Only against robot, I’m liking it more and more each time I use it. In fact just ordered another sheet!!!
i have 1.9mm thickness sponge, so may be a little slower, and slightly more control than the 2.1mm.
good spin on BH serves, but because the sponge is (for me) very bouncy and the top sheet ‘slightly’ tacky the energy is still very efficiently transferred to the ball. So a very light touch is required.
09C does have many gears, but at very low speed touch shots and for short, and I mean very short serves, (2nd and 3rd bounce before the ball reaches 1/2 way into the opponent’s side of the table) then care and touch are needed.
for more usual short and half long knuckle breaker serves, long and fast serves the rubber preforms really well, high spin, good control and fast when needed.
pushing - early hard push very good, Softer push (see above) variation of spin when pushing, has been difficult to assess as there’s not enough space in my garage to watch the ball path and resulting spin past the end of the table (what I have noticed is that I can still hear the ball spinning in the collection tray, especially when playing a push with some side spin on it) I don’t have good enough technique when trying to play a ‘ghost’ push so can’t comment on that, I haven’t been able to push and stop the ball within 2 bounces.
But my feeling is that the amount of spin imparted can be controlled.
This rubber is really good for the faster attacking pushes.
backhand passive block, very good, active block very good, (robot topspin is high with faster speeds)
BH topspin against backspin very good, for my limited ability, Backhand flick (against mediocre robot serve) very good, my ability level for this shot is improving. In general though against backspin, it performs well. (When playing against the robots backspin directly onto my side of the table, the robot produces what I class as very high backspin, similar to playing a very spinny FH topspin to a LP rubber or very good chopper and getting all the spin back) so I feel that a better player with good backhand technique will produce some really high class flicks and returns against backspin.
BH top spin v top spin, BH loop, nice, nicer, very fast spin loaded shots can be produced.
BH drive - very good, fast and good control, precision needed with flat hits, but these are good as well, not a shot I play much though, prefer to spin!!
Chopping - I’ve played chops against topspin, and the rubber is capable of reasonable chop shots, but the space behind the table is only about 5 feet (1.5m ish) so it’s difficult to really assess properly, I have a good chopping technique (but rarely used these days) and was still able to produce a low spinny chop on about 50% of the shots, which I feel is good considering how fast the ball was coming at me when only 4ft(1.2m ish) behind the table and trying to play a chop!!!!
Passive shots / reaction to incoming spin, still reacts to incoming spin fairly highly so a passive shot using the opponents spin and trying to throw it back to them needs care.
Because i haven’t been able to play in a real match or training situation against another person, my PERSONAL assessment could well change slightly.
please remember this is PERSONAL assessment and all reviews are dependant on playing level and ability.
for reference I play local league English level in the middle divisions of the league. So not considered high standard. But like a lot of people I have trained and been coached, and once we all get through this COVID-19 outbreak and things return to somewhat normal conditions I will be taking the official coaching badges, I also help out with coaching sessions run by other coaches , mainly because I’m willing !!!! But also because my general technique is pretty good.
All in all 09C is a fantastic BH rubber, great spin , great speed, great control,
