OOAK Table Tennis Forum

This is a review on Chopping with BTY Innerforce AL.

Why?
Although advertised as an attacking blade, this blade has quite unique properties when chopping with pips and inverted. In 2014, a famous chopper now named Sato Hitomi, used a blade which appeared to have BTY Innerforce AL blade to have great spin reversal and low balls when chopping.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9WIs-MEWEbY

The review, chopping with FL2 on backhand:

This blade is a very dead blade when chopping. When putting on a sheet of Feint Long 2, and chopping, it seems as if you have a okay Margin for error but definitely not super safe! This is because, the ball dips when forming a chopping motion from up to down, so sometimes it cuts short onto the table when you don’t expect it. Rather, if you focus on less arm action and more wrist action when chopping, you will have a higher success rate in getting balls back onto the table.

There is also little to no arc when having a chopping motion when your arm goes up to down. Because the blade makes it so that your chops are a straight line, you have to chop right after the high point. If you chop when the ball dips too much then dip, even if you chop underneath the ball (as opposed to behind), you will have a hard time generating momentum foreword. So, timing is key, right after the high point.

Reversal is pretty decent and deception with this blade is pretty good. Reversal is higher than normal because although it is a dead but kind of flexy blade, the blade has harder properties than most chopping blades that are rather mushy - like Donic Defplay. Deception is high because all balls you return have no arc, so as an opponent you have no chance to read the what the spin is based on the arc and dip of the ball.

Chopping with forehand :

Using a sheet on Globe 999 2.0 sponge and Hurricane Neo 2.15 sponge, what I can say is that the arc still is very straight. To some degree, the deadness and straight arc in this racket makes it kind of hard to form forehand chops. There feels as if you need really good timing from the start of your head coming down, to allow a perfect line for the ball to land onto the table. If the ball dips too much again, it will give you a hard time to get the ball back onto the table. Because of the no arc, when chopping, I find it best to chop with it similar to pips, right after the high point.

This is not apparent in other chopping blades like Donic Defplay, Alligator, and Matsushita Pro models where you can chop/scoop underneath the ball so you can have a nice arc (when you can’t get behind the ball).

Using a softer sponge rubber feels as if it gives you some dwell time before allowing the ball to go the straight arc.

However you need good timing, if you do not chop with enough brushing motion consistently, the ball will suddenly pop up (when chopping against spin loops), so it’s definitely not a forgiving forehand chopping blade.