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I tried out the Kokutaku 868 China sponge 1.5 mm (black) on a Joola Toni Hold White Spot (a very slow defensive blade, just a notch faster than the slowest defensive blade, the Tibhar COS3 Defence, and a fair bit stiffer, with a harder feel), and a Double Fish 1615 OX on the other side. I play a mostly classic defensive game with this setup, chopping away from the table (log distance), coming in not too often for the quick attack. My usual pattern of play is to draw topspin from my opponent by feeding him deep backspin or topspin and then go back and chop him down with the long pips. So far I used a Friendship Super soft 1.5 mm, before that the Double Happiness PF4-1 Defence 1.6 mm, both very effective, so I will compare the Kokutaku to those two rubbers.
First of all, the quality of this rubber is fine. It comes (at least in my package) with a thin protective foil attached to the rubber, plus a separate thick protective sheet which has the Kokutaku logo on it. I like that; covering the rubber after use again with the thin sticky foil you find on most rubbers is rather difficult, so the separate sheet really comes in handy.
The rubber itself is very tacky, or sticky. The sponge is soft (my estimate would be 36-37 degrees, a bit harder than the Friendship Supersoft sponge, a fair bit softer than the DHS PF4-1 Def), of a very fine quality, and it is about medium fast; when you bounce a ball on the rubber with the protective sheet still on, the ball bounces a couple of times; but when you do this with the sheet off, it bounces low, once, and drops dead – the rubber is that sticky.
I glued it to the Joola frame with ordinary contact glue (Andro Free Glue) and had a go with it the following day.
It proved to be a very versatile rubber, more so than the Friendship or the DHS. Whatever stroke you play with it, it imparts rotation to the ball very well and very quickly.
Blocking is very easy with it. On a fast incoming ball a passive block with a firm wrist results in a medium fast ball which can be placed very well; a passive block with a relaxed wrist will kill almost all of the speed and you can put the ball just behind the net. With an active block you can very quickly generate a good amount of topspin or backspin. Flipping with a lot of topspin is also easy, because the ball won’t go long. Pushing is comfortable; pushes can be kept low without problem and it is not hard to generate lots of backspin. All in all this provides for a lot of options in service-return. For a defensive style this is excellent, because you can draw topspin from your opponent very easily in various ways. The downside is that the rubber, because of its tackiness, is very sensitive to incoming spin, so you have to know what you are doing and read the service right. In my opinion, this makes the rubber less well suited for beginners; they would be better off with the Friendship.
Looping-attacking with the rubber is interesting. If you use a rather flat stroke and make contact above the backside-centre, towards the top-centre of the ball, keeping the ball in the foam, the rubber is not slow at all; it is fast enough to get the ball out of reach for your opponent if you play close to the table. If you make contact more towards the backside-centre, or below that, and your stroke is more upward, bringing the wood of the frame more into play, the rubber is slow. At least, this was the case on my frame. I guess it will be like this on every slow frame, but on a fast frame both types of stroke probably will result in a fast ball. I could loop slow or medium fast at will from close to the table, and because the rubber imparts spin so quickly, I also had no problem in coming in from a distance and loop-attack a nasty slow backspin ball. I couldn’t do this so easily with either the Friendship (it produced too little spin on a hasty stroke) or the DHS (balls would bounce off too quickly to get enough control). Looping from some distance is ineffective, however, because the ball will not be fast enough to be dangerous. Lobbing is easy, but in modern play ineffective too. On the other hand, you can bother your opponent by hitting a flat sidespin ball from some distance; it is easy to generate lots of sidespin with the rubber. With the Friendship or DHS, it wasn’t, because the Friendship didn’t generate enough spin (for able opponents, that is) and the DHS is too hard to make this kind of stroke easy to execute; with the Kokutaku, the ball will stay in the foam and just suck up all the spin you can manage...
Chopping isn’t easy with the Kokutaku, because the rubber is so very tacky, but I happen to like the type of chop where you try to get as much under the ball as you can (instead of the type where you graze mostly the backside), and for this the rubber is excellent. I could keep the chops low and deep without much difficulty (although I had to watch the sidespin my opponent put on his topspin balls!), and they were so slow that I found myself chopping closer to the table than usual, which is a good thing too, because the 40 mm ball will lose its spin rather quickly when travelling too far. But chopping medium high balls close to the table, with a more or less horizontal stroke and lots of wrist, proved to be the most dangerous for the opponent (in a game I wouldn’t use the rubber for chopping from a distance anyway; I would do that with the LP). The Kokutaku produced significantly more backspin than the Friendship and was easier to use than the DHS (balls tend to bounce off of it because the sponge is so firm).
I am not sure how long the rubber will retain its qualities. It certainly attracts dust and dirt, so a good cleaner seems to be needed here. The protective sheet will also help.
I have decided I am going to use the Kokutaku in competition. It will probably mean I will stay a bit closer to the table than I have been used to, which in turn will make coming in for a quick attack more easy, so my game may become more aggressive (or “modern”). I look forward to that...
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Without opponent, no match.
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