Assistance/advice with equipment upgrade (1st custom racket) (Update!)

[StreamOfWater]

Hello, everyone! I am glad to join this community. I am a fairly new player from Lithuania and I've have started and made incredible amount of progress in 7 months period. My love for table tennis has also reached new heights.

In short and straight to the point - I've been using a pre-made "Atemi 3000" racket. It's my first. Probably barely anyone knows this firm. It's a fast racket, it has balsa carbon blade. And yes, I know... I got surprised as well recently, especially when I've done my research and started spotting inconsistencies and lack of control in my gameplay. The racket itself is pretty cheap, going around for 40 EURO or so, however, it has been recommended to me by my coach which barely makes sense to me now because it certainly lacks control and hinders my development of ball feeling, strategic play and placement. Luckily, the racket is slowly but steadily reaching its end and I am thinking of getting a custom racket in around 1-2 months as my game also gets progressively more serious.

What I basically want is to step back a little and come back to stuff I didn't get to experience while playing on a balsa carbon, eventually slowly climb up with speed. I'd consider myself to be an intermediate player as I am familiar with the essence of the game: most techniques, have good base knowledge, can already spot most of my mistakes. I love attacking, always try my best to take the initiative. I am obsessed with serves, so my serve game is pretty strong too. My main problem is inconsistency and lack of control, I especially still struggle with consistency of backhand topspin followed up by lack of feel for the ball. Because of the high speed of my racket, I lack strategic gameplay and end up mostly attacking/topspinning in the middle/center of the table/safe zone. To put in short, I and my coach have noticed that my game is fairly simple and plain.

I do not want anything fancy for now, as it's most likely not a great idea... High control build with a lot of spin and fair amount of speed sounds like it might help - to come back to absolute fundamentals, perfect techniques, fix my inaccuracies and learn excellent ball feel as well as placement, that is. I've got my eyes on these blades:

• Yasaka Sweden Classic
• Yasaka Sweden Extra
• Butterfly Petr Kobel (as it seems more fitting to my offensive playstyle)

Rubbers:

• Yasaka Rigan
• Nittaku Factive

Only recently have I started digging into equipment and doing my research, so I do not know if these are great choices... Which should I choose? Any recommendations? Perhaps better alternatives? I am incredibly interested in hearing your opinions and advices. I truly appreciate your help! Thank you for your time

 

[SFF_lib]

Those blades are too soft if you want to improve your backhand. You can consider these:

• Yasaka Ma Lin Extra (harder walnut top ply than YSC and YSE)
• Stiga Intensity
• DHS Hao 2

All of these have hard top ply (faster BH) but high flex (high spin). All of them have clear feedback so improve your control and consistency.

 

[Ultravisitor]

A light Yasaka ma lin extra offensive, 85gr.
Factive both sides is a safe choice 2mm.

 

[StreamOfWater]

Those blades are too soft if you want to improve your backhand. You can consider these:

• Yasaka Ma Lin Extra (harder walnut top ply than YSC and YSE)
• Stiga Intensity
• DHS Hao 2

All of these have hard top ply (faster BH) but high flex (high spin). All of them have clear feedback so improve your control and consistency.

I see, thank you! The blades look good. In that case, I'd probably get Yasaka Ma Lin Extra, other two are more on expensive side... I am not sure if I am truly ready for them, both in skills and financially, to be honest. Though won't the blade be too fast for me, since I want more control? 😅 What about my provided rubber choices? + Does Yasaka Ma Lin Extra Offensive have room for more speed in the future, if I decide to change to faster rubbers at later stages?

 

[Ultravisitor]

Yasaka extra offensive is blade that's fast enough. Many people love the feel. I think given the feel it has good control. But that's subjective.
As for long-term use: I think the YEO is a blade you can play all your career. It's plenty fast with faster rubbers.

 

[StreamOfWater]

Yasaka extra offensive is blade that's fast enough. Many people love the feel. I think given the feel it has good control. But that's subjective.
As for long-term use: I think the YEO is a blade you can play all your career. It's plenty fast with faster rubbers.

I see, thank you! What about rubbers? Any comments on my rubber choice, any better alternatives? I've heard YEO isn't that great when paired with fairly slow rubbers...

 

[Ultravisitor]

I personally played the yeo with yinhe big dipper and moon 12 blue. But that's maybe too fast on the forehand.
People in my club like the xiom vega stuff and I've seen some nittaku factives on beginner blades. I think factive a good starting point cuz it's not to soft and has only slight tensor effect.
But never tried the YEO with slower tensors.

 

[StreamOfWater]

I personally played the yeo with yinhe big dipper and moon 12 blue. But that's maybe too fast on the forehand.
People in my club like the xiom vega stuff and I've seen some nittaku factives on beginner blades. I think factive a good starting point cuz it's not to soft and has only slight tensor effect.
But never tried the YEO with slower tensors.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I look back at my proposed blades when I started this thread... And yeah, perhaps I went overboard with my sense of "control". Now I am afraid if YEO or Yasaka Ma Lin Extra Offensive paired with Nittaku Factive won't make too slow of a combo. I'd love to have a lot more control in order to fix my inconsistencies, technical errors as well as learn to put the ball exactly where I want to, however, after my 7 month experience with Balsa Carbon from the start, I've got fairly used to the speed, so maintaining a fair fraction of it would be nice. I considered myself to be well past the beginner stage, so I'd expect to be satisfied with the equipment and not change anything for at least good 1-2 years... But that's how I see it, I lack experience though... Not sure if it's correct to view it that way and if I am making any sense 😓

 

[Ultravisitor]

Well no rubbers will last you that long. If they are too slow, you can still get faster ones when they wear out after 3-6 months. YEO is fast enough to be your last blade if you like it.

 

[Gozo Aruna]

Petr Korbel with Rozena on both side and stay happy for a long time.

 

[StreamOfWater]

Petr Korbel with Rozena on both side and stay happy for a long time.

I see, thank you. Others said that Petr Korbel is too soft of a blade and recommended Yakasa Extra Offensive or Yakasa Ma Lin Extra Offensive, especially when I want to nail the backhand topspin technique and get real consistent with it. What are your thoughts? What about pairing these blades with Rozena? Would that result in significant increase in speed/spin and decrease in control as well as feel?

 

[Jan_]

Those blades are too soft if you want to improve your backhand. You can consider these:

• Yasaka Ma Lin Extra (harder walnut top ply than YSC and YSE)
• Stiga Intensity
• DHS Hao 2

All of these have hard top ply (faster BH) but high flex (high spin). All of them have clear feedback so improve your control and consistency.

Yeo and intensity are too hard, sweeden extra or bty primorac/korbel with bluefire m2 or rakza 7 would be good.

 

[StreamOfWater]

Yeo and intensity are too hard, sweeden extra or bty primorac/korbel with bluefire m2 or rakza 7 would be good.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I've heard the catapult effect of Bluefire M2 is fairly difficult to handle. Won't that be a hindrance? + Won't these blades be too soft to master backhand topspin?

 

[Gozo Aruna]

I see, thank you. Others said that Petr Korbel is too soft of a blade and recommended Yakasa Extra Offensive or Yakasa Ma Lin Extra Offensive, especially when I want to nail the backhand topspin technique and get real consistent with it. What are your thoughts? What about pairing these blades with Rozena? Would that result in significant increase in speed/spin and decrease in control as well as feel?

I am not familiar with YEO but I am familiar with YEO ( Ma Lin ) as I had it before.

Petr Korbel or Ma Lin are both categorized as offensive & Rozena is fast enough. So they are good with speed. Control as in touch, he he he, you are asking the wrong guy. I am in the biz of smash, smash n moar smash.

 

[StreamOfWater]

I am not familiar with YEO but I am familiar with YEO ( Ma Lin ) as I had it before.

Petr Korbel or Ma Lin are both categorized as offensive & Rozena is fast enough. So they are good with speed. Control as in touch, he he he, you are asking the wrong guy. I am in the biz of smash, smash n moar smash.

😂 I see. Appreciate the input nonetheless. Thank you

 

[StreamOfWater]

By the way, forgot to mention at the start of the thread when I talked a little bit about my background. When it comes to rubbers with catapult effect and compensation for lack of power - I am very athletic and I wouldn't mind putting more strength and sweat into my shots if needed, I have plenty of it, especially when I am still incredibly young with great stamina

When using Balsa Carbon racket, I never really got a chance to actually put a lot of strength and weight because the ball would fly fast and far, often resulting in going out of bounds. Smashing high balls is the only case when I can lash out 😂

 

[kindof99]

If you don't mind small fl handle, get a DHS pg7 with Hurricane 8 80 38/37. It gives you good control and speed. ST handle PG7 has a large handle if you prefer st.

 

[Jan_]

Thank you for sharing your experience. I've heard the catapult effect of Bluefire M2 is fairly difficult to handle. Won't that be a hindrance? + Won't these blades be too soft to master backhand topspin?

It's not that fast, Rakza 7 would be better for control and M2 for a bit more speed. You don't need a hard blade to learn, I play with Intensity NCT and the hardness just makes it harder to spin the ball because it doesn't have dwell. It's really good for block and counter, but it's gonna annoy you if you wanna learn something, simply because it doesn't really allow it, it's for the experienced player that can use the lack of dwell to play aggressively at all times. If you play softer the blade doesn't bit and throws balls into the net.

 

[StreamOfWater]

If you don't mind small fl handle, get a DHS pg7 with Hurricane 8 80 38/37. It gives you good control and speed. ST handle PG7 has a large handle if you prefer st.

I see! Thank you for your input, although won't that be too big of a transition? Seems like a pure Chinese style setup

 

[StreamOfWater]

It's not that fast, Rakza 7 would be better for control and M2 for a bit more speed. You don't need a hard blade to learn, I play with Intensity NCT and the hardness just makes it harder to spin the ball because it doesn't have dwell. It's really good for block and counter, but it's gonna annoy you if you wanna learn something, simply because it doesn't really allow it, it's for the experienced player that can use the lack of dwell to play aggressively at all times. If you play softer the blade doesn't bit and throws balls into the net.

Ah, makes sense, I appreciate the explanation. Okay, so, if Yakasa Ma Lin Extra Offensive is bit too hard, then Petr Korbel paired with either Nittaku Fastarc G-1 or Rakza 7 for forehand and either Bluefire M2 or Rakza 7 for backhand... How does that sound?