butterfly cant copy it, so i guess the Pro's Version of Tenergy and the national chinese rubbers must be on an equal level.
 
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It is wrong to assume you know how much power they put in their topspins.
Thing is you can't even really SEE great technique sometimes because everything happens during that microsecond when the ball is hit. The wrist motion, the tensing of the muscles.. It can look like it's "60% power" as you said but really there's power there no amateur can really imagine.
There's a video by Dan where he's practicing with Marcos Freitas and he can't block his topspins properly because they're such high quality.

Besides, you know that what CNT get and what everyone else gets are totally different rubbers, so there's no real point making comparisons. I dunno.
 
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There are some interesting comments above.
First, most of the stuff you read or hear is hype or myth.

The commercial Chinese rubbers have little "catapult". I agree that commercial H3 rubber is not fast or spinny without speed glue. I bought a H3 commercial and speed glued it just to see how it would play I wasn't impressed. It is too much hassle for an effect that doesn't last long. I am very sure it is the Chinese players that make the Chinese rubbers spinny with their strokes. In the video of Fan Zhendong I did not see that much top spin. They were hitting the ball from too far back to apply a lot of speed and spin. Speed will come at the expense of spin or spin at the expense of speed.

My last coach, from Tianjin CN, used a TB ALC with H3 national FH and T05 BH. I played with his paddle. It was good. H3 national isn't dead like H3 commercial. I still had to put some effort into the swing to get speed or spin out of it. I has S2 on both sides of a TBS at the time. I don't think there was that much difference in the paddles. There was a lot of difference between me and the coach as I was 3 times older and the coach went to a ping pong academy instead of high school. This was the significant difference.

Ditto, the comment about slower CN rubbers are OK for 3rd ball attacks. In this case the player is close to the table and speed is not as important as keeping the ball on the table with topspin. When back from the table the ball will slow down a lot due to air friction. The ball slows down by about half for every 5 meters.

Most of the energy used to hit the ball is used to move the player and paddle. Only a small percentage is transferred to the ball.
 
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no offense. But do you think Timo Boll know better than you?

No offense, but you're not Timo Boll. Did timo boll tell you that they're using 60% energy or what that even means?
 
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No offense, but you're not Timo Boll. Did timo boll tell you that they're using 60% energy or what that even means?

No but Timo Boll said, that if the Chinese Play a Topspin with his racket but their movement, that the ball would not get on the other half of the table. So this implies that they dont Need to use all force, or at least they dont nead the full force only to get enough foward Motion into the ball.

I have been thinking and isnt the most important atribute of a boosted chinese rubber ist linearity in Terms of catapult? So there is no late sudden catapult only on the very hard balls like with some ESN Rubbers. The chinese rubber is still quite hard and the existing catapult is not a trompolin effect especially in short-short but developing strongly with every bit you increase the power.


Any idea which rubber is somehow even close to this? Recently i played the El-S which was Kind of the opposite for me. Maybe the MX-S or the Vega pro? Or the Skyline 3-60 on a very fast blade? Or the Aurus prime?
 
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No but Timo Boll said, that if the Chinese Play a Topspin with his racket but their movement, that the ball would not get on the other half of the table. So this implies that they dont Need to use all force, or at least they dont nead the full force only to get enough foward Motion into the ball.
or it could imply their technique is different. Spin to speed ratio is what makes the ball drop on your side of the table, perhaps that's what he had in mind. I very much doubt you can boost a tacky rubber to be much faster than an unboosted tensor. Here's another thought to consider: why do you think Chinese flip the racket when smashing? Certainly not to make a slower shot.
 
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or it could imply their technique is different. Spin to speed ratio is what makes the ball drop on your side of the table, perhaps that's what he had in mind. I very much doubt you can boost a tacky rubber to be much faster than an unboosted tensor. Here's another thought to consider: why do you think Chinese flip the racket when smashing? Certainly not to make a slower shot.

Great point.
 
I think a lot of people missed a point here.

Fast or slow, this is related with the power you put in.

Why some people feel H3 slow while some others feel H3 fast?
Boosting and the type of H3 (commercial / national) is one side, the most important bit is power.

EmRatThich explained a bit in the following video.


Although I don't fully agree the whole video, I do agree some point e.g. the diagram below


2018-05-29_151106.jpg

For small-mid force, tensor rubber is faster because of the catapult effect.

BUT, hurricane's speed and spin ceiling is higher, which means when put in big power or force, it can general better speed and spin, or simply faster than tensor rubber.


The last thing, is the way the player treat the hurricane.

In order to keep hurricane at its best performance, it needs to be "maintain" constantly.

That includes
1 constant cleaning (I clean my rubber surface every few point using breath and deeper clean with my shirt after every game)

2 regular boosting (every two weeks if you are sensitive. For me, first week after boosting has the best feeling. two weeks after boosting, you can start to feel some ball drops below the net)

if the above two points can not be achieved, H3 is no good than tensor rubber.
 
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I think a lot of people missed a point here.

Fast or slow, this is related with the power you put in.

Why some people feel H3 slow while some others feel H3 fast?
Boosting and the type of H3 (commercial / national) is one side, the most important bit is power.


I know that is what everyone is saying but i finally dont believe it anymore. I can only believe what Timo Boll is saying, as he is the one who was playing with this chinese Rackets. And he says that they are faster than his, with LESS power. And the brother of the german national Trainer told me the same thing, that there are no Rackets as fast as the chinese.
So whats still the difference between chinese and european rubber and why do they swap sides for smashing? I am still thinking about that…
Im sure by the way that the Tenergy they play on the backhand is as much boosted as there H3 on their forhand and propably it has not much to do with the Tenergy we can buy and maybe not even that much with the Tenergy Timo Boll uses.
 
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oh you can. it's just that the chinese rubbers are slow on direct shots and fast on tangential shots, that's why they switch the racket sides for smashing.

I think you and Atas are talking about the same thing. Chinese rubbers can produce faster tangential shots because they are more tacky, whereas tensor rubbers have more catapult effect for producing faster flat hits. However, to produce fast tangential shots with tacky rubbers, the player needs to close the racket more and have longer strokes diagonally upward. Look a Timo Boall's swings. His racket is relatively flat and his strokes are very short. They are totally different from those of CNT players. So I think there is a chance that Boll's comment was about the difference in techniques and not just about rubber speed.
Also, think of it this way, if FZD and Boll switched rackets, FZD probably could not produce high quality spin shots as Boll could, and Boll probably could not produce high quality FH topspin as FZD could. This would apply to us as well. Equipment exists to complement a player's techniques. Switching equipment won't magically make a player better at techniques they don't normally do.
Even though I know commercial H3 is not even close to what the CNT players use, I still play with it because I enjoy it. I think we should all use the equipment we enjoy and stop trying to copy professional players' equipment.
 
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- In my opinion, the recent modern table tennis rubbers tend to be harder and harder to deal with the new ball.
- If you want to say about "catapult effect", that means the ball sinks into the rubber, so the answer for:

CHINESE RUBBER HAS CATAPULT? YES OR NO?

- The answer should be, "yes", and "no".

- As I explained in my video, if you give the Chinese rubber, to an amateur player, without the right timing, the right acceleration, the quality of his ball is bad. No catapult, and bad spin.

- But if you give the rubber to the good player, Chinese rubber does have "Catapult". They can make a very spinny, and fast ball.

In the case of Timo Boll, who uses Ten05. Why Timo Boll said that "Chinese rubber is faster than his rubber with the first test". It's the difference in topsheet. The national version of Chinese rubber, has hard and elastic topsheet, with small and many pimples, which respond quickly to the incoming ball.
 
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