OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I’m Fabio, an Italian TT player and historian. I’ve just published “Racchette spezzate” (Broken rackets”, the story of the greatest TT champions who died before reaching sixty years old. A “Spoon River” of table tennis!! – see attachment
I’m at present quite confused about my equipment and would like to hear your opinion.
I’m a 65 y.o. (in good form, silver medallist in veterans national championships 2020) atypical push – blocker player. I set my game on varying speed and spin with two very different rubbers, good placement and finishing the rallye with FH smash as soon as I get a chance.
I’m currently playing with Animus Victoria 2 blade 153 x 160 (hinoki – rosewood – hinoki – ayous – hinoki); my rubbers are antispin (Yasaka Anti Power) on FH (yes, forehand!) and Palio CJ 8000 biotech 42°-44° on BH.
Of course I’m working on technique focusing mostly on block, push, FH smash with both rubbers, BH topspin.
My feeling with my blade is good. Anyway, I’d like to exploit my equipment to the fullest. So I have some questions:
1.Staying on a 5-ply all wood blade, is it better to have a hard core and soft outer plies or a soft core and hard outer plies? Besides Victoria 2 I also own an Animus Diana (limba – hinoki – red cedar – hinoki – limba), an Animus Victoria 1 (rosewood – hinoki – hinoki – kiri – hinoki), a Stiga Offensive CR and a Stiga Allround CR. (I don’t like balsa blades).
2.Even if in my opinion I have to slow down the game, is it advisable to use a 7-ply all wood blade instead of a 5-ply nowadays? I own a Yinhe PD 437 (7 layers of Limba) and a Yinhe PD 537 (walnut – limba – limba – limba – limba – limba – walnut), the last being similar to Sanwei V5 Pro.
3.As regards rubbers, Antispin on FH has some advantages: opponents are not used to and sometimes the different speed between the two sides gives them some trouble. Anyway I also think that anti is too passive and maybe a medium pips could give the same advantages but be more effective. Do you advice to keep my current setup or shift to medium pips?
4.Last question is about the normal rubber for BH. Better chinese (cheaper) or european? Better tacky or non-tacky? Better medium- soft or medium-hard? I own Joola Ryzhen Ice, Butterfly Tackiness D, Palio CJ8000 Biotech 42°-44°, Palio AK47 blue and Palio AK47 yellow.
I found one video of me playing. I am the one in light blue of the blue/blue couple (against the red/blue). With that match we won the regional championships of my category.
https://www.facebook.com/24898385177895 ... 2913143622
I trust your advice.
Thanks a lot if you can answer my questions.
Kind regards. Your sport friends. Fabio Colombo

A few thoughts from a player far below national level. Feel free to disregard

1-2) I really don't know.

3) Anti never worked for me. I could use its advantages, but never achieved any consistency. For you it seems to work well. While MP will give some more bounce, it does not look like you need it. Your well placed attacks may feel "tame" but they still often win the rally. You say that you need to slow down the game. I also had to do that in my playing for a period, while my mobility was not so good, and I guess that the slowdown effort will be more difficult with MP than with your current material.

4) I loved the Tackiness D, but I also find it rather expensive. I found that my game did not suffer from changing to a cheaper Chinese tacky rubber. Harder to find the Palios with the softer sponge, but I got used to it. (I now use Hurricane 3 with fairly hard sponge, on a much slower blade than the one I used to play with.)

I can only suggest to explore and try new rubbers. New antis, new inverted, new pips.

Ciao Fabio,

It all depends what do you want to do. A video with you playing will be good to know how do you play.

I'm 64 years old, handicaped, similar style like you push-blocker but BH LP & FH inverted playing close to the table.

A presto
Felipe

_________________
No more political prisoners in Catalonia.

For the backhand rubber. From trying a LOT of (mainly Chinese, but also a few Japanese and German) rubbers I don't think it'd make much difference what you use. You may find something you LIKE better, but in the end you won't get more points or be able to make better shots. In any case.. if you stick to Chinese, the nice thing is they don't cost much. For a hundred Euros you could probably get 10 or 20 different ones if you order them from China. And don't just go with the more expensive sheets, some of the cheap sheets like Reactor Corbor or Yinhe 9000 play just fine. Just stay away from Reactor Ckylin, though...

Iskandar