OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hello,
I am hoping to get advise for a new setup. I am an intermediate player (about ~1500 in the US) and have been back playing weekly after a longer break.

I feel with my current setup, i picked material, which isn't good for my level of play.

My current setup is a Donic Burn OFF with a Omega Vega Pro and a Acuda S2. i believe both are max.

I am a straight forward style attacking/looper, with low/average spin, with relatively good ability to hit hard/precise .

My biggest weakness is controlling the spin of my opponents. often balls fly off the table when i return spiny serves, and i can't deal with slow/heavy topspin, blocking/or countering.

i believe my current setup doesn't work for me and is way too fast for my abilities.
So i was looking at a potential new setup: Yasaka Sweden Extra, Paired with Xiom Vega Europe DF 1.8mm on both sides.

My hope is that this combination would give me still a relatively fast setup, but with much more control/touch for handling incoming spin.
and in general that this is a sensible combination of blade/rubber. I am not sure on what to look for when pairing rubber with a blade

Any advise welcome

Best regards,

Sebastian

Sounds more like a technique issue...

The Yasaka Sweden Extra, is indeed a lovely All+ blade, for advanced beginners, and offers a good balance between control and speed. At around $30 odd USD, It's also priced well...

I haven't played with the DF variant of the Vega Europe, but based on extensive play with the regular Vega Europe (XVE), I can tell you that it's a pretty good rubber, all round... However, I feel it can be on the bouncier side (Atleast, I feel so).. Also, do bear in the mind that it's a tensor rubber (sort-of at the entry+ level of tensors)... This coupled with a flexi'ish blade such as the Sweden Extra (Or my defplay), and a soft/thinner 1.8 sponge, COULD also make the ball fly off the table...

If I were in your place, I'd get non-tensor rubbers..Perhaps, one of them cheaper non/less-tacky Chinese rubbers... If you tend to hit flatter, and with less spin, then even a medium hard (39°-41°) could work... ummm... LKT Pro XP (or one of the several variants), Palio CJ8000 (39°-41° variants), or even the Friendship Focus 3 Snipe (Kind of like the XVE, but with less bounce)...

Anyway, I'd focus more on my serve-receive, top-spin blocking/countering technique, more.

A very fast hard blade with fairly hard tensors in max no wonder you have a few problems. So yes a tamer blade would clearly help tame things a bit, even if it just the Off- version of your same blade

Vega df is very soft especially compared to Vega pro so you really need to go at least 2mm to avoid bottoming out on hard drives and loops.

Having recently switched from Vega Asia df which is also bouncy to Tibhar Aurus Select 1.9mm I can fully recommend this rubber as it is very linear and controlled and suits slightly flexible blades. Also not too spin sensitive and medium hardness so precise in short game where I struggled with Asia df

Thank you both for your advise. As a follow-up, I ended getting the yasaka sweden extra, and the 2.0 vega europe DF and 1.9 tibhar Aurus Select for the backhand.
I have to say i didn't like it on the sweden extra blade. i lost lots of speed and had a hard time getting spin onto the ball. Also backhand blocking was very unsatifiying as in dull, i couldn't place the block well ( e.g. short block against a hard drive). I felt like the extra control with that combination was not working well for me.

I played one session with it, and the next day, I glued the new rubbers onto my old Donic Burn Off blade and i like it a lot better. I have much better control compared to my old setup, ok spin, can precisely block, and yet still have enough speed in harder shots. All in all i am very happy with it.

I will try some harder/chinese rubbers for the Yasaka blade as suggested by ootbs

cheers,

Sebastian

Get one of these...

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/SANWEI- ... 74001.html

There's a discount for the next few days, too! Eminently controllable racket, great feel. The only drawback is the 3 week wait...

I don't suggest going for thinner sponge. Not being able to return spinny (not spiny ) serves is normal, learning to read spin and learning how to deal with it is a HUGE part of table tennis, and thinner sponge isn't going to help.

Iskandar

Sebastian if you now much happier with your Donic Burn off blade with the new rubbers then I would suggest forgetting about trying the much slower Sweden extra blade with hard rubbers unless you just want to have fun experimenting and the rubbers are cheap.

If you want a second set up perhaps with a bit more control and spin, then maybe better to sell the Sweden Extra and buy the Donic Burn off- which is supposed to offer noticeably more control, spin and feel than your off blade. You could then by also varying the rubbers have two similar set ups, one optimised for control and spin and one for max speed depending who/where you area playing..

I don't think using a different second setup is a very good idea. You have to be accustomed to your equipment. And there is no such thing as too slow concerning equipment - before using a fast blade or rubbers first get used to hitting harder - you'll generate much more spin this way. My advice: ALL blade and low catapult rubbers with not too thick a sponge ~1,5-2,0mm. Any of the new rubbers with decreased tensor effect like Vega Intro would fit the description, as well as any classical rubber like Mark V, too.

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- style: modern defense -

I agree with 0x556c69