OK. I get what you're saying now, and I definitely do see a lot of the same things here at my club. There are inverted players who hate long pips. I remember the first time I played against a long pip player. I lost in straight sets. Then I went home and studied every single piece of information about long pips that was available online. Next time I played, I did much better against that player. Overall, i've lost to a lot of long pip players, but I've also won a lot of my matches against long pip players.
I think it's silly to complain about a person's equipment, especially if its legal and allowed in the sport. There is ALWAYS going to be someone better than you. If you can't beat the long pip player, a more superior player would. and so on and so on. People need to focus on their own game. If you lose a match, reflect on what you did poorly, and work on that in practice. Complaining about others does nothing to improve your own standing in the game.
Practicing against LP and learning to play against them is probably what would cause you to improve the fastest. If you really actually wanted to improve, you would want to play vs LP as much as possible and you would look to find someone who uses LP who will train with you.As of now I am having so much trouble handling the existing LARC approved long-pips / short-pips and whatchamacallit pips rubber. I shudder to think how will I play againts those whatchamacallit aspecty-ratio thingy comes back to life again. I'll probably quit and play pickle-ball instead. Me no liek no aspecterky-ratio thingamagik stuff. Keep it Simple!
Players who really know how to use LP and how different depth of contact changes what they do with the ball, it is an art form.
For someone playing against that, the real thing is to take it as a learning experience and learn how to watch the ball better and read the spin better. Anyone who is complaining about what someone else is using as equipment is not realizing they need to learn to improve and watch the ball better and read the spin from the trajectory and arc of the ball.
One of the fundamental requirements of long pips as compared to short pips is that they must be flexible to some level. . Why ? Because the ability for the pips to bend to retain and store the energy of the incoming (top) spin and then release it like a sling shot makes long pips the ONLY rubber capable of spin "amplification". But most newbies who are obsessed with Hou Yingchao etc. do not understand this basic difference between long and short pips, among many other critical factors.
So from the traditional old school classical standpoint, short pips are short & stiff & long pips are long(er) and flexible. But there are about 7 or 8 sake of marketing (gimmicks).. These players do not understand the fundamental limitations set by ITTF which render short pips worthless if you expect the spin or versatility of long pips.
hi James
I was one of the early users of LP back in late 70 early 80’s. I am afraid i disagree with what you state as the reason for strong spin with LP. in fact we found that when the pimples bent back this created less spin except in the case of power shots where the long pips would be momentarily squashed against the blade, making for more friction. When attackers made a light roll shot against LP this would just make for a junk return. On the other hand if attacker made a big spin drive then he would get strong chop back (his own spin). To avoid the heavy chop, attacker must roll lightly untill the chance to make a winner. In the push vs push situation when the inverted pushes with heavy chop the bendy lps return this as slight topspin (again his own spin)even though the racket angle is open.
as far as the modern medium and short pips are concerned there have been some very interesting variation. Attack8 as used by fukuhara has a a relatively short wide pimple of very soft high friction rubber which enables subtle variation of speed and spin by a skilled exponent. Its certainly not gimmicky
If i was to change from my standard sp, attack8 is something I would consider