OOAK Table Tennis Forum

That must be one of Belgium's best long pippers then? Does he also give training? Maybe we should contact him to inspire him to set up something like Thalin has done. It's a gap in the market! What are the consequences of this 'war' in Diest?

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Maybe one day you should also give the Palio CK531A in OX a try. It is not a slow one, but I like it a lot, it chops great and the short game is quite controlled and disruptive. Attacking with it is rather difficult, but it is great in combination with a FH-looping game.

I have Pro XP in black which is also tacky, quite spin insensitive and... very good away from the table!



KLT Stranger is also a tacky LP. Did you try it? So Hans is saying that tacky rubbers outperform not-tacky ones? Why do so many top players use Tenergy then? Including some Chinese players like Ma Long I believe. Although most Chinese top players use indeed DHS Neo Hurricane (is that right?) which is tacky...

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Probably...
I think he gives training, but I don't know for sure. He gave advise to the guy I talked to.
I don't think there are any consequences of that "war": it's something inside the club. Maybe I put it too strongly as "war": the club exists of two parties: those who love LP play and those who hate it, like in all big clubs. Only the amount of LP lovers are a lot bigger than in other big clubs. As far as I know Diest is a pretty successful club.
We might contact him...

That scares me a little. I really enjoy being able to attack with my backhand as well as play disruptive. I'm getting the hang of it more and more.
About the Pro XP, I've been considering it as my next rubber, but I'm leaning more towards the Spin Lord Marder. Mainly because I really like the sort of "indie" vibe Spin Lord has, and my impression is that their quality is great. Next rubber will also be in 1.7-1.8 mm instead of 1.5. But that's all far in the future when my Pro XT is dead and buried



I didn't try the Stranger myself, no. I might eventually, but right now I'm happy with Dornenglanz
Sure, many Chinese players use rubbers like Tenergy with mechanical spin for their backhand, but look at the general trend. I haven't done exact research but I wouldn't be surprised if out of the 20 best at least 15 use tacky rubbers on at least one side. There's also a reason why the Chinese use tacky rubbers almost exclusively at lower levels (well, I can't be sure of this, but that seemed to be the tendency according to leatherback's blog). I'm getting more and more convinced that tackiness is the way to go, even if I still hold Mark V to be one of the best rubbers of all time.

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Blade: Japsko Allround+ | Forehand:LKT Pro XT 1.5 mm | Backhand: Lion Rebirth 0.6 mm
Blade: TSP Black Balsa 3.0 | Forehand:Friendship Fx Supersoft 1.8 mm | Backhand: SpinLord Agenda OX
Blade: Stiga Hypertech CR | Forehand: CTT National Strike 2.0 mm | Backhand: RITC 802 1.5 mm

Well, I've been EJing on my Fh the last couple of months myself and I also feel that the Chinese path is my way to go. Those rubbers give you a sensational feeling IMO. I've come back to my Tenergy64 the past week and I have no feeling in that rubber anymore whatsoever. Now I'm trying the Doc's Domination in 2.1: slightly tacky and in a bounce test I found it really slow on low impact and quite a bit faster on a high impact.

My experience with thicker sponges, chiefly National Strike and Red Diamond, has scared me off a great deal. Basically, right now, I don't see myself ever going beyond 1.8 mm. It just feels like I'm giving the sponge too much responsibility.

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Blade: Japsko Allround+ | Forehand:LKT Pro XT 1.5 mm | Backhand: Lion Rebirth 0.6 mm
Blade: TSP Black Balsa 3.0 | Forehand:Friendship Fx Supersoft 1.8 mm | Backhand: SpinLord Agenda OX
Blade: Stiga Hypertech CR | Forehand: CTT National Strike 2.0 mm | Backhand: RITC 802 1.5 mm

I also had that experience once, but now I have the opposite feeling: going too thin makes my setup a brick wall.

The biggest difference between Red Diamond and your XT is probably the softness of the sponge, the speed of the rubber and the tackiness. I have an XP (medium-tacky) with 2.2 soft sponge on a relatively hard blade and this works great as well for looping as for chopping.

I think you should primarly ask yourself the question whether you will use FH especially for looping attacks or for chopping defence. If looping, take thicker sponge. If defending, thinner sponge. XT surely isn't the fastest rubber around, so thicker sponge wouldn't be that much of a problem. 1.9 is always a good compromis I guess...

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How do Dr. Neubauer rubbers match up with the Chinese path

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Diest is probably the highest ranked club in the country, together with Jean-Michel Saive's team Logis Auderghem. They will compete each other in a few weeks. I assume this pip player is in their second team in the first national division. Is he a chopper? Do you know what he plays with?

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You never played the doc's Domination, did you? It's slightly tacky, but only in the 1.8 and 2.1 versions. The sponges are also different in 1.2/1.5 (pink-orange) and 1.8/2.1 (white).



I'm sorry, but I don't know much about his playing style or with what he plays.

I only meant that Germany is quite far from China

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Sorry, I read it as a question about rubber playing characteristics...

Yesterday was my first TT competition in about 12 years. It was great fun getting back out there
I entered in men's singles class 4. What that means exactly I don't know, but I think there are six different classes, and the more ranking points you have, the higher you are. I've been told by my trainer that I should enter in class 4 and 5, since above that people are too good. Apparently, however, it's uncommon to find competitions in class 5 and below in the area where I live, so I'm stuck with 4, for now.
So how did it go? Well, about as expected. The first match was against a girl about 14 years old. I took the first set, then she whipped me completely. I later learned she's among the top of something. The area or Sweden, or south of Sweden, I don't know. She was really talented, though, and quite used to playing against LPs. Next I met a guy about the same age, who had won the day before in the boys 15 competition. He finished second in class 4. He also squished me. Last I met a guy almost 50 years old, and he took two sets on me before everything finally clicked and I started really playing. I'm like that at competitions, I need a rigorous warm-up to really get in the zone. Now, I'm not sure I could've won the first two matches either way, but I'd have a better shot. It was a really fun match against that last guy. My coach, Omar, instructed me not to warm up with my LPs against him, sort of keep them in the dark if you will, and while I felt a little guilty I did as I was told. After all, if he chooses to, the opponent can always inspect my bat. It was quite fun how I sort of got a few points just because I shocked him a little.
For reference, the girl I first met had about 1000 ranking points, the guy after around 12-1300, and the last one a bit below 900. That corresponds to a place in the rankings at about top 3900, top 2200 and top 4700, respectively. The absolute top in Sweden seems to be at about 2600+. I myself haven't gotten any ranking points, and I don't really know how the rules work for new players, but in skill I'd place myself at about 1000. Sure, that girl beat me, and I'm sure she would again, but not by much. In fact, I didn't feel completely helpless in any of the matches. This just makes me look forward to the next competition in two weeks.

It's amazing how much I grow on competitions. It's like everything I've practiced just falls into place. I've experienced the same phenomenon while fencing. I don't know why, maybe it's because I force myself to rise to the occasion or something. I had a quick hit with Omar today, and I can really tell the difference from before the weekend. I've gotten much more confident with my pips. Especially my blocks at the table have improved drastically. Improvements like this make it so much easier to keep going
Not only have my blocks improved, but my overall sense of tempo as well. I feel much more confident reaching fast loops and smashes now than before the weekend. This is probably more related to me getting back to the form I was in before I stopped as a kid than me just plain improving, but it's still progress.

Unfortunately I'm going to miss practice tomorrow, so I won't be able to gauge my improvements against the kids there (two of them are usually a tiny little bit above me) until Thursday. It's hard to do that with Omar, since he's so much better than me to start with. That guy is amazing, he's at the club Monday to Friday, not just practice nights.

So, to summarize: What's made me better, I think, is that I've started to figure out and get a feel for when I should hit the ball. When I should take it off the bounce, what it means and what will happen if I don't, etc. I've also started to get a feel for the super relaxed grip needed for efficient blocking. Really excited about this progress!

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Blade: Japsko Allround+ | Forehand:LKT Pro XT 1.5 mm | Backhand: Lion Rebirth 0.6 mm
Blade: TSP Black Balsa 3.0 | Forehand:Friendship Fx Supersoft 1.8 mm | Backhand: SpinLord Agenda OX
Blade: Stiga Hypertech CR | Forehand: CTT National Strike 2.0 mm | Backhand: RITC 802 1.5 mm

Competitions are really fun! And one competition can give you more than 5 training sessions (it can also take away like 5 sessions ). Your first ranking point will be the average of the lowest ranked that you lost to and the highest ranked you've beaten I think. You will soon have a higher ranking, good youths like the one you've met are normally underrated.

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