OOAK Table Tennis Forum

What kind of rackets (blade + rubbers) does todays top players use?
Pls also specify what kind of style of player they are. (Def-All-Off)

Important to learn from the best!

Have you tried doing a search for topics about players equipment on this forum. You could also check the video section for players, often what a player uses is shown at the top of the thread.

Failing that, I sometimes refer to this site

http://tabletennis-reference.com/player/ranking

If you select a player it will link to a page showing lots of information about them, including equipment used. I don't know how accurate it is but I find it interesting when looking for trends in equipment usage.

Perfect link, thanks! Liked that one.

Tried to search, but probably used the wrong search string.

Simply put, the most popular style of play at top levels is full on offensive. 3rd and 5th ball attacks etc.

The equipment used for that style are inverted rubbers on both sides. As far as I know, the Chinese players tend to use fast tensor style rubbers on their backhand with Chinese tacky rubbers for forehand. Top European players, on the other hand, will usually use tensor style rubbers on both sides.

Here is a 140-page long thread on the subject. I actually have been following it for a couple of years. It includes questions about all kinds of players. Most of the top players are shakehand two wing offensive players but not all, and you can find out here also what the defenders use, penholders, top women etc. etc. I suspect this is the most authoritative compendium on the subject on English language websites.

http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_po ... 139#964887

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Butterfly Viscaria Black tag
2.2 mm Nexy Karis M on FH and BH

Wow. Lots of historical players, even.

I am amused that "Matsushita" is written as "Matsush*ta" - is it due to censorware?

Iskandar

Yep. It just won't allow anything scatological, even in a name.

Here is another interesting source of information on the topic:

https://www.tabletennisdaily.co.uk/foru ... ships-2016

What I like about this one is that it provides a bit more detailed info because the original source was probably in racket control at a major European tournament.

There is also an ongoing mystery about what some players are using because people surmise that the handle caps may be from a sponsoring company, whereas the underlying blade me be from an other. (People have discussed this a lot for Fan Zhendong among others). This may be partly because different monitors display color differently, photo quality etc. And of course, some people like conspiracy theories, and on some occasions the conspiracies are real.

Another interesting thing is that some of the blades the pros use appear to be more subtly modified from what comes from thh factory, for example professionally sealed by some magician in Belgium, or the handle is modified slightly to make it asymmetrical or a little bigger.

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Butterfly Viscaria Black tag
2.2 mm Nexy Karis M on FH and BH

yeap matsushita's name got buthered lmao in past forum posts

I think someone posted something very much like this about a year ago. An earlier list dating back to 2015 or 2014, I think, also from the European Championships. Like that list, there seems to be a total domination by Tenergy 05 and Butterfly blades. Very different from what the Chinese use.

Yeah, I remember certain people claiming that so-and-so was using a Stiga Clipper with a grafted-on handle because they could see the red stripes on the side of the blade. Ignoring that there are other blades with red stripes (such as the infamous Yinhe 06B.. ). Custom-manufactured blades are, I think, not uncommon, there's the part of that interview with the Avalox founder that mentions that some of the blades they custom-made for pros were ultra-heavy by request (and apparently sometimes these get loose and end up for sale, and people get the wrong impression about the blades).

Iskandar

In the case of FZD, there were definitely some people who thought he was using a Viscaria with Stiga Infinity handle. I personally was not convinced by the pictures people were showing.

I am however pretty sure that the blades Timo Boll use have a about a 0.5 -1 mm extra layer between the handle cap and the blade on one side, which would make the handle slightly asymmetrical. Somebody on one of the two links I posted, I forgot which one, showed a photo of his blade that made that pretty clear. At one point he was having his blades modified for him by a guy in Belgium, or so it is said by people more in the know than me.

Chinese male players all use heavily boosted Chinese rubbers on their forehands, and often use Tenergy on their BH. The rubber they use on their FH seems to be fairly custom made for each of them to be the exact hardness and thickness they like. Word on the street is that the booster they use is a heavily guarded secret. The blades they use vary a lot. Some Stiga, some Butterfly, some DHS. Ma Lin used Yasaka.

Lot of Tenergy use by pros, for sure.

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Butterfly Viscaria Black tag
2.2 mm Nexy Karis M on FH and BH

I think many of the women use H3 also, and if the men are boosting so are the women. As to the booster, I suspect there's more than one, they probably have several formulae that have been developed over several versions, and some players might favor some formulations over others. If you believe these guys, that is.. :

http://www.prott.vip/Product-List.aspx?producttype=56

If this really is on the up-and-up Haifu apparently makes at least some of the booster, which I think is strange, given the strong connection between the Chinese National Team and DHS. If DHS makes one they're not selling it! Wendy also claims their booster is "National" (take that with a HUGE grain of salt..). This website also claims to have "personal rubber" made for various players (the existence of which means the white-envelope "National Rubber" is just a DHS mass-market product). What REALLY intrigues me is their "Pro" versions of Tenergy and Bryce Speed:

http://www.prott.vip/Product-List.aspx?producttype=52

Apparently made for the Chinese team - there's even a special version for Xu Xin. They've even got a special JAPANESE National Team version (out of stock at the moment).

That is, if you actually buy any of this...

Iskandar

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Butterfly Viscaria Black tag
2.2 mm Nexy Karis M on FH and BH