A guide to buying and choosing table tennis equipment from an Intermediate player and EJ

[joshmak10]

Happy New Year everybody! Hope everyone reaches their goals, table tennis or not, for this year. I know what mine is already: stick to my current setup for the whole year! Nonetheless, since I bought my first “professional” setup in April 2023, I probably spent nearly $1000 CAD in blades and rubbers! EJ is fun but hard on the wallet, and in order to help other new and experienced players not lose all their money on testing for the right equipment, I thought I’d write a guide on buying and choosing equipment so that you can stick with what you have and never change so you can spend less money and improve your game better. My guide is based on much experience of trying out different blades and rubbers and analyzing what the majority of the best non pros play. Please note, this guide is meant for attacking double inverted rubber players as this is the most common play style and what I know most about.

Choosing a blade
My recommendation for choosing a blade: whatever you learn on, stick with it. Trying to change between different compositions of blades is what leads to EJ and a lot of money wasted, as blades are the most expensive part of TT by far! That being said, if someone is buying their first blade and doesn’t know where to start, an inner carbon blade would work best. This is because with the plastic ball and modern game, the ball travels with less speed and rotation than before with celluloid balls. You need a bit more speed and with all wood blades, those are not the quickest and you will be at a disadvantage in my opinion once you get to a higher level. Outer carbon may be good for some players but are generally too quick and bouncy for those just starting out and even many intermediate players. But an inner carbon blade, which many professionals play, will be slow enough to control the short game and fast enough for deadly attacks. I would recommend a good quality blade like DHS Hurricane series (Long 5, WCQ, Sha, acB) or a Butterfly innerforce blade (Layer ALC, Harimoto ALC). Generally ALC blades are better than ZLC blades because of the softness of the ALC makes it easier to control.

Choosing a Forehand rubber
For this day and age of playing, you need to have a sticky or at least a semi sticky rubber on your forehand. The forehand is always going to be the most powerful stroke in table tennis due to swing space and with a tensor, non sticky rubber, it is just too fast and not spinny enough. Short game will also be challenging with these rubbers and they are typically more spin sensitive. So Chinese sticky rubbers or the masters Hybrid rubbers will work best for the increased spin and good control in short game. I would recommend a rubber in the hardness range of 50-53 degrees ESN because anything softer than that will feel mushy and slow and anything harder will be out of control for most players. Rubbers I would recommend include DHS Hurricane 3 Neo Provincial Blue Sponge (39 degrees on DHS scale), Dignics/Glayzer 09C, Joola Dynaryz ZGX, or Tibhar Hybrid K3.

Choosing a Backhand rubber
For most backhands, we don’t have enough swing speed in games to fully utilize hybrids and Chinese rubbers on our backhands like the pros. This means a grippy, tensor rubber works best for backhand for the speed and safety, with certain rubbers being very good for spin as well. Most intermediate players tend to block quite a bit in matches, which hybrid and Chinese rubbers are not good at. Tensors will block the ball with speed and quality, and while tensors are not as good at topspin shots as the other two, it is hard and tiring to consistently topspin on backhand with hybrid and Chinese, and tensors do the job pretty well. I would recommend softer backhand rubbers due to the increased safety and bounce from soft sponges, maybe around 45 degrees ESN for beginners, 47.5 degrees ESN for the majority of players, and if your technique is sound, 50 degrees ESN. Rubbers that I would recommend include Xiom Omega 7 Pro, Xiom Vega Korea, Dignics 05, Tenergy 19, and Joola Dynaryz Inferno.

Conclusion
I hope my guide helps people pick the equipment right for them and hopefully stick with for the rest of their TT careers! My rubbers recommendation are only just my opinion on what are the best rubbers based on performance and especially durability so that you can spend less money replacing the rubber per year. There are other plenty good rubbers to try out, but just remember to stick to the rubber hardness i recommend on each side in order to feel most comfortable and to stick with the modern play. I hope everyone has a wonderful 2025 and please feel free to comment on my guide for any questions or thoughts!

 

[lodro]

Generally ALC blades are better than ZLC blades because of the softness of the ALC makes it easier to control.

once saturated with resins and hardened there is nothing "soft" about either, ALC or ZLC

 

[joshmak10]

once saturated with resins and hardened there is nothing "soft" about either, ALC or ZLC

but ALC is the softer more flexible fiber providing good arc and spin compared to the pingy stiffer ZLC

 

[Brs]

Simon Gauzy says this is bogus advice "recommend a rubber in the hardness range of 50-53 degrees ESN"

 

[joshmak10]

Simon Gauzy says this is bogus advice "recommend a rubber in the hardness range of 50-53 degrees ESN"
View attachment 33929

Lmao well for FH you need a 50-53 ESN rubber but for BH 45-50 ESN is the best

 

[lodro]

but ALC is the softer more flexible fiber providing good arc and spin compared to the pingy stiffer ZLC

maybe if the test is done using a 7kg shotput ball then you would find the difference but 2.5gr of TT ball then the difference is just in your head 😂😂😂😂

 

[lodro]

but for BH 45-50 ESN is the best

maybe valid for you but others use harder rubbers for BH and softer ones for FH

 

[joshmak10]

maybe if the test is done using a 7kg shotput ball then you would find the difference but 2.5gr of TT ball then the difference is just in your head 😂😂😂😂

Bro a lot of ppl feel the difference between ALC and ZLC what do you mean? 🤣🤣

 

[joshmak10]

maybe valid for you but others use harder rubbers for BH and softer ones for FH

Like i said in my review this is mainly a guide for those first building a racket based on what the majority of people i see use and experience on what i think is best for intermediate players but of course other people can use different rubbers if they feel that’s what they play best with

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

It is entertaining how many things are asserted as good for YOU when they are personal preferences and the person writing only has an idea of what HE likes and that idea is only based on vast experience from all the way back in April of 2023!!!

One thing I have learned about table tennis, the longer you play, the more knowledge you have accumulated, the more you realize that there is sooooo much more to know.

Everyone is different. Everyone likes different things in their equipment choices. How everyone contacts the ball on different shots is slightly different. I definitely know players who are fairly high level who still like SOFT rubbers, even with the new ball, on BOTH FH and BH. I know other players who don't.

What year was it (it was definitely with the 40+ Poly Ball) that someone won the European Championships with a 5 ply wood blade and FXP on both sides.

But everyone must use 50-53 degree hardness on FH. hahahaha. Everyone must start of, these days, with Inner Fiber Composite.

There are a lot of silly ideas in there. But, I give you credit for trying. And the important thing you say is that sticking with a setup is useful if you want to improve because training is the important issue provided the equipment is acceptable. And changing equipment does cause you to have to adjust things about your technique for each change. So, if you are learning, just switching equipment can have a negative impact on your technique if you are changing over and over again.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

BTW: with harder rubbers, (50-53) you better have really big impact force and good spin contact or you are wasting your time. If you can't compress the sponge on impact while making the right kind of contact, you are using less than 1/10th of the potential of that rubber.

And the reason some people prefer a softer rubber on BH is not because of the speed of the stroke. It is very easy to get very fast racket speed with BH because of the mechanics of the stroke and how you use the elbow joint. But the stroke is not as BIG and you cannot recruit other parts of your body on BH the way you can on FH.

You can use a little body and a little core rotation on BH and it is very easy to use from the elbow joint and wrist joint in BH. But on FH you can use upper arm, lower arm, wrist, shoulder, core rotation, hips, legs, weight transfer exponentially more because of how much bigger of a stroke it is. So, it is a stroke with MORE IMPACT POWER. But not necessarily faster or even as fast depending on the person doing the BH stroke.

 

[joshmak10]

@UpSideDownCarl I agree that everyone is different and that’s why this is aimed to be a guide for people who aren’t familiar with all the different hardnesses and types of rubber. And this is not just based on my personal experience, but a lot of my club mates, my university team, and even someone like Heming Hu generally agree with the philosophy of harder FH, softer BH. It is not a must, but recommended.

And regarding the BH stroke, yeah I probably worded it weirdly but what you are saying is what I meant. Sorry I’m not the greatest at wording.

The world of TT equipment is complex and lots of options available, which is why I created this to help people based on what works for a lot of people that I talk to plus myself. Again, it’s not a definitive must, and you can totally play a Vega Europe on FH or a NUZN 55 on BH if you feel it’s what best suited for your game, but my guide is what I and many other players would recommend for those trying to get into our fantastic sport

 

[FrenchFrog33]

Happy New Year everybody! Hope everyone reaches their goals, table tennis or not, for this year. I know what mine is already: stick to my current setup for the whole year! Nonetheless, since I bought my first “professional” setup in April 2023, I probably spent nearly $1000 CAD in blades and rubbers! EJ is fun but hard on the wallet, and in order to help other new and experienced players not lose all their money on testing for the right equipment, I thought I’d write a guide on buying and choosing equipment so that you can stick with what you have and never change so you can spend less money and improve your game better. My guide is based on much experience of trying out different blades and rubbers and analyzing what the majority of the best non pros play. Please note, this guide is meant for attacking double inverted rubber players as this is the most common play style and what I know most about.

Choosing a blade
My recommendation for choosing a blade: whatever you learn on, stick with it. Trying to change between different compositions of blades is what leads to EJ and a lot of money wasted, as blades are the most expensive part of TT by far! That being said, if someone is buying their first blade and doesn’t know where to start, an inner carbon blade would work best. This is because with the plastic ball and modern game, the ball travels with less speed and rotation than before with celluloid balls. You need a bit more speed and with all wood blades, those are not the quickest and you will be at a disadvantage in my opinion once you get to a higher level. Outer carbon may be good for some players but are generally too quick and bouncy for those just starting out and even many intermediate players. But an inner carbon blade, which many professionals play, will be slow enough to control the short game and fast enough for deadly attacks. I would recommend a good quality blade like DHS Hurricane series (Long 5, WCQ, Sha, acB) or a Butterfly innerforce blade (Layer ALC, Harimoto ALC). Generally ALC blades are better than ZLC blades because of the softness of the ALC makes it easier to control.

Choosing a Forehand rubber
For this day and age of playing, you need to have a sticky or at least a semi sticky rubber on your forehand. The forehand is always going to be the most powerful stroke in table tennis due to swing space and with a tensor, non sticky rubber, it is just too fast and not spinny enough. Short game will also be challenging with these rubbers and they are typically more spin sensitive. So Chinese sticky rubbers or the masters Hybrid rubbers will work best for the increased spin and good control in short game. I would recommend a rubber in the hardness range of 50-53 degrees ESN because anything softer than that will feel mushy and slow and anything harder will be out of control for most players. Rubbers I would recommend include DHS Hurricane 3 Neo Provincial Blue Sponge (39 degrees on DHS scale), Dignics/Glayzer 09C, Joola Dynaryz ZGX, or Tibhar Hybrid K3.

Choosing a Backhand rubber
For most backhands, we don’t have enough swing speed in games to fully utilize hybrids and Chinese rubbers on our backhands like the pros. This means a grippy, tensor rubber works best for backhand for the speed and safety, with certain rubbers being very good for spin as well. Most intermediate players tend to block quite a bit in matches, which hybrid and Chinese rubbers are not good at. Tensors will block the ball with speed and quality, and while tensors are not as good at topspin shots as the other two, it is hard and tiring to consistently topspin on backhand with hybrid and Chinese, and tensors do the job pretty well. I would recommend softer backhand rubbers due to the increased safety and bounce from soft sponges, maybe around 45 degrees ESN for beginners, 47.5 degrees ESN for the majority of players, and if your technique is sound, 50 degrees ESN. Rubbers that I would recommend include Xiom Omega 7 Pro, Xiom Vega Korea, Dignics 05, Tenergy 19, and Joola Dynaryz Inferno.

Conclusion
I hope my guide helps people pick the equipment right for them and hopefully stick with for the rest of their TT careers! My rubbers recommendation are only just my opinion on what are the best rubbers based on performance and especially durability so that you can spend less money replacing the rubber per year. There are other plenty good rubbers to try out, but just remember to stick to the rubber hardness i recommend on each side in order to feel most comfortable and to stick with the modern play. I hope everyone has a wonderful 2025 and please feel free to comment on my guide for any questions or thoughts!

Thanks for that post. That is pretty much the same thing that my coach recommends.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Happy New Year everybody! Hope everyone reaches their goals, table tennis or not, for this year. I know what mine is already: stick to my current setup for the whole year! Nonetheless, since I bought my first “professional” setup in April 2023, I probably spent nearly $1000 CAD in blades and rubbers! EJ is fun but hard on the wallet, and in order to help other new and experienced players not lose all their money on testing for the right equipment, I thought I’d write a guide on buying and choosing equipment so that you can stick with what you have and never change so you can spend less money and improve your game better. My guide is based on much experience of trying out different blades and rubbers and analyzing what the majority of the best non pros play. Please note, this guide is meant for attacking double inverted rubber players as this is the most common play style and what I know most about.

Choosing a blade
My recommendation for choosing a blade: whatever you learn on, stick with it. Trying to change between different compositions of blades is what leads to EJ and a lot of money wasted, as blades are the most expensive part of TT by far! That being said, if someone is buying their first blade and doesn’t know where to start, an inner carbon blade would work best. This is because with the plastic ball and modern game, the ball travels with less speed and rotation than before with celluloid balls. You need a bit more speed and with all wood blades, those are not the quickest and you will be at a disadvantage in my opinion once you get to a higher level. Outer carbon may be good for some players but are generally too quick and bouncy for those just starting out and even many intermediate players. But an inner carbon blade, which many professionals play, will be slow enough to control the short game and fast enough for deadly attacks. I would recommend a good quality blade like DHS Hurricane series (Long 5, WCQ, Sha, acB) or a Butterfly innerforce blade (Layer ALC, Harimoto ALC). Generally ALC blades are better than ZLC blades because of the softness of the ALC makes it easier to control.

Choosing a Forehand rubber
For this day and age of playing, you need to have a sticky or at least a semi sticky rubber on your forehand. The forehand is always going to be the most powerful stroke in table tennis due to swing space and with a tensor, non sticky rubber, it is just too fast and not spinny enough. Short game will also be challenging with these rubbers and they are typically more spin sensitive. So Chinese sticky rubbers or the masters Hybrid rubbers will work best for the increased spin and good control in short game. I would recommend a rubber in the hardness range of 50-53 degrees ESN because anything softer than that will feel mushy and slow and anything harder will be out of control for most players. Rubbers I would recommend include DHS Hurricane 3 Neo Provincial Blue Sponge (39 degrees on DHS scale), Dignics/Glayzer 09C, Joola Dynaryz ZGX, or Tibhar Hybrid K3.

Choosing a Backhand rubber
For most backhands, we don’t have enough swing speed in games to fully utilize hybrids and Chinese rubbers on our backhands like the pros. This means a grippy, tensor rubber works best for backhand for the speed and safety, with certain rubbers being very good for spin as well. Most intermediate players tend to block quite a bit in matches, which hybrid and Chinese rubbers are not good at. Tensors will block the ball with speed and quality, and while tensors are not as good at topspin shots as the other two, it is hard and tiring to consistently topspin on backhand with hybrid and Chinese, and tensors do the job pretty well. I would recommend softer backhand rubbers due to the increased safety and bounce from soft sponges, maybe around 45 degrees ESN for beginners, 47.5 degrees ESN for the majority of players, and if your technique is sound, 50 degrees ESN. Rubbers that I would recommend include Xiom Omega 7 Pro, Xiom Vega Korea, Dignics 05, Tenergy 19, and Joola Dynaryz Inferno.

Conclusion
I hope my guide helps people pick the equipment right for them and hopefully stick with for the rest of their TT careers! My rubbers recommendation are only just my opinion on what are the best rubbers based on performance and especially durability so that you can spend less money replacing the rubber per year. There are other plenty good rubbers to try out, but just remember to stick to the rubber hardness i recommend on each side in order to feel most comfortable and to stick with the modern play. I hope everyone has a wonderful 2025 and please feel free to comment on my guide for any questions or thoughts!

so wordy so long like writing a dissertation for your P.HD. project!

Divine decree: Golden Viscaria + Tenergy on FH + another Tenergy on BH.

Amen!

 

[joshmak10]

so wordy so long like writing a dissertation for your P.HD. project!

Divine decree: Golden Viscaria + Tenergy on FH + another Tenergy on BH.

Amen!

Golden viscaria endorsed by Gozo and the God 💪

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Golden viscaria endorsed by Gozo and the God 💪

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

@UpSideDownCarl I agree that everyone is different and that’s why this is aimed to be a guide for people who aren’t familiar with all the different hardnesses and types of rubber. And this is not just based on my personal experience, but a lot of my club mates, my university team, and even someone like Heming Hu generally agree with the philosophy of harder FH, softer BH. It is not a must, but recommended.

And regarding the BH stroke, yeah I probably worded it weirdly but what you are saying is what I meant. Sorry I’m not the greatest at wording.

The world of TT equipment is complex and lots of options available, which is why I created this to help people based on what works for a lot of people that I talk to plus myself. Again, it’s not a definitive must, and you can totally play a Vega Europe on FH or a NUZN 55 on BH if you feel it’s what best suited for your game, but my guide is what I and many other players would recommend for those trying to get into our fantastic sport

I do agree that most people will benefit from a softer sponge on BH. I agree with a certain amount you wrote. But I explained the actual reason most people want softer on BH. And there are always exceptions.

But it is worth understanding that harder sponge is a trend. It may not stay the trend forever. At some point softer sponge was a trend. The guy I know who uses soft sponge on both sides (T05fx) and does not care about sponge, he hits harder than almost anyone I know. He was a pro tennis player and playing TT, he likes to crush the ball, hit through the ball while still really spinning the eff out of the ball.

One time I was hitting with him and a friend who is a coach said to me, "he hits a lot harder than you." I said, "no SH_T." This guy hits really hard and still makes soft rubbers scream like you wouldn't believe. So it really has to do with how you use your equipment.

But the trend over the past 4-6 years has been harder rubbers.

Faster blades, I am not sure that is a trend. I think with the 40+ Poly ball you need something faster than back in the celluloid days even though I am still fine with a 5 ply all wood blade. But I don't compete. I just play because I enjoy playing. And my 5 ply all wood blade feels amazing to me. So I don't need anything else.

But I also get why a faster blade makes sense with the 40+ P ball. Rubbers, harder makes a lot of sense if you have the impact power on contact to compress the sponge enough. I think there are a lot of people I see using harder sponges who have no clue how to really makes those rubbers sing.

It is worth looking up an explanation for "mechanical spin" vs "topsheet spin" or "tacky spin" to try and understand how the compresstion of the sponge, the stretch and distortion of the topsheet, and the rebound of the stretched topsheet and compressed sponge could impact spin generation if you have the right contact and depth of penetration of the ball into the sponge and topsheet.

 

[Magic_M]

This is really an interesting discussion. As nearly every professional switched to hard and sticky rubbers, lots of amateurs followed this idea and also switched to 50° or even harder rubbers. And with the announcement of Dingis 09C we all thought that we HAVE to use sticky rubbers, if we do not want to loose our games.

Of course an EJ like me also felt that I MUST test this holy D09C and of course this rubber (and similar rubbers) has something special, which I really like and love, but it also has some skills that i simply hate. If the results were not good enough I felt, that my blade must be my problem, if I do not get the right results with this fantastic rubber. So I switched to another blade and another and ....

Two months ago we had two guest players in our training hall, who were playing with soft rubbers on both sides. One of them was playing with Tibhar Nimbus Soft in max both sides of his Boll ALC and the other one was playing with Joola Rhyzen CMD and Rhyzer 43 on his Rossi Emotion. This guy has the highest TTR-Level in our region and is playing 3-4 leagues above me.

I asked them if I can try out their equipment and had the chance to play with both blades for a few minutes. And to my surprise I was able to play with both of these paddles, especially with the Joola paddle.

Back at home I thought about the pros and cons of soft and hard rubbers. The result of my thoughts was, that the pros of soft rubbers are much higher for me than the cons. For example it is harder to play short with soft rubbers, but to be honest: I hate this endless short game. Instead of this I prefer the more open game. Therefore it is fine for me if my opponent attacks my too long underspin ball. On the other side it is so much easier to bring the ball back on the opponents side with soft rubbers, because the error rate drops significantly - at least in my game.

I remembered the old Zelluloid days when I had a lot of fun with rubbers like Nittaku Flyatt Soft, Donic Desto F3 Big Slam (much too short life) and Geo Proton Neo 375 and decided to try to switch back to this kind of rubbers.

Actually I am playing with Flyatt Soft on both sides (2,0 forehand and 1,8 backhand) and love the sound of this rubbers. And the spin is not so much lower than with my former harder equipment (at least with my bad technique), buch it is much easier to play with it. I am sure, that I will stay with Flyatt Soft on my forehand for a long time, but maybe I will test Proton Neo 375, Desto F3 Big Slam or Rhyzen CMD as alternative for my backhand.

What I want to say is: do not care what all these professionals are playing. Use the rubbers, which you personally like the most. These soft rubbers were not the spinniest with Zelluloid and they are not the spinniest with the new plastic balls, but this does not matter much for me. I think, it is a myth that everyone needs to play with the spinniest rubbers.

Where is your advantage, if you loop with a hard and spinny rubber like D09C or H3 Neo and on the other side of the table there is a player like me, who plays with spin insensitive pips in rubbers and does not care about your spin?

 

[_ak]

Divine decree: Golden Viscaria + Tenergy on FH + another Tenergy on BH.

Lol, I even played some blockers with such setups

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Lol, I even played some blockers with such setups

This is like a rich octogenarian driving a convertible Spyder at 30 m.p.h. on the freeway.