Hi, thank you for a quick response. Some of those rubbers you've mentioned indicated teh H and S for Hard and soft but what about some of the rubbers like Nittaku Fastarc G-1 and many of them doesn't say anything about hardness/soft, how can you tell whether it is hard/soft? Thanks
A rubber's hardness is relative, what can be considered as hard or soft? The G1 is a medium hard rubber.
Disagree.As for some unique characteristics of the hard and soft sponge separately.
The soft sponges are usually easier to use. They don't require fast swings and movements to get great spin. However, they tend to "bottom out" easily, meaning they have a great limitation over the hard sponges. So, the softer ones are easier to use, but has more limited opportunities in terms of speed and spin. These are usually better for starter players with less experience.
The hard sponges are harder to use/activate, because they require faster movements. However, they don't bottom out easily and they are able to produce greater spin and speed over their soft mates with correct technique of course. You have more possibilities with harder sponges. This is better for experienced and developped players.
Just some interesting things to know.
The opinions are divided, someone says A and someone says B. Hard sponges are not good for them either then, as they don't have the appropriate movement to activate them enough. Then, what is better?
beginners do not "activate", they do not have these kind of shots yet. They are happy to be able to hit the incoming ball and return it back, hopefully over the net and on to the table. 😂
See, i told you, for every expert-opinion there are at least 1000 opposing opinion.
indeed durometer readings tell us very little. Even a no-spin ball hit with a flat paddle will show lots different results from sponge to sponge. We can even add Igor's "bouncy-pendle-meter" but still any figures so acquired will not give us parameters that could make our purchasing decisions easier.
