OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I have a Primorac Carbon blade. When I hit forehands most of them go out. I am using Razka7 soft on my forehand. I am after a slower inverted rubber for my forehand and I think my blade is too fast for me. Any suggestions????

Primorac carbon is crazy fast. Two obvs choices:

Keep the R7 (soft or normal) and get a slower blade, like maybe a no-carbon Primorac, or a Korbel
or
Keep the Primorac carbon and get a much slower rubber like Bty aibiss, or Yinhe mercury 2

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I was just looking to get a new sheet of inverted rubber and noticed that the Victas Ventus series was rated much slower than most. I've played with the TSP Ventus Soft and really like it. You might want to try one of those. They are fairly light that I remember, which may be a benefit.

I'd go with thick sponge Tackiness D or even Tackiness Chop2 on Primorac Carbon. Power is still there when you start to hit harder and that rubbers are not so spin sensitive and bouncy like Rakza 7 Soft but still you can produce enough spin of your own...
A bit faster alternative would be Xiom Vega Europe ...

Back when I played double-inverted, Primorac Carbon with Hurricane 3, worked well for me... I've always preferred Tacky Chinese rubbers, with the Primorac.. 729 Geospin Tacky, 729 Super FX etc..

You can always opt for a step down in sponge thickness if you like the overall current feeling.

Thinner sponge does mean slightly less catapult and more feeling of the hinoki wood on your Primorac Carbon. Other people might say differently, thinner sponge meant less spin sensitivity (good thing for me in short game and blocking). This is when I compared same rubber of a different brand 2.1 vs 1.9.

Driving the ball is abit easier, slightly lower throw, should be more control.

Away from table needs adjustment period though there’s more than enough power from your Tamca5000 carbon laminate to compensate as well as your physical input.

If you feel like you can step up again in thickness the cheapest way would be to apply booster which would thicken up the sponge.

At the highest levels, pros that boost (particularly Asian players) all use lower thickness so reduce the risk of going over the legal limit if they apply heavily - more than 2-3 layers.

DHS 2.1 or 2.15 instead of 2.2, Butterfly 1.9 instead of 2.1, ESN 2.0 instead of Max, etc

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ZFT

Rakza 7 isn't a slow rubber - I lent a bat (one of my M8 blades) with Rakza 7 on it to someone used to cheap Chinese rubbers (729 and the like) and he was consistently hitting the ball long. I took out another bat with Chinese rubber on it and he found that a lot easier to control. Surprisingly, soft sponge is actually faster/bouncier. If you want something slow, I'd suggest trying Hurricane 3 (I found it too slow for me) or LKT XT Pro. If that's still too fast - get a sheet of Reactor Ckylin - I can't imagine ANYONE would find that too fast.

To be honest - ditch the carbon blade and get something reasonable - a Stiga Allround Classic, or better yet, a Sanwei M8. And then your Rakza 7 will be controllable.

Iskandar

My only advice if your max thickness rubber is unplayable do not waste time and money for the thinner version of the same rubber. Just try something radically different.

I am personally consistent with my rubber choices and routenly looking for an ideal blade.

Rozena or Tacky Drive
Stay under 2.0 mm

Perhaps you don't need to change equipment. A fast blade will sometimes make your strokes "hesitant". You pull back a little. Try a training session where you deliberately exaggerate the forehand movement, strike "too hard" on topspin strokes, block with active topspin and "slice thinly" when you push. Always drive your stroke "through the ball". Initially you may miss just about every return you try to make, but be persistent. Give it at least 20 minutes. You will of course need a patient and informed partner on the other side, unless you have a robot.

That may not work out. Equipment change in order ...

My views on already given suggestions:

• If you don't mind a harder/heavier/tackier rubber, I'd go for the Hurricane 3 suggestion from ootbs/Iskandar. I think the H-3 "masks" the blade speed better than the Bfy rubbers Deva Sarjan suggests, particularly on low powered strokes. May vary with playing style/technique though.
  My experience in this is based on the "regular" H-3, not "Neo".
• Otherwise, the blade suggestions by BRS and Iskandar are also sensible.
• More radical changes, or thinner rubbers, also may be what you need. Try that if the above do not work out.

Yes, without seeing the OP play the stroke, we're only guessing why the ball goes long. It may be they are hitting the ball too flat so it's not curving on, in which case a thinner sponge might actually make it worse. If this is the problem, just concentrating on brushing the ball more finely will help a lot, as it increases spin and slows down the ball, both of which will help to keep in on the table.

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All soft tensors are difficult to control. Small touch of anything and they can bounce quite wildly. Rakza soft is not much different to the rasanter 37 I've been struggling with. By far it felt great on my ALL Grubba, beautiful sound on every shot. I thought I could tame it. The soft tensors play best for constant active looping and there is some good catapult still.

But ultimately my theory is that the sponge and topsheet is there to the smoothest/most gradual transition to the blade. A soft rubber/sponge on a hard blade has the most extreme transition. You have to punch and hit flat because looping is low accuracy since getting your loop angle right before it hits instantly into carbon just gives you so little time put action on it....

I have a primorac carbon at home and as always, hard rubbers on a hard blade. Heavy but thats how it goes.

I reckon an unboosted hurricane would do very well to slow it down. Doubt you will get much better than that.

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Otherwise get a much slower blade. Hurricane costs $30, blade $70.... I'd try the rubber first. It's a quality blade with tons of power that requires no fancy expensive 'spring sponges' to get speed into your shots from the back court even.

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Change the blade for a slowest one.

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