OOAK Table Tennis Forum

After another break from the game (due to work commitments preventing me from playing) I returned with much enthusiasm. Something that struck me more so this time was the number of beginner level type players using some very fast rigs very poorly. By fast I mean carbon blades with some model of "tensor" rubber (I think I have this term right but I am happy to be corrected).

A number of examples come to mind but one that I did tried unsuccessfully to talk down in speed in favour of technique and control is a work colleague that has the TT bug and can't get enough of it. He's had 5 to 6 bats with various covering but all were successively faster, within the period of 12 months. We are now at some form of carbon blade with Tenergy on both sides. He's never had any coaching or played in any formal competitions thus his strokes are ugly, abbreviated and marginal shots where speed (and any associated power) is completely dependent on the equipment. His game works nicely against another beginner but when we play socially (and I am only an intermediate player), his favoured abbreviated bh drive stops working. All I am doing is pushing harder so there is more backspin or pushing faster with no spin and inviting him to play his shot into the net or off the end of the table.

I lent him my Stiga Allround with Mark V to have a hit with and his response was that it was too slow, really ??!! Apparently when he was a district cricketer in his early days, he preferred speed and speed was something that never worried him (I am paraphrasing here). WTF has cricket got in common with TT? And doesn't it make sense that when the guy using the "slow" Stiga Allround with Mark V is banging loops past that you are not getting to then the problem is not in the equipment?

I had another L Plater wonder why my slow setup seemed so much faster than his super duper carbon setup. His thoughts were that he should get something faster to keep up. Again WTF??

When I was learning to play I was told to get a setup that was controlled (which incidentally was Stiga Allround with Mark V 1 mm FH and 1 mm BH) and learn to play the shots.

Has the game or equipment changed so much? In my reading here there seems to be significant opinions that Mark V is indeed a slow rubber and I understand that factors of speed, spin and control are all relative to the skill of the person wielding the "weapon". I guess I must be seeing this game through an old man's eyes now. I value control over speed.

I would be interested in other board members' thoughts.

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Looking for a new club. Something that hits as long as a 1 Wood but as easy to use as a 7 Iron cavity back.

With you all the way 'control over speed' when I was younger and now when getting on a bit.