Equipment for a beginner!

[Sherzy]

Hey ive been playing table tennis for 2 months on and off now and Im using the stiga royal 3 star which creates little to zero spin when i play, Im looking to upgrade to a non Premade racket with good rubbers and wood, whats the best i could get if im a beginner but i know the basics but i cant propely do spins and shots. I was looking at sweden yasaka extra and Mark v 1.8 on both sides. Let me know!

 

[Colestt]

The 1.8 thing was better with the cell ball. I would look at 2.0

 

[Sherzy]

The 1.8 thing was better with the cell ball. I would look at 2.0

So the Sweden Yasaka extra mark v on both sides with 2.0?

 

[Colestt]

Sounds good to me

 

[Colestt]

Unless youre trying to play more backspin than top

 

[Sherzy]

Unless youre trying to play more backspin than top

Im not really sure, As i said im a beginner which only played with premade racket so im pretty new to it all and dont wanna fall down the wrong path of picking something thats either too easy to learn or too hard to learn since i wanna learn good spin and shots. My current racket generates zero spin almost.

 

[garesnares]

Hey ive been playing table tennis for 2 months on and off now and Im using the stiga royal 3 star which creates little to zero spin when i play, Im looking to upgrade to a non Premade racket with good rubbers and wood, whats the best i could get if im a beginner but i know the basics but i cant propely do spins and shots. I was looking at sweden yasaka extra and Mark v 1.8 on both sides. Let me know!

Have you played table tennis at all, even casually on and off before the last 2 months? (I'm assuming the past 2 months was at a table tennis club?)
I used to start out with YSE + Mark V 2.0. Quickly found out it's safe, but still too slow to do the right techniques. Btw, this is when I finally started playing seriously and regularly at a table tennis club.
I would recommend keeping the same blade, ask for something in ~85 grams, but put Rakza 7 on both sides. Thickness, go for 1.8 on BH and 2.0 on FH.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

The Ultinate Noob set-up:

• Butterfly Primorac with both side Sriver.
• Noobies set-up by Donic

 

[andymagata]

You can safely continue to use your three star for quite some time. Believe me - it can spin with the correct technique.

But if you cannot live without changing blade and rubber, head over to chtt and follow the suggestions you find there. A new setup wont have to be expensive and you will have all the spin capabilities you can handle for a long time!

 

[mocker88]

Go for a Sanwei - Accumulator S blade with Sanwei - T-88 III 2-pcs training rubber. They are really good and will be a nice upgrade. We use these for all our beginners the first 1-2 years.

 

[att_pattaya]

Mark V is a very old rubber. It’s still decent, but there are many newer and more proven options that will give you better spin and control.

Blades (all-wood, no carbon): Butterfly Petr Korbel, Butterfly Primorac, or Stiga Clipper.
Rubbers (max thickness, both sides): Andro Rasanter, Butterfly Tenergy, Nittaku Fastarc, Tibhar Evolution, Donic Acuda, Xiom Vega, or Stiga DNA. These are all reliable modern series used from beginner to advanced level.

Budget options: all-wood blades from Sanwei or Yinhe with similar feel to Butterfly/Stiga, combined with Sanwei Ultraspin rubbers.

This setup will help you develop proper technique and spin, and it will last you for years without needing a quick upgrade.

 

[Lazer]

Mark V is a very old rubber. It’s still decent, but there are many newer and more proven options that will give you better spin and control.

Blades (all-wood, no carbon): Butterfly Petr Korbel, Butterfly Primorac, or Stiga Clipper.
Rubbers (max thickness, both sides): Andro Rasanter, Butterfly Tenergy, Nittaku Fastarc, Tibhar Evolution, Donic Acuda, Xiom Vega, or Stiga DNA. These are all reliable modern series used from beginner to advanced level.

Budget options: all-wood blades from Sanwei or Yinhe with similar feel to Butterfly/Stiga, combined with Sanwei Ultraspin rubbers.

This setup will help you develop proper technique and spin, and it will last you for years without needing a quick upgrade.

Tenergy för beginners…
That is the worst possible rubber for this category of player…

Cheers
L-zr

 

[ZFT]

Definitely no Tenergy for beginners.

Even now, it’s still one of the most catapulty and spin sensitive rubbers.

As a combo, it doesn’t really help build solid fundamentals since it’s so easy to take shortcuts and just let the rubber do the work.

From Butterfly it was smart they released Rozena and then Glayzer/Glayzer 09c to fill this gap 👍

 

[joshmak10]

Beginner just buy an all wood blade like clipper or Korbel/primorac with double sided Hurricane 3 Neo. Make sure the FH is 39 degree and the BH is 37 degrees. Ideally you should boost both with one layer of booster. Provincial would be my recommendation for much better QC, but commercial is fine if you are on a budget.

 

[ZFT]

Beginner just buy an all wood blade like clipper or Korbel/primorac with double sided Hurricane 3 Neo. Make sure the FH is 39 degree and the BH is 37 degrees. Ideally you should boost both with one layer of booster. Provincial would be my recommendation for much better QC, but commercial is fine if you are on a budget.

I think this only applies if the beginner is getting regular coaching and aiming for advanced level and above.

Even with Neo tuning, I can imagine it would be very frustrating from a beginner’s perspective to consistently judge whether to hit harder into the sponge (most likely) or more brushing and ball holding from the topsheet.

And to regularly pull this off while being able to determine whether a mistake was in execution or if it was actually correct and simply a miss - let’s hope they don’t give up on the sport!

For someone with less lofty expectations, maybe just to intermediate level, a better path would be allwood blade as the general consensus and something along the lines of Vega, Rakza 7, Glayzer and Fastarc as they are easy to use, relatively cheap as well as being extremely durable.

Mantra Pro from AliExpress is becoming a very good option too.

I would add that around 6mm thickness is ideal (wouldn’t go lower than 5.5mm) and the handle should feel EXTRA comfortable while the callouses form where pressure is applied.

The handle is one of the things that get overlooked, don’t just pick a rounded flared or a squared straight just because a pro uses it.

I personally started with Anatomic but naturally ended up preferring Straight to fit into how I interpret the game as I got better.