Need advise for my backhand rubber (Currently Rakza Z)

My setup: Yinhe Pro 01 (happy as of yet but looking to switch to Viscaria or similar soon), FH: H3 Neo Blue Provincial 40 2.15 boosted, BH: Rakza Z max thickness. I am a spin-based player and like to put on either topspin or backspin on everything. Compared to my loops and pushes, I struggle a bit with Flat drives and Flat hits on both BH and FH.

Age:36. My Forehand loops against drives and against backspin are pretty up to speed. I started playing a year ago with LP on BH and I switched to inverted from OX LP on BH around 5 or 6 months ago for want of a more all-round game and more fun in general. I play 6 to 8 hours a week. I casually compete in regional tournaments but table-tennis is not and will not be my profession. I, however want to excel at the sport and I am ok with putting hours to achieve the same.

Put on my old Rasanter R48 (My first FH rubber) first on BH and then switched to Rakza Z (The one I used for a short time before making the switch to Chinese rubber on my FH) and I am pretty satisfied with the Rubber on my BH. I am comfortable with near the table pushing and when needed, long distance lobbing or chopping and can add above average levels of backspin to the ball. I am still struggling with drives (against heavy spin serves), Flicks and topspins on my BH in matches. I can do those in training to an average extent, however I struggle replicating the same against a well-matched opponent.

Of course, I am looking to improve those aspects of my BH. However, some senior members at my club (who are also sort of my informal coaches) are advising me to replace my BH with a SP rubber. Their reasoning is that if I am almost always defending on my BH, do it with a SP. The options I am considering for my BH are:

1. Continue with Rakza Z and work on my offensive skills for my BH. I like to think I can be a dual-wing looper in 18 to 30 months of time :-D
2. Switch to a Rakza Z of a smaller thickness like 1.8 or 1.9 or something for more control. Never tried thinner sponges with inverted and I do not know what difference it will exactly make.
3. Try SP as per my seniors' suggestion. Dr. Neubauer Killer 1.8 is what they are suggesting. Not very keen for this option but if this is what it takes to take my game to the next level against better opponents, I can put in the hours with this new Setup.
4. Go full chinese with unboosted (slightly soft) tacky rubber like commercial H3 38 or 39 or H8-80 on my BH if it could increase control and improve my short game while I learn to flick and loop on my BH.

I there is someone among you or who has experienced a similar confusion in your or a friend or a student's TT journey and has overcome it, kindly share your inputs. Thanks to everyone for reading this very long post of mine. Cheers!!
 
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I would try Rakza Z in the 2.0mm or Rakza 7 soft in the 2.0mm. I find both really easy to use but I prefer the 7soft as it just that little bit more forgiving in terms of defensive play and service return but still has enough speed and spin to attack with.
 
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My setup: Yinhe Pro 01 (happy as of yet but looking to switch to Viscaria or similar soon), FH: H3 Neo Blue Provincial 40 2.15 boosted, BH: Rakza Z max thickness. I am a spin-based player and like to put on either topspin or backspin on everything. Compared to my loops and pushes, I struggle a bit with Flat drives and Flat hits on both BH and FH.

Age:36. My Forehand loops against drives and against backspin are pretty up to speed. I started playing a year ago with LP on BH and I switched to inverted from OX LP on BH around 5 or 6 months ago for want of a more all-round game and more fun in general. I play 6 to 8 hours a week. I casually compete in regional tournaments but table-tennis is not and will not be my profession. I, however want to excel at the sport and I am ok with putting hours to achieve the same.

Put on my old Rasanter R48 (My first FH rubber) first on BH and then switched to Rakza Z (The one I used for a short time before making the switch to Chinese rubber on my FH) and I am pretty satisfied with the Rubber on my BH. I am comfortable with near the table pushing and when needed, long distance lobbing or chopping and can add above average levels of backspin to the ball. I am still struggling with drives (against heavy spin serves), Flicks and topspins on my BH in matches. I can do those in training to an average extent, however I struggle replicating the same against a well-matched opponent.

Of course, I am looking to improve those aspects of my BH. However, some senior members at my club (who are also sort of my informal coaches) are advising me to replace my BH with a SP rubber. Their reasoning is that if I am almost always defending on my BH, do it with a SP. The options I am considering for my BH are:

1. Continue with Rakza Z and work on my offensive skills for my BH. I like to think I can be a dual-wing looper in 18 to 30 months of time :-D
2. Switch to a Rakza Z of a smaller thickness like 1.8 or 1.9 or something for more control. Never tried thinner sponges with inverted and I do not know what difference it will exactly make.
3. Try SP as per my seniors' suggestion. Dr. Neubauer Killer 1.8 is what they are suggesting. Not very keen for this option but if this is what it takes to take my game to the next level against better opponents, I can put in the hours with this new Setup.
4. Go full chinese with unboosted (slightly soft) tacky rubber like commercial H3 38 or 39 or H8-80 on my BH if it could increase control and improve my short game while I learn to flick and loop on my BH.

I there is someone among you or who has experienced a similar confusion in your or a friend or a student's TT journey and has overcome it, kindly share your inputs. Thanks to everyone for reading this very long post of mine. Cheers!!
I recommend boosted Tronix ZGR or one of the ZGX's. Very good for bh, with enough speed, spin, and tackiness.
 
I haven’t got why you are unhappy with rakza z max?
2.0 will be slower than current, so needs more power or better technique for decent quality.
I am doing fine with my defensive game but was contemplating if a thinner sponge like Rakza Z 2.0 or a deader sponge like an unboosted H3 neo (softer than my FH) might give me more confidence to execute flicks and loops with my BH. Generating more power is not a problem for me. In need of more confidence to generate said power.
 
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There won’t be much difference with 2.0, yet h3 is another story.
But as I understand, you are fine with short game like pushes etc, not happy with lifting backspin (topspin against vs heavy bs).
So you need bit more softer and faster rubber, so you can lift up more easier.
Not slower than rakza z max.

Or better BH technique (sorry to say) closing racket, better timing, brushing to forward etc.

Rakza z is one of the ultimate confidence rubber for BH.

So my advice would be go with option 1,
You can make faster progress even with couple private training.
 
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There won’t be much difference with 2.0, yet h3 is another story.
But as I understand, you are fine with short game like pushes etc, not happy with lifting backspin (topspin against vs heavy bs).
So you need bit more softer and faster rubber, so you can lift up more easier.
Not slower than rakza z max.

Or better BH technique (sorry to say) closing racket, better timing, brushing to forward etc.

Rakza z is one of the ultimate confidence rubber for BH.

So my advice would be go with option 1,
You can make faster progress even with couple private training.
Thanks. This helps.
 
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Do you guys really on a level where short game matter that much? Even advanced amateurs mostly push long but with quality and contesting your ability to react and loop in deferent parts of the table. Ability to handle next loop and build your game after that is more important on a amateur level than short game imho
 
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Yes, I'd agree with Aizen. I've tried Rakza Z max on BH (it's my FH rubber) and for me it is too hard for BH. My BH is far better with softer sponge and I've used Rakza 7, Rakza X and Rakza X soft - all with more success than Rakza Z.
I would recommend Rakza 7 or X soft and starting again with your BH technique. It won't take too long (especially with a bit of coaching) but I'd expect you'll see huge improvements. Can then move to something harder and even eventually get to where you have the technique, control and power to used Rakza Z to it's full on BH.
That'd be my approach anyway
 
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I have not seen a vid of you playing a match... and just from your description of yourself, your game, and HOW you described it, I am over 95% certain that this equipment or that equipment is not going to make a material difference in your match outcomes right away or even a few years later...

MAYBE... just MAYBE some equipment that makes it easier to do the fundamental offensive and "middle" shots (those non-attacking shots like serve receive or a push)... just maybe something that makes it easy to do those (with less speed) MIGHT help your development so you feel the ball better and sooner in your development.

Very likely it (changing your rubber or blade) isn't gunna magically make you one or ten levels better.

I am very certain that IF i do see a vid of you in a match, that I could point out what is contributing to the lost points and it sure isn't gunna be from the equipment (unless you playing with a petrified wood blade and 80 sponge rubbers) Would bet sum serious lunch overwhelming majority cause of lost points would be along the lines of ...


... did not read ball well enough
... used false data when deciding what to do
... ended up in a bad position without much leverage or timing and is trying an aggressive shot
... misread spin and vector/position of ball
... struck ball well outside effective zone

from how you wrote your posts, the chances of the above being more applicable to your situation are pretty high... and certainly not fixable with a random rubber or blade recommendation from anyone who has not seen you, does not know you, or even knows what they are saying.

Why would I say this the way I did?

Anyone in TT who is a good player for some years would know these things already and not articulate the way you did.
You can go back along the history of this forum and such threads are made 5x to 12x a month... and go through them... and in nearly every one of them, the OPs, when their play is revealed by vid, show their basic fundamentals of the sport are accounting for their lost points and not equipment.... and that even the "best" equipment in such hands would not make their match play improve dramatically or slightly.
 
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As for how this very question (more suitable BH rubber for me) applied to me at a 2000+ tourney level is a former national player had piles and piles of possible rubbers...

... I tried them one by one for a few hundred shots vs several different kinds of balls I get in a rally.


... my friend observed me and noted which rubber was used, and the landing percentage and quality (pace spin depth) of shots I made using such and such rubber...

... he gathered a massive amount of data

Data showed I played SLIGHTLY better with two types of rubber... old school softer sponged unboosted rubbers like Morristo 2000 or Aurus Soft... and modern soft dynamic rubbers like T05FX or Razka 7...

So I listened to the data and to this day I use Aurus Soft.

I ended up doing the same thing with FH... when I was 2000+ level, it turned out I could play way better with T05FX on FH (and jumped 200 points using it)... and later, when my depth of impact got better, medium sponged modern dynamic rubbers (and couple of old-school ones (like Aurus) worked well for me.

So, if you want to be real scientific about it, try them all out like Pokemon... but if your level is low, it won't optimize you much, since many other things would be killing you.
 
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Do you guys really on a level where short game matter that much? Even advanced amateurs mostly push long but with quality and contesting your ability to react and loop in deferent parts of the table. Ability to handle next loop and build your game after that is more important on a amateur level than short game imho
Seeing videos of different nations amateurs I come to the conclusion that the general style of amateur play does vary very much from country to country. While many countries have amateurs basically only do drives and long balls, in Germany it is very different. Here up to about 1400 TTR you will find many players having odd material like long pips, antispin or very worn (like 10 year old classic rubbers) that will fight tooth and nail not to play long balls.
This is the "hard school" that you have to go through, because it is a very different challenge. It is basically a totally different game.
You have taught yourself, that if you do a long fast serve, that it will come back long and you will be able to attack. I played a guy whose rubber was so old and worn that the place where you would rest your thumb on the rubber was not having any rubber at all. From all the years of him holding his thumb above the handle the rubber has totally vanished. i could play a very fast and long ball and he would simply block it resulting in a ball that would drop 10 cm behind the net. I would always need to step in to reach those balls. On the other side he had long pips that were also at least 10 years old (with a few pimples broken already). Of course out of courtesy nobody says anything to that old dude.

In germany's lowest leages you will find many types of games but even leagues like 4 leages above the lowest ones, you will see many matches where it is basically a push battle because everybody is appearently afraid to loop a ball.

if this is your main opponent, of course you better get a rubber that is good in the short game, because if you are not very proficient to break the short game cycle, you will be at a disadvantage.
very few people are able to flick short strong underspin pushes in these lower leagues.
 
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