OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Oh, I see.
I am definitely out of touch.

I am thinking of different setup to help me with my backhand for time being...

Option 1.
FH - 729 Super FX
BH - Gambler Reflectoid

Option 2.
FH - 729 Super FX
BH - Butterfly Flextra

Thoughts?

BTW ...checked what my opponents are playing with...
One have Tenergy 05 on FH and some other rubber on BH
another have Sriver on both sides

Cheers

Just another update...

It appears that I have completed my transition eventually.
It took me many moons (estimate 3-4 months), but it might only be because I am too old, do not have access to coaches or clubs and generally lack talent.
Hopefully it will take shorter time for you.

However now I am able to topspin loop FH and FH and return spinny serves.

To round up the challenges, when some one transitions from Kmart racket to custom rackets:
1. Tacky rubber
Tacky rubber can produce much better spin but it is also very sensitive to incoming spins.
That little ball contains lots of it's kinetic energy in its spin that needs to be controlled.
All it needs is to be touched by your racket to run wild.
So you need to be very assertive with that little thing, that is the only way to tame that energy.
You've got to impart your own spin.

2. Racket face angle
I am not sure whether this one would be a challenge for everyone, but it was for me.

I came from big tennis and there is no ground stroke in big tennis that can be executed with closed racket face.
The ball will just go into the net or the ground.
In TT the racket face can be and often needs to be closed.
That took a fair bit of drill time to come to terms with.
Hopefully it won't hurt my game in lawn tennis.

So currently I have 729 super FX on both FH and BH side and it doesn't bother me, but...
looking back I wouldn't recommend to start with it.

I would follow the recommendations for first custom bat on these forum in Equipment section.
I think those make sense.

I have a lot of friends who have "adopted" lawn tennis ground strokes with great amount of success. They are so good that any underspin ball or topspin ball is just too easy for them to smash it and put away a winner

The way they can do this is becos of a very strong and supple wrist .... big FH swing and open to completely closed racket angle while just smacking the ball. Note that they tend to be very quick on their feet to put enough distance to hit the ball ... and have very good passive defense block returns.

They use All+ wood blades and H3Neo or MarkV rubbers

Also if you watch "Nadal" vs "Djokovic" playing TT for fun ... there is a video somewhere ... it looks interesting ... you can play a "spin" and "power" TT game even if you are a tennis player.

The biggest difficulty is going to be handling side-spin and very heavy top-spins ... everything else is just movement and ability to read and receive.

_________________
__________________________________________________________
Backup C-pen blades:

• TSP Black Balsa 7.0 :
  1. FH/BH-YRakza9/XOmegaVT
  2. FH/BH-TSP Spectol/Yinhe Qing OX
• 729 Bomb C-P : FH/BH-DHS H2 Orig/DHS H3 Orig
• TSP Versal :
  1. FH/BH-XOmegaVA/YJupiter-II
  2. FH/BH-*blank*

Fun blades:

• Yasaka Battle Balsa(ST) : FH/BH- DHS TG2Neo/Gewo HypeXT 47
• Dr. Neubauer
  High Technology
  Cypress-Carbon(ST)
  ***************************** : FH/BH-YRakza7/YRakza7

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Yes, my FH is now way stronger, particularly from far from the table, than the folks I am playing against with decades of experience.
Mind you, we all probably suck