Rubbers are not tailor made, they're specifically selected. Each player has specific requirements for hardness, thickness, etc. and DHS will select the sheets that meet each player's requirement.
Right, that's why I said fame and not skill level/world rankings. They're famous players in Korea, a big TT market. What I said are not my assumptions, but based on what ex-CNT player Yin Hang said. The procedure for players like him to get a 968 is to fill out a form, get it signed by his coach and the head coach, then he gets to pick one up. He doesn't get to specify his requirements to DHS and get one specially made for him.
I suspect Butterfly does things similarly. They may special make blades for players sponsored by them, which will obviously be based on fame, but they won't do it just because you're good. Yin Hang no doubt was better than the lady Tony knows, but he says he and his teammates bought all their Butterfly blades as well as rubbers from the market.
Sad to hear Yin Hang only gets to pick 1 blade up.
Sounds like DHS is under extreme tight budgets with Yin Hang then. I mean, they give away 10s of thousands of 3 star balls at a time to the CNT and thousands of rubbers, but they can't even give Yin 10 blades at a time?
Any ways, its fun chatting with you about DHS, you seem to know a lot.
My info must be wrong then.
What I wanted to point out is that it is very easy for TT brands to tailor-made equipment, especially a company like DHS who tailor almost everything since a long time ago.
How and what they do, or the procedure to go about it, or fame or not, is actually irrelevant to my initial post.
As I pointed out, my purpose of engagement in this thread is really only to say, Chen Meng's blade is not Ma Long's blade.
So with that being made to the public, people can understand there are special versions out there, than just the same exact blade being circulated in the CNT.
PS. I do know a former Butterfly player, who went Tibhar. Couldn't find a blade there that suites him (I do not know why Tibhar couldn't come up with a solution for him), so what this Top 50 pro did was, buy a dozen of his desired blade from the open market and send them to Tibhar for "handle adjustments" and did this for a good few years.
I guess another Stiga player had the same problem too.
