I have the same problem,
How do you decide what type of racket to buy for children ?
Should forehand rubbers be same as backhand rubber ?
Some players tell me I should buy bat with smooth rubber one side and a pimpled rubber on other so they can understand the differeces right away from the beginning.
Some people tell me I should buy a racket smooth rubber both sides.
I don't undertand how these people decide this.
Thanks
Deciding the right equipment for kids is a common query.
In my experience everyone (players, coaches, clubs, influencers etc) has their own opinions when it comes to beginner's equipment, and really there is no 'one perfect' way to do it. All the recommendations you list above have some merit to them. These recommendations all typically come from personal experience of the individual more than anything else. They are just useful, but ultimately limited personal perspectives.
Below (for whatever they're worth) are my thoughts.
With equipment in general, there really is no 'perfect' anything - there is only ever what happens to work best for each individual.
A certain amount of experimentation with different equipment and playing styles is usually necessary if you're serious about playing... But that's only once you decide you're serious about it -- for kids, it's all about making play as fun as possible, whilst making sure their equipment gives them opportunities to improve, and is of *sufficient* quality for them to learn quickly and compete well with their peers. If they grow to love the game, and want to get better quality equipment, they typically aren't shy about it, and will let you know one way or another 🙂🙂
(NB: Note that above word sufficient... You really don't need the best equipment, or the most expensive to start with -- you just need something that they can really enjoy using, and has enough scope for growth in their game. Any further experimentation they will conduct on their own, when they are ready - buying anything too pricy before then, in the hope they will then be motivated to play more, is often just wasted money. Having fun comes first, genuine passion and personal commitment usually come later).
A good place to start your kids is with an ALL (ie: all-round speed) all-wood blade. These tend to be slower and softer than carbon fiber blades (aka composite blades), and are therefore easier to manage for a child who has no real sense of playing touch yet.) They are cheap to buy, easy to control, and there's thousands of models out there that will do a reasonable job.
If you're seeking a specific blade recommendation, for a kid, I usually recommend classic All-wood blades like the Donic Appelgren (countless other equally good examples exist, the Appelgren was just the very first one to pop into my head). Generally speaking, most classic all-wood blades are light, have a good speed range, plenty of control, allow huge scope for improvement, and are well-suited to the all-round, slightly slower rubbers that kids will probably start out with (be they pips out or inverted).
Watch the handle size, and the bare blade weight though. Kids have small hands, and adult sized handles can sometimes get in the way of their enjoyment and improvement, while heavy blades can be frustrating -- what's light to you and I is often heavy to them (another reason to stay away from premium rubbers at first). A lighter blade also gives them more scope when upgrading rubbers later on. Most fast rubbers now are on the heavy side frankly, and are getting heavier. A lighter blade helps their game when they have poor muscle tone, allows them to compete better, and let's them stick with their first blade for a little longer through upgrading to heavier faster rubbers (and sticking with one blade for a long time at first really helps build consistency in their game!)
With something like an Appelgren, you can easily and safely sand the handle down to the size of your kids hand, and it won't affect the blade's performance hugely. You can also cheaply replace the blade completely if you stuff up the sanding, or once they've outgrown the kid-sized handle 😂😂 I wouldn't recommend trying this with an expensive composite blade though -- carbon dust is nasty stuff, and these blades often have epoxy or formaldehyde-based glues between the various ply layers. You do NOT want to breath that crap in, nor have the dust hanging around your house.
With beginner rubbers, IMO control comes first, followed by spin production & negation. Inverted rubbers both sides is fine, as are combination bats (inverted one side, pips out the other). Having one SLIGHTLY faster side is USUALLY okay, as is having both sides the same speed, and/or using the same rubber both sides.
HOWEVER -- The three big things that DON'T usually work well for a beginner or kid are:
**Pips out both sides**
They need to learn to create spin, and negate spin, in order to control the ball. Most pips out rubbers don't create much spin -- they're basically designed to negate it. Playing pips out both sides encourages beginners to block and flat-hit a lot. This works fine at beginner to intermediate level, but in most cases tends to fall flat at the highest levels. Not learning to spin the ball early can stifle their development, as they'll learn bad habits which are really tough to break later on. The vast majority of the best players out there (regardless of the country, competition, playing level or playing style) I note consistently create loads of spin at *some* point in their game -- most typically make it a heavy feature of their playing style, and at time of writing, I can't think of a single player who reached a top thirty world ranking using pips out both sides. You can't play away from the table very well at all without creating spin, and nobody retains the reaction times of a 18 year old forever. Sooner or later, you'll start moving away from the table to stay in the point, and that's when you need to access your spin production most of all.
(EDIT: As for Taiwan & India starting kids with combination bats, this may be a partial response to China's current competition dominance. Chinese tacky rubbers are the spinniest of all, and are heavily favored by the CTTT and the Chinese coaching system. Negating spin is far easier with pips out, so perhaps this trend is part of a larger tactical shift at national coaching level. Don't worry about it too much... Negating incoming spin and retaining control is what matters, and you can achieve this with *almost any* rubber given enough practice. Pips out, anti rubbers etc just facilitate this process at the cost of diminished spin potential on one wing).
2: **Using Fast Rubbers Or Blades**
Fast rubbers for beginners also encourage bad habits, as they usually end up modifying their strokes to accommodate the extra speed. They tend to miss the table more often, have a diminished sense of touch, and develop lazy attacking shots as they let the bat do more of the work during offence. All these playing habits will need to be corrected at some point if they are going to improve and compete, so it's best they be avoided completely. You avoid fast (OFF) blades at first for kids for all the exact same reasons.
3: **Two speed set-ups**
A small speed difference between both sides of a blade (if playing shake hand or two-sided penhold) is okay, but try to avoid having a large speed difference. Kids and other beginners typically have no sense of touch, and bad or inconsistent technique - sometimes for years at a time. Big speed differences between two sides of a blade can exacerbate these problems. Having big speed differences and no sense of touch means you're constantly adjusting to and trying to accommodate the speed changes. Kids will then often start avoiding whichever side if the blade they are having most trouble managing, which can then lead to them favoring one wing over another. Yes, you can reach the highest levels of the game being a one-wing looper (eg forehand heavy penhold) but currently at least there are fewer of them featuring at the uppermost levels of the game. Two-wing players are currently dominating everywhere, and I personally can't see that changing in a hurry. Teach kids to have a FH and BH game from the very start, and they will thank you for it later.
As far as rubbers go, I don't play pips out, so can't really recommend any. For a beginner inverted rubber, again I tend to recommend either the classics, or slower mid-spinny models because virtually anyone can pick them up and start playing almost right away.
Once again there are a multitude to choose from here: Yasaka Mark V, Friendship 729 Focus 3 or Super FX, Butterfly Sriver or Flextra, Andro Good!, Loki Rxton 1 -- there are plenty of others besides these. Tacky rubbers can sometimes be a challenge for kids as they're very sensitive to incoming spin. That being said, I hear most Chinese coaches usually start kids with tacky rubbers right away, and the national CTTT seem to be doing reasonably okay on the whole of late, so who knows --maybe there's something to it. 🙂😂😜
Hope all this helps, and apologies for the essay-like answer, but this is a subject I actually care quite a bit about 🙂
The world needs lots more young people playing TT in my opinion (.. not because I make blades for a living 😂 but just because it's just such a wonderful sport to learn and play! ) Teaching kids ANY lifelong skillset is a sacred trust IMO, so I really wanted to give you some comprehensive advice as a starting point, that hopefully will get them on the path to playing and improving long term.
Good luck with it and all the best 🙂🙂
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