OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hello everyone!

Today I will be trying to give some insight on how I felt with the different types of Curl P1r. I am currently playing with a Donic Defplay Senso V3 (hollow handle) with Tenergy 05 (max sponge) and 1.0mm TSP curl p1r.

I have used p1r in 0x, .5mm, 1.0mm, and 1.5mm

First, I will start off with 0x. I used ox for about a month, and realized I absolutely hated it. I had horrible technique for 0x, and would pop balls up way too high, to which the opponent would just smash and win the point . Thats my story with ox, sorry for a short description haha. I would say the only good thing about 0x is the potential it has to slow down the ball. The reversal on P1r 0x is pretty low, so it tends to wobble in the air, making it uneasy for opponents to hit the ball correctly.

Next lets talk about 1.5mm
On my particular blade, this thick of a sponge was almost impossible for me to use. I used it for 3 days, and my game dropped so much, that I decided to rip it off and sell it for 10$. Yes, I would not recommend 1.5mm for anyone trying out long pips, and only for very controlled choppers who want to vary the hell out of their spin!

Now, for .5mm, and also 1.0mm.
I am also writing this because I hope to get some feedback as to what I should do. I have used .5mm for about 5-6 months, and love this thickness. It seems to do a lot well. good control, heavy backspins on my opponents loops, and is good for mid distance chops. HOWEVER, I bought a sheet of 1.0mm curl p1r, just to try it out. I noticed that it felt similar to the 1.5mm, but wayyyyy easier to control (1.5mm was practically impossible). However, I felt that 1.0mm was harder to control than .5mm. This might be because I havnt used the 1.0 for very long, and am more used to the .5mm. After playing with a very high rated player at my club, (~2100), he said that my chops were much much spinner with the 1.0mm sponge, which is seems pretty obvious, right? I was expecting them to be spinnier, so it wasnt a huge surprise to me. I could tell it was taking him a lot of effort to lift the ball over the net. The only problem I am having with the 1.0mm is dealing with faster looped, or even smash loops to my backhand side. I have much more trouble controlling them, like, way more trouble than with the .5mm. Once again, it might be because I have only used it for a week or so though. The 1.0mm seems to be easy to chop with when I get into a consistent topspin rally to my backhand, but when its anything fast, I struggle to control it. The only problem is getting into this slow topspin rally.

Does anyone have any tips? Obviously I can become a better player with the 1.0mm by training with it more, as it also has a higher skill cap (.5mm will probably bottom out?). Is it worth it to stick with this new 1.0mm, or should I go back to my .5mm and perfect it as much as I can? Thanks a ton!

Andrew
I look forward to all of your comments and will read them all very thoroughly!

I think there is plenty of potential to reach a very high level with 0.5mm. I'm sure you can improve your technique further to get more backspin from this thickness as well, and if it gives you a lot better control in other aspects of the game, I would stick with it.

Personally I tried both the 0.5 and 1.0mm, and did not find the difference that great.

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I found the difference significant, both between 0.5 and 1.0 & 1.0 and 1.5. The 1.0 gave more BS than the 0.5. The 1.5 has about the same BS than the 1.0, but better manipulation options.

I think it depends on your training intensity. If you train a lot, you'll feel at a certain moment you've reached the ceiling with the 0.5. Then it's time to switch over to the 1.0.

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There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on transitioning from a LP to a SP defender

I actually play with both currently, but use the 0.5mm as my primary rubber. I am trying to transition to 1.0mm, which is what my coach wants me to do within the year.

0.5mm has more passive reversal and is much more forgiving. I sail fewer balls off the table while chopping. Blocks are better in terms of garnering netted balls due to slight reversal. At my level, (lower), I get way more netted balls.

1.0mm is grippier and imparts more spin. Chops "add" more spin to the ball, but less passive reversal. Therefore, if your technique is not good, the underspin you send to your opponent isn't as good as the 0.5mm. Pushes are much "better" in that they are closer to inverted, but they are less deceptive (with 0.5mm, opponent pushes against a ball with less underspin causing a weak return). The spin variation is better, which is where the advanced chopper earns his rating. You get more netted balls when you chop hard with good spin, but can also vary the spin causing your opponent to send more balls off the table when they try to compensate for (what they think is) increased underspin.

As bogeyhunter told me once, he likes P-1R because he can chop a 9/10 strength chop, and the send back a 3/10 strength chop, and it's very difficult for people to judge the underspin and often times compensates incorrectly. Or flat out guesses. I can say that is the case for me. I just do it with far less skill than he does.

This is why I believe that I'll have a higher ceiling with 1.0mm, but the growing pains are evident. I have to use a loose grip, and make sure my footwork is on point! With the 0.5mm, It's a lot more forgiving for me.

I was sooo annoyed with my lack of control that I even went to Feint Long 3 to get the ball on the table. I loved playing with the rubber, but couldn't get the underspin I desired with my technique.

You'll hear this over and over again, it depends on your style, your technique, and your circumstances. Everyone's different. It's cliche but true. You probably already know this, but legitimitely want to pursue which rubber will serve you best for the long haul. Me too. Good luck!

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Used P1r 1.0 on a VKM blade for about a year. Was quite happy with that but after reading the interview with Masato Shiono here on OOAK i decided to try 0.5. Control wise I think 0.5 is better and makes it easier to keep chops low. Its particularly good when handling hard loops.

Regarding spin variation I think 1.0 is a bit better. This is most noticeable when varying spin on push vs push close to table. For varying spin when chopping against loop I feel 0.5 works well, but 1.0 has even more potential.

Spin reversal is better with 0.5. The difference is greatest when you only have time for a short stroke close to the table or mid distance. Hitting and blocking is quite similar, you have to lift a bit more with 0.5 but in return it gives you a flatter ball that may cause the opponent more problems. For service return 0.5 is more similar to OX making it easier to flip underspin and to do a surprise short and dead return.

Overall I'm happy with the change, but had I been better at spin variation and used it more actively I might prefer 1.0.

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Blade: Stiga Defensive Pro
Forehand: Tenergy 05 2.1
Backhand: Curl P1-R 1mm

Welcome to the forum, magnuseffect! Nice first post.

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There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on transitioning from a LP to a SP defender

My experience
P1-r 0.5 on the defplay has been my real developing rubber. P1 0.5 is very, very similar to an ox rubber in many aspects, because of the hard sponge, the flexible pips and expecially on the hard surface of defplay(with VKM for example it's a little different), but with some increased control (i mean the possibility to really work on the ball) due to the sponge. So it's quite spin insensitive and slow, so it it's easy to always keep the ball on the table and do very heavy chops (if they give you good spin). When pushing on the table you really bring the ball back almost always with the same motion producing a flat and fast push to put under pression the opponent; swipes are also pretty good (not very fast), chop blocks easy and heavy...
The limit of 0.5 p1, since it's so similar to an ox lp, is its ability to create and manipulate spin. When facing low rated/inexperienced players this results in easy balls to attack for you when you keep pushing the ball with lp, and a lot of mistakes when they try to loop vs your lp pushes, but if they are good they attack your lp pushes very easily and it's very difficult to produce spin variation(almost impossible to produce backspin after some superficial pip grip wears out), so you have to play your pushes with placement and speed (and good swipes and attacks if you can) and not spin variation: in fact, that's what you would do with most ox lps. So if you want to progress very far with this rubber you need to use it perfectly, always be aggressive, otherwise you MUST push with your inverted or the opponent can make a strong fast attack; and also, if the opponent attacks with few spin, your can't add it much.
That's why in the end i changed to p4 (and VKM, which has more dwell), because with it pushes can be varied more and i can impart my backspin on push and chops... much more difficult combination to use overall, but vs true loopers i improved my game much with it, and it also made me improve mi FH, because vs "not offensive" players i could rely less on lp shots...

I didn't play much with 1.0 p1, but i found it has enough dwell to produce backspin and variation (it couldn't be different, it's used by many choppers like wang xi, li kewei, CWX i think...). In fact, i think it's quite similar to p4 0.5 in this regard, but it's quite faster (0.5 p1 is faster itself than p4 0.5...).

So in the end, i think you should play with 0.5 until you feel you learned all the basics with lp very well (chop, push, swipes, chop blocks...) and you can "master it", and then change to 1.0 mm to increase your potential.
I started with 1.0 grippy lp's and i struggled to get the feelings for the shots... i really learned to use lps when i got p1 0.5 on the defplay

Hope it helps!

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My Paddle
Blade: Butterfly Defence III ST
FH: Baracuda 2.0 (red)
BH: Curl p1-r 1.5 (black)

In addition to placement/pace, you can vary spin somewhat on thin sponge LP returns by changing how much the pips bend (and thus amount of reversal) between blocks/swipes/chop-blocks.

The real issue for intermed players improving against quality topspinners is the long backspin serve to BH that can only be reversed to longish top that immediately gets attacked. Without significant variation like twiddling, an attacker can reliably put the opponent on def with this, where it suddenly gets harder to get away with sloppy footwork (or weakness in d at the table), etc. Then presumably it's better to use OX/0.5 for def closer up and 1.0 chopping at range.

Interesting to read this - I've been using 0.5 on my Waldner Senso for over a year now, and have thought about going up to a spinnier rubber. I find the 0.5 (or me!) to be pretty useless if I have to make a sudden BH kill or loop and don't have time to twiddle, though it's fantastic for chopping from mid or even long range.

Note also that Masato Shiono uses P-4 in 0.5mm for his chopping... and the P-4 has a much softer sponge, so it certainly shows you can go a LONG way with a 0.5mm sponge!

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If I remember correctly, Matsushita also used a Feint II 0,5mm sponge: the kawa version (a harder sponge than the ordinary Feint II sponge). It's certainly possible to go very far with such a thin sponge, although how thinner the sponge, the more defensive talent the player needs to have (e.g. agility).

_________________
There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on transitioning from a LP to a SP defender

RevanII, aside from the small increase in grip which is often mentioned, what else "a little different"? Thank you.

From the Masato interview it appears 0.5 is the "standard" in Japan. So its definitely a viable choice even at high levels

It produces less spin on pushes and less variation is possible but against players that are good against defense keeping the ball low and placement is more important than spin (unless you can chop like Chetchenine ). If 0.5 helps you do that I think its worth it and could be combined with more active twiddling, which can be very effective when receiving long serves or pushes.


Thanks Lorre, been lurking for too long...

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Blade: Stiga Defensive Pro
Forehand: Tenergy 05 2.1
Backhand: Curl P1-R 1mm

Defplay and VKM are quite different in feeling, VKM is soft and quite flexible with few vibration, defplay is hard and very flexible with much vibration. With the lp the most of the difference is made by the harder surface of defplay, that makes the pip work more as ox then with sponge, and VKM is much more dead (it dampens and keeps the ball very much) so the differences i found are:
1) every shot with the pip is faster with DP because of harder surface
2) with DP you have more "passive reversal" (which is not much anyway!)
3) with DP you have less spin generation and sensitivness
4) with DP the flex really catapults the ball when you swipe/"push aggressively" (i mean like CWX or sun jianfei...) so it's better there.
5) MOST IMPORTANT: With DP the throw angle of cuts and chops is quite lower, so you slice every ball much more vertically than with VKM, that's also because of the less dwell and spin sensitivity. In the end, with VKM you have to vary the racket angle much more according to spin: from DP to VKM it's like adding or softening the sponge in many ways... you have also to pay more attention when chopping vs low spin loops, because it's easier to put the ball into the net because of this sensitivness to spin and inclination.
6) Deadier/grippier feel of VKM helps you to dampen strong attacks and work on the ball, but if you are accustomed to faster blades this can be too slow for you (a month ago a ranked 40 player in italy tried to chop with my racket... he could chop everything with its timo boll off blade and acuda s1 turbo, it took almost 10 minutes for him to bring the ball back with some consistency with my paddle )


I also think with 0.5 sponge you can go a long distance (in fact you also can with ox...), but i think you need a combo with good enough grip/spin generation/dwell or you have to be a damn good twiddler, otherwise you become too predictable and you have to be a monster of defence to keep attacks on the table. I think 0.5 p1 could have enough grip on VKP but not on DP... but maybe it's just my tecnique that it is not good enough to produce the good variations with it...

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My Paddle
Blade: Butterfly Defence III ST
FH: Baracuda 2.0 (red)
BH: Curl p1-r 1.5 (black)

Thank you RevanII. I see most of that even with short pips 1.9.