OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I play TT for about the 1 year.
I often see opinions that chinese hard, tacky rubbers are no good for BH, unless you have strong, developed swing. Is this really a thing? Atm my setup is DHS Hurricane 8-80 37, 2.1mm on FH and Sriver El 1.9 on BH.
My backhand is getting better and better and due to slow blade (Butterfly Progress) I have to make full swing to attack with my BH and I don't want to buy any faster tensor BH rubber yet, because I noticed slower rubber forces me to make a full swing and it develops my technique.

Isn't it the same with chinese harder rubbers? That it forces you to make a proper, full swing if you want to make a proper shot? And if so, why people say "do not use it on BH unless you're advanced player"?

My DHS 37 is fast to me when I use it on BH, but 37 degrees is soft sponge, so I can't really judge how would I play with harder BH.
So isn't it that if I would get hard, or semihard rubber for my next BH rubber (semihard, Hurricane 3 Neo Commercial 41 is available in my local shop), I would improve faster?
I would like to know, because I love my DHS on FH and I would like to try tacky hard rubber on both sides.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "improve". Note that all the players on the Chinese National Team use a "slow Chinese rubber" (boosted to heck, but still a slow, Chinese rubber - and very specifically a slow Chinese rubber for a reason) on the forehand and almost invariably Tenergy 05 (some claim that they use a harder sponge, but we don't know for sure) on the backhand/RPB side. This is because they need the extra speed/power on the backhand. These pepople are at the top of the sport, they don't have problems controlling the ball no matter what rubber they have on which side. Us enthusiasts? Well, some of us are better than the others, using a faster rubber on the backhand might be good IF YOU CAN CONTROL IT. For a great many of us, though, we have pretty bad backhands - we need control much more than we need power. For this reason a slower, hard Chinese rubber on the backhand might be "better".

Mind you - soft sponge doesn't mean slower. It's actually faster, especially at slow racket speeds. You CAN get more power out of hard sponge but you have to really put a lot of power into the stroke. It's actually slower for the slow shots - blocks, pushes, etc. Which is why the Chinese use it on their forehands.

Iskandar

Yes that's the thing. They've already developed a proper technique with slower rubbers so they can use these fast tensor rubbers to get the maximum speed possible.
But before doing so, you should learn to stroke properly on something slower like Bfly Rozena/Sriver... aaand why don't we throw also chinese hard rubber to this "backhand rubbers to develop technique" category? Doesn't it give you the same effect - forces you to use, full proper strokes, otherwise the ball won't get any speed? + you get the tackiness which is fun!

I see a lot of opinions about slower tensor rubbers that "they are good for beginners because of good control and they force you to use proper stroking technique"
but ironically, chinese hard rubbers "should not be used on backhand unless you're advanced, because they're slow without strong, developed strokes".

P.S. I base my thoughts only on theory and opinions, because I had no opportunity to test hard chinese rubber out irl.

That's correct, I just weirdly constructed my sentence

Yes, as I said, it depends. By going to a slow Chinese rubber on the backhand you give up the potential to produce stupendous amounts of power on the backhand. On the other hand - why would you worry about not being able to produce extremely fast shots when even moderately fast shots miss the end of the table? And at the level you play, and the level of your opponents, do you really need to produce extremely fast shots to win points? Or would you win more points by pushing deep, spinny backspin to various parts of the table?

Iskandar

Well I don't As long as I don't play in any league I don't care if I win or lose, but I do care if I improve or not. That's why I was thinking of getting semihard tacky rubber on bh...
I think I'm just gonna buy it and test it on my own.

DHS offers hardness 42 at maximum. You need Giant Dragon products at 47. You can look up those from GD Merchandise Catalogue being delivered on request.

Be happy.

Yeah, they're relatively inexpensive after all. No reason not to give it a shot.

Iskandar

Well not really, I just found "DHS Skyline 2 NEO" in my online local shop with 47.5 hardness

The hardness values for Chinese brands are often weird and not comparable. Butterfly also use their own scale. It's all pretty confusing.

Ignore Igor. He likes to muddy the waters and pretend there are issues where there are none. Chinese rubbers in general are hard, the numbers they use are not the same as the ones you find on Tensors or Japanese sheets. If you want to try a "hard" Chinese rubber pretty much everything from 729 on up qualifies as "hard".

Iskandar

You think 2.1mm DHS Hurricane III NEO 41 on both sides FH and BH would be good?
It will be harder rubbers that I currently have for sure, but I am worried that they will be too fast for me... I know Hurricane 3 wouldn't but these are Hurricane 3 NEO...

They’re not too fast. Usually better to use softer rubber on weaker side. The thing about Chinese rubbers, especially Hurricane, they’re sensitive to spin. Which is both plus and minus. I usually don’t recommend 41 degree Hurricane for people who never used Hurricane before. I usually recommend the softer they can get and eased into playing harder ones if they like it and want more from the rubber.

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Hurricane, in general, is slow. The Neo versions might be a little faster, but I found that the usual Hurricane 3 in the retail packaging was too slow for me. Even boosted. So I don't see any reason you shouldn't want to try it. And it's not exactly expensive - just get a sheet, stick it on and see, it's not going to break the bank even if you end up not liking it. The same goes for a lot of other Chinese sheets - don't forget, especially, to try at least 2 or 3 of the many $5 sheets out there - 729, Yinhe 9000, Reactor Corbor (this is sort of like a faster Hurricane 3, being very tacky), Kokutaku 868... If you want something a little softer there's Palio CJ8000. Just stay away from Reactor Corbor..

Iskandar

It is not a good idea to try always make full swings nowadays as modern male table tennis is quicker and closer to the table then ever before. I think that playing wrong equipment will not improve but worsen technique.

Need a crazy bombarda? Try 1.5 mm sponge and get the blade to work to the full. Wooden veneers is the best bouncy material, you know.