OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Yasaka Rising Dragon – Black
Marketing Information
With the new rubber RISING DRAGON Yasaka has successfully combined not only the advantages of the Chinese sticky surface but also the renown qualities of speed and touch from Japanese rubber technology.
RISING DRAGON offers a new dimension to your game as it is easy to make both sharp chop returns and power drives with good control.

First Impressions

Upon first impressions it has a lot of similar characteristics of the Chinese style of rubbers e.g Hurricane or the older Friendship type of rubber. It has a dense and heavier feel to it and a very tacky top layer. Whilst I have never been a fan of these types of rubber, as to me they are heavy and lack a ‘ping’ off the bat compared to other rubbers, I was pleasantly surprised with this one.

Summary of Observations

The rubber has a lot more drive to it compared to other similar rubber types i.e. Hurricane or the older Friendship rubber that was around some time ago.

The rubber has a very tacky top sheet with a hard sponge however it is not too hard. The rubber enables you to loop the ball with power and has a nice even trajectory with a low throw arc when compared to the likes of Hurricane which tends to drop quickly.

Having said that, this rubber defiantly does not play like the new generation tensor rubbers and is slower however it does have more ‘ping’ to it than the other comparable rubbers on the market with similar characteristics. This is a positive as it enables you to play with spin and provides you with a good feel on the block.

The rubber, due to its tackiness, does enable you to generate high spin on the serves which is a positive however requires the player to ‘do the work’ rather than utilising the rubber and blade properties of a highly tuned blade (ie. Tensor rubbers and carbon blade).

I would say the rubber is not as tacky as other Chinese rubbers styles however with the sponge it provides more speed to create heavy spin balls and pushes. Insofar as pace, I suggest it is medium fast.

This rubber reminds me of a time where some players (many years ago) would remove the top layer of the Friendship rubber and replace the sponge with a Japanese style sponge and re-glue. This suited players that liked to be able to generate spin from the tackiness yet have some more ‘ping’ to their rubber. Rising Dragon has those similar characteristics.

Recommendation
I would recommend this rubber for a player that likes the harder and denser sponge with a highly tacky top sheet that plays a little flatter and does not rely too heavily on the game that ‘steps’ away from the table and plays from mid-range.

It would suit a player that likes to play with high levels of spin that plays close to the table and looks for the opportunity to play a little flatter i.e. smash.

Thanks for the review Langersx2

Yes my finding were similar...great for spin on serves and good spin allround, but it lacks the catapult of Tensor or similar tensioned Japanese rubbers. Since this rubber is actually made in China, that's probably to be expected. People that are used to Chinese rubber will probably like it though, as the speed is very good compared to most Chinese rubbers.

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