Is modern table tennis changing rubber technology trends?

[Yurifi]

so, a little bit of food for thought. I got this question while reading one of the threads on this forum, where statement was made by @WingTT :

It's hard to generalise rubbers based on generation but the trend is toward harder rubbers. The only advantage older rubbers have is maybe price and familiarity if you're used to a particular rubber and want to stick to it. There is a good reason why harder rubbers are getting more popular, it's because they really do work better with the plastic ball.

when I started playing table tennis, there was not much choice. everyone basically had Butterfly Sriver rubbers, better players had Yasaka Mark V. later on speed-glue joined the chat, Sriver FX came into play for me, Mark V came into play ... and we used that speed-glue for one purpose only - to get softer rubbers ... then Ekrips came, the original Bryce (not the hyperspeed version like today), but speed-glue was important factor to the game. when I stopped playing, tensor rubbers came to play. Tenergy, Rakza ... soft rubbers. even though we already had one big change in game - matchplay was shortened into 11 point games and ball got bigger.

fast forward 10-15 years. no more celluloid. plastic ball. still same size (sort of) - DHS Hurricane. Butterfly Dignics 9c, Donic BlueGrip C1 ... all hard rubbers. most of top players are playing with hard rubber. even I went with the trend, tried BlueGrip C1, but went back to softer rubber. went to completely plasticball setup with the newest tech (at least on forehand and blade-wise, backhand was still soft) ... while I liked the Omega VII China Guang there was something missing and I started craving for softer rubber again.

I know I am not on international level, but I do play decent table tennis, still. when playing against younger players, who are either still competing or recently retired players, I can keep up with them, sometimes I even win. they are playing with harder setups, at least on forehand.

so, is the trend of harder rubber really just a hype? i.e., if you enter a match on the highest level with soft(ish) rubbers on your blade against the trendy hightech hard(er) rubbers, are you handicapped?

and to finish with - why is hard(er) rubber so much better for modern plastic ball?

 

[Tyce]

Right below national European levels, there is still a lot of Tenergy usage, as well as wood blades (Korbel for instance).
Those who are buying new blades though almost all switch to some form of carbon. Innerforce ZLC is incredibly popular here, I see them like 10x more than Viscaria.
Dignics is replacing Tenergy on the national level.
Both harder rubbers and carbon infused bats serve the purpose of carrying more power, in order to retain the possibility of hitting straight winners.
The plastic ball slows down much faster. This hit me most when I tried to slap-chop a let ball to someone the other side of the hall, and it just made it halfway. This stuff used to be effortless even when we got 40mm cell.

The result, you need to play with more impact. Harder rubbers back that up without bottoming out.
Are the super hard rubbers a hype for lower levels? Absolutely, just like nobody in the regionals had any business playing Tenergy when it came out. For top levels, it's a stayer though.

 

[NetProphet]

It seems you preferred to stick with what you are used to. And as you have been playing for so long and are of a certain age I'd guess that you use placement and accuracy as a more frequent weapon than outright speed.
I think the harder rubbers are preferable for people who want outright speed as a weapon for points so sponge like Dignics and Harder variants of Chinese rubbers are popular for this.
So I would say yes, it does seem to be a trend as you say, mostly among younger players and aggressive players who tend to copy what they see the pros doing and the harder sponge/harder rubber combination 'seems' to be the dominant choice, on the FH side anyway.
I say seems because although several of the biggest stars are Dignics converts it wouldn't surprise me if someone had the facts that show more of the top 64 still using Tenergy?? 🤷‍♂️
It be very interesting to know this actually 🤔
I reckon Tenergy and softer rubbers sponge combinations are the majority choice on BH but again, he great if someone had a list or numbers for this...

 

[Yurifi]

well ... I gave it a little bit of thought ... I played with some harder rubber, I played last 14 days with Xiom Omega VII China Guang. it is amazing rubber. when you are 100% on the ball. then you can exploit full potential of the rubber. but ... I play 2 to 3 times a week. it's a 2 hour session + recreational league, so ... not much playing. O7CG has this quality that it doesn't really bite you when you make mistakes in play, the ball still is playable, but it's more or less ... meh ... on the other hand, with softer rubbers (not all, of course), if you do mistake, it is still a good ball. it still can be nasty ball.

maybe that is just me and my preference for soft(er) rubber, but still - I believe that with hard(er) rubbers you have to play a lot. not to control it, but just to be able to extract the maximum that rubber has to offer.

of course, it also comes to blade + rubber combo, some blades just don't work with soft rubbers, some blades work with all rubbers and some work with hard rubbers only. had Axelo - you really don't wanna play with hard rubber there. you get nothing. I just switched Bluegrip C2 for S1 and the blade became a completely different animal. one of Palatinus OSP blades (it's a prototype I guess, not on the market yet, father arranged it for me) will not work with soft rubber. it just vibrates crazily and even though spin is there, the balls are flying like crazy. you put something like O7CG or Donic Bluegrip C2 or even C1 on it, and it's this amazing tamed topspin weapon waiting for you to destroy the balls.

 

[igorponger]

Tensor technology is known devised by Butterfly back in 1970s. It was then generally rejected with domestic players because of weird conduct and lack of control.

 

[Amayzde]

It all depends on your technique and way of striking the ball. If you have a more relaxed way of striking the ball, hard rubbers wont work for you. You need more exlposiveness to grab the ball properly with a harder rubber. So harder is not necessarely better, but a harder rubber has more speed and spin potential then a softer rubber, period. But you also need a better technique to get that potential from the rubber, its not gonna do it for you.


As for rubber trends. Right after the plastic ball got released, brands started to develop rubbers with harder sponges, but softer topsheets. So a 47° rubber today doesnt feel as hard as a 47°from 10-15 years ago. These rubbers were designed to increase ball speed and spin of the new ball without sacrificing much control.

A couple years later they started with Hybrid rubbers. These rubbers have even harder sponges, but they have sticky topsheets for improved grip. These rubbers are not as fast, but are more linear, better in passive play and very good for counter attacking close to the table.

Now most brands seem to develop some 'in between' rubbers. Less tacky then hybrids but still slightly sticky to remain the control in passive play and increased grip for counter attacking.


There is 1 thing you have to keep in mind though. We are not pro players! So we dont necessarely have to follow these trends if we dont like these type of rubbers. The game is very different on club level play. So we dont need these rubbers that are designed for counterattacking, because we are probably just better off blocking.

Also, pro players dont really play with the rubbers they sell in stores. Especially the pro players in the top 20 of the world get custom rubbers that are specificly finetuned for them. The Hybrid K3's that the Lebrun Brothers use are very different from the ones you can buy in the store. Yet they still put the K3 logo on to increase sales.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Back in the days, soft rubbers used to be European/Japanese mostly. Hard rubbers mostly in China

So to say Hard rubbers didn't exist during speed glue era isn't completely correct, but I assume the posters knowledge was limited to certain part of the world only.

Other than the ball/rule changes per such, the style of play of traditional European style has also changed to somewhat of a more Hybrid model - paying more attention to the first 3 or 5 balls - which was more a focus on Chinese styles.

So the way the game is played has changed greatly, and so has the need to more balanced rubbers/rubber technology.

I could actually provide a thesis like explanation on my view on this topic - it is actually quite important to how the game has evolved, with links to not only ball size or ball material, but the technical skills per se is actually all linked.
Of course, I have no time to type it out thoroughly, so this is just my basic post on the subject

 

[Tyce]

Putting it bluntly, historically Euro style is focused on closed angle brush contact and Chinese style on hit-then-spin open bat contact.
Using Chinese style with Euro rubber is possible but has a low margin of error, and you will bottom the rubber out easily and generate less spin.
However, Chinese style impact play is very effective with the current ball. It helps to minimise the speed loss whereas Euro style suffers.

For spin, I'm honestly not sure what the theoretical factors are. The ABS ball is stiffer theoretically, which should make it pop out of the rubber sooner. But it also would make it harder to give a good sling and make it spin. Maybe it also penetrates the rubber deeper through its stiffness? If the rubber then is not very catapulty, you get more time to add spin. Again, this would only be effective if you play with open bat, impact spin generation. Pure brushy contact will basically just be less effective.

So to allow more of an impact style, Euro rubber needed the sponge to back it up and prevent bottoming. If you use more impact, the harder sponge will help. If you don't, it's not going to be useful. For very brushy contact softer rubber and grippy surface will remain your best choice. But your game will be slower and less spinny.

 

[thisisit]

harder sponges can store(and thus release) more energy.

as an activity is practiced more, people develop better explanations about how things work that results in better coaching practices, etc.

compared to players from the past, current players are just better players, they are faster, stronger, use better kinetic chains when executing shots and because of this, they can better use equipment that is harder to play with.