OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hi,

My son has been playing tt for roughly a year now and has joined a club playing twice a week. For his first setup he "inherited" a stiga allround classic with Mark V rubbers on the FH and BH.

His birthday is coming up and he'd like to try some new rubbers and from what I can gather having a look round on the forum, chinese tacky rubbers would be a good option. He has asked if he could get something more "spinny" to try (apologies if that's a bad description).

I have to admit I don't play (yet!) and thus have no idea so I'm after a recommendation.

I'm not sure if this helps, but I'd say he is a learner looking to improve his all round game. Oh and we are in the UK though I've been told tabletennis11 is an option for buying.

Any help would be gratefully received!

Thanks

If you're looking for a Chinese rubber with a lot of spin hurricane 3 neo is the obvious choice. It rewards full strokes and punishes bad form though. The spin will actually be less than euro rubber unless proper strokes are used. Serves can be extremely spinny also. If your son is used to euro rubber it may be hard to transition. You could also try one of the newer "hybrid" type rubbers. That's tacky topsheet with more euro-like sponge/feel. Rakza Z is an example of this, my friend used this and it was crazy spinny.

Hurricanes tend to feel "slow" to most people though. I'd actually go with something like Yinhe Mercury 2 or Palio AK47 Blue or even just plain old 729 (which you can get for $5 a sheet). To be honest, your son won't be able to tell the difference between any of these rubbers, while the H3 will feel slow.

Iskandar

Hi,

Yinhe Earth II, Sanwei T88-III, Friendship Focus III Snipe, are some options

The most important aspect for a developing player is control. I would skip Iskankdar's suggestions, 729 RITC being inferior in every aspect to Hurricane 3 and AK 47 lacking control.

New Mark V rubbers would be the most obvious solution, from you post I understand the he got the current setup used and you would be surprised how much more spin new rubbers generate. My issue with that is that Mark V was released 40 (!) years ago and I don't think it can justify its high price. Any middle of the road euro or jap rubbers would do, I recently tried a Donic Bluefire Z3 and I was very impressed at the control, plus you can get it in one of the new colors. Stiga DNA Future is also a recent rubber specially targeted at teenagers / developing players and developed in collaboration with Chinese academies.

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Mark V is a tried-n-tested option.. But, it's more expensive than the rest .. However, it's super-durable

Hurricane 3 is not exactly a beginner-friendly rubber, and may come-off as being slow .. more-so, if paired with an All range blade..

As for AK-47 Blue - It MAY be okay, if paired with an All range blade..

Yinhe Mercury II, Yinhe Earth II, Sanwei T88-III, are excellent options, if you want medium tacky beginner-friendly rubbers..

Friendship/729 Original is a good choice if you want a beginner-friendly, but proper tacky rubber. Also very durable

Friendship/729 Focus III Snipe is a good option if you want a beginner-friendly Euro/Jap style rubber.

Having tried all sorts of rubbers from 729 to Tenergy I've come to the conclusion rubbers matter a lot less than a lot of people make them out to be. 729 works, Tenergy works, Mark V works, they're all usable to some degree especially for us lower level players. No sense in spending more than $10-15 a sheet, even $5 sheets work for most. Hurricane 3 is, in my opinion, too slow for most people.

Iskandar