OOAK Table Tennis Forum

As you can see from my signature, I have been trying various blade/rubber combinations over the past 4+ years since I started playing. I'm a 69 YO player. I started with the Donic and Yasaka blades and various Chinese rubbers, like Reflectoid, 4 Kings and Rapid Soft. I had a lot of trouble with control with these rubbers, so I went to various pips rubbers. Control was better, but the lack of spin didn't allow me to easily return low hard shots on the table, unless I just blocked. Some people here recommended that I try better inverted rubber, but I was leery to Pay $35+ for something that I wouldn't like. Of course, it isn't like I haven't spent much more than that trying various combinations.

A few days ago one of the players at the senior center bought new rackets for he and his wife. It was a better Yasaka premade - Yasaka Mark V blade with Mark V 2.0 rubbers. I played with it for a while and played better than I ever had right from the start. I was able to hit a lot of winners with relatively few errors. I had been playing with my Yasaka Sweden Classic with Yasaka Original rubber for a few days, so it was inverted to inverted.

I decided to order that racket that night, but discovered that it is a factory made racket, not sealed and assembled with high strength glue. I didn't want a racket that I couldn't change rubbers, so I looked for a relatively economical alternative. I decided on this assembled racket at a savings from American Table Tennis through megaspin.

https://www.megaspin.net/store/default. ... -gat-ex-pr

Yasaka Extra with Mark V 2.0 rubbers. It should arrive in 2 days, so I'm hoping that I play at least as good with it as I did with the premade racket. Both blade and rubbers are normally highly recommended to even beginners, so I'm looking forward to playing with it.

Anyone think that I made a bad choice? I'm probably only about a 700 rated player based on playing against rated players. Hopefully I can improve that if I can consistently play as well as I did yesterday with the Mark V.

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Yasaka Sweden Classic flared Yasaka Mark V 2.0 Yasaka Mark V 2.0 155 gm - My primary.
Yasaka Extra flared Yasaka Original Extra 1.5 Yasaka Original Extra 1.5 154 gm - My alternate.
Yasaka Sweden Classic anatomic CTT National Pogo OX Yasaka A-1.2 A-1 129 gm - Wife's primary.
Donic Appelgren Allplay V1 flared Yasaka A-1.2 A-1 Yasaka A-1.2 A-1 123 gm - Wife's alternate.

Excellent choice SRP. I recommended the same combination to a pupil of mine and he is doing well with it.

Sounds a nice set up. If you find its not quite right, just stick the rubbers on the Allplay or Sweden Classic, should be just as good.

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Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm ,BH Victas Triple Regular 2.0mm

The extra is a good blade, its a little bit stiff a little bit soft a little bit hard and a little bit flexible. Its also a little bit fast. It does nothing wrong.

Just for Cobalts reference the extra is faster than the allplay or Sweden classic. Couple speeds above those.

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Donic defplay senso
Haifu whale soft (grips-euro)
Nittaku pimplemini 1.0mm

I'm expecting that, but I'm thinking it might be close to the Dima Sawtec in speed. In any case, it should be slower than the Mark V blade that I tried with Mark V rubber. I don't loop, but I was able to easily hit hard with topspin, chop, block and chop block with relatively few errors. It seemed to work well either at the table or a few feet back. I'm expecting the Extra to have more control than the Mark V that I tried.

Thanks for the comments guys. I'll play with the Sweden Classic with Original/Original XHG at the local table tennis club on Thursday night and hopefully with the new racket at the senior center on Friday.

I've mostly or completely given up on pips. While I get more points using pips (SP, MP or LP) against the 1000-1500 players, I do better against players near or slightly higher than my level with the Sweden Classic with inverted. Since it doesn't really matter if I get 1 or 4 points against a 1500 player I really need to use whatever allows me to play better against players in my range. If I just stick to one setup then I should even get more points against the better players in a few months. Note to self: Keep telling yourself that.

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Yasaka Sweden Classic flared Yasaka Mark V 2.0 Yasaka Mark V 2.0 155 gm - My primary.
Yasaka Extra flared Yasaka Original Extra 1.5 Yasaka Original Extra 1.5 154 gm - My alternate.
Yasaka Sweden Classic anatomic CTT National Pogo OX Yasaka A-1.2 A-1 129 gm - Wife's primary.
Donic Appelgren Allplay V1 flared Yasaka A-1.2 A-1 Yasaka A-1.2 A-1 123 gm - Wife's alternate.

Interesting lineup of bats, looks like plenty of hardbats!

I think the racket you've ordered is just fine, it's just that it's about three times the price I would have paid for a racket! To be honest, a large range of rackets would have worked, this one's nicely middle-of-the-road. My recommendation would be something Chinese - a Yinhe N-11 (about $12 including postage) and a couple of sheets of, say, 729 XL or Kokutaku 868.

Iskandar

Yep, was aware of that, was just thinking that level 700 doesn't sound that high, not sure, but at my level any of those 3 blades would be fine so was in a round about way just saying save your money and just use one of them. Having said that, despite having an Allplay and an Evolution, I've also looked at getting a Yasaka Extra.................and a Xiom Allround S, and a Walder Carbon Senso, and a Donic Persson Power AR and a Tibhar Texo....

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Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm ,BH Victas Triple Regular 2.0mm

Yasaka extra with Mark V is most common custom racket for new player. That is what you should have use 4 years ago. I think it is going to work for you. Also you can put Mark V (1.8 mm) on Appelgren or Sweden classic and you'll have racket with even more control (but I think you will not need to do that). So enjoy...

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Blade: Yinhe (Galaxy) W-6 (flared)
FH: Friendship Cream Transcend (2.0 mm)
BH: Friendship Cream Transcend (2.0 mm)

I considered just getting Mark V rubbers for the Allplay, but that would have cost me $76. I paid $96 for the Extra and rubbers, so the blade was only $20 extra and I can still put the Mark V rubbers on the Allplay or Sweden Classic if I find the Extra too fast. The other thing about the Allplay is that my wife likes that blade and might want to go back to it instead of the OS Sweeper. I don't want to take the A-1.2 off of it so that she can switch to it if she wants to.

After I ordered the Extra I did wonder if I should have ordered it with 1.8 sponge instead of 2.0. I'm not sure how much of a difference that 0.2mm makes, so it's probably not a big deal. I think that the Extra is stiffer than the Allplay, while not being too hard. I've had better success blocking with the stiffer Sawtec than the Sweden Classic when using the same rubbers, so I'm hoping that the Extra will be the best compromise for my style of play.

Obi-wan, I'm sure that you are so right. I would have probably been over 1000 by now if I had started with something like an Allplay or Extra with Mark V 4 years ago. However, I've only started to play against players above 800 or so until about 4 months ago. The first 3 years was just my wife and I playing at home until we discovered that one of the senior centers had table tennis. I just started going to the local club about 2 months ago.

I'm sure that there is a Chinese blade and rubber that would be just as good at much lower cost, but I'm finished with Chinese blades and rubbers for now. We tried the 729 Bomb, LKT instinct and Gambler Black Whirlwind when we started and none of those play nearly as good for me as the Sweden Classic, Allplay or Sawtec. The YinHe W-6 might have been a good choice, but that would have cost more than the Yasaka Extra.

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Yasaka Sweden Classic flared Yasaka Mark V 2.0 Yasaka Mark V 2.0 155 gm - My primary.
Yasaka Extra flared Yasaka Original Extra 1.5 Yasaka Original Extra 1.5 154 gm - My alternate.
Yasaka Sweden Classic anatomic CTT National Pogo OX Yasaka A-1.2 A-1 129 gm - Wife's primary.
Donic Appelgren Allplay V1 flared Yasaka A-1.2 A-1 Yasaka A-1.2 A-1 123 gm - Wife's alternate.

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Blade: Yinhe (Galaxy) W-6 (flared)
FH: Friendship Cream Transcend (2.0 mm)
BH: Friendship Cream Transcend (2.0 mm)

I remember you saying about you and your wife playing at the rec centre so good to see you are now playing at a club.

One thing I've noticed is that all your current set-ups are rather light. The Extra and Mark V you will find will be significantly heavier, possibly around the 175gram mark which is still only a medium weight set-up. You won't notice a lot of difference between 1.8 and 2.0m rubber however the 1.8 will be a few grams lighter.

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Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm ,BH Victas Triple Regular 2.0mm

Actually - looking at these again - they're ALL hardbats, except for #3 and #5. #3 has OX long pips on one side. Yeah, the new racket will be heavier and will play very differently. Hardbat strokes are fundamentally different compared to inverted strokes, and this especially applies to the most bread-and-butter of all basic strokes, the topspin drive. It's possible to generate quite a bit of pace with a hardbat, but the racket face is a lot more open and the stroke upwards than with inverted. Inverted rubber will naturally react a great deal more to incoming spin, so you'll need to practice this part of the game.

I thought I was the lowest-rated poster here, I guess not! 700 level is quite low, I'm pretty sure you can, with some guidance, easily break 1000. Getting beyond 1400, maybe - but I've never been able to myself!

Iskandar

None of the hardbat rackets were hardbat until about 4 or 5 months ago when I decided to try pips, either hardbat or sponge. Before that all of the blades had inverted rubber on them, or at least mostly inverted. I had everything from 1.0 to 2.2 sponge rubbers. The only one that hasn't changed in 3 or 4 years is the Sweden Classic with Original XHG and Original on it. It was originally my wife's racket and all of mine were in the 150-165 gm range. When my wife had shoulder problems early this year, I made up the Allplay and Sweeper with OX pips to keep the weight down for her and she has used one or the other since then. She tried the Sweden Classic again, but her shoulder started to hurt again. Oh, the problems of being 69 years old. P.S. don't tell her I said that. I think part of my problem with OX pips is still trying to use inverted strokes, so now my strokes are between proper inverted and pips. Except for the Yasaka Original rubbers, all of the ones I tried were tacky rubbers and very sensitive to spin. I should have tried something like Mark V long ago.

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Yasaka Sweden Classic flared Yasaka Mark V 2.0 Yasaka Mark V 2.0 155 gm - My primary.
Yasaka Extra flared Yasaka Original Extra 1.5 Yasaka Original Extra 1.5 154 gm - My alternate.
Yasaka Sweden Classic anatomic CTT National Pogo OX Yasaka A-1.2 A-1 129 gm - Wife's primary.
Donic Appelgren Allplay V1 flared Yasaka A-1.2 A-1 Yasaka A-1.2 A-1 123 gm - Wife's alternate.

I think I'd be a contender for that one too. I've tried looking for some videos of players with low ratings to get some idea of how good they are however unable to find anything so if anyone knows of some videos and they ratings of the players either in the forum member section or you tube, it would be great.

Sorry to hijack the post.

SeniorRecplayer, hopefully you adjust quickly to the double inverted and as you say the rubber may actually compliment your existing style and you improve at a rapid rate.

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Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm ,BH Victas Triple Regular 2.0mm

Other than some very old books (check out your County Library!) the best reference for hardbat strokes would probably be old videos on YouTube. Find videos of Marty Reisman for the topspin drive. The backswing is very short, the followthrough above the head. Back then defensive play was dominant, if you decide to continue with hardbat it might be worth learning to play defence. Of course, these days, you'd be defending against sponge, so it won't be as effective. But back when I was playing tournaments one of the top players in Indiana was one Harry Deschamps, who was a hardbat chopper, and was rated over 2000. Not only was he capable of beating most of the sponge-using players in the state, he must've been over 70 at the time!

Iskandar