OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hey folks, I am unfortunately going through another equipment change and even though I've been playing the game over 40 years I'm finding myself unsure of what different sponge hardness's effect play. I don't loop very much but I do as variation, and I have a flat hit that is out of this world against top or chop, low or high against players under 2000. Attempting now to add a chopping variation to my game and finding great control with thinner sponges.

So my question, is soft sponge considered better for creating topspin (loops) and harder sponge better for chopping and hitting?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Pips for all!

Soft sponge -- poor control, good projective capacity (trampoline effect).
Hard sponge -- no trampoline effect, superior control.

Harder sponge has the POTENTIAL for greater speed and spin, but provides less of it at low impacts. Softer sponge produces more spin at low impact. Whether it appears faster would depend on the actual rubber.. Soft Tensoroids would probably be faster than hard Chinese at low impacts, which is why (unboosted) H3 seems so slow. But softer sponge would bottom out sooner, so higher impacts the hard sponge would keep getting faster while the softer sponge would plateau. This would be especially the case with thin sponge.

Iskandar

Fantastic input, thank you all!

DO REMEMBER
Numbers tell you truth, and your fingers don't.
So, I only trust Shore device to know sponge hardness.

Classification of table tennis sponges by hardness.
• Very Наrd
• Hard
• Medium
• Soft
• Very Soft


/Be happy/

Great information, trying out a new rubber tonight, Der-Materialspecizalist Killing Defender Soft 1.0mm. I have a tournament on Saturday, some local Senior Games here in Palm Desert, CA, so I can't play with it as much as I'd like, for fear it will take some adapting to, already made that mistake in the U.S Nationals in 2001, changed blades a week before the tournament, crazy and painful, rating points wise.