OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Ladies and gentleman, a new rubber has been presented applying for the post of best substitute for frictionless pimples. Not appearing in the web page of Hallmark yet, the following text has been copied from Japsko web page (Sweden). Do I hear more?

Superslow antispin with big spinreversal
Hallmarks Mirage now available
Anti spin rubber with a new super slow sponge which make it possible to play close to table with block/attack and with good spinreversal. Chopping away from the table is very easy. Excellent to return spin serves.

Antitop. Developpe l'effet connu par les picots lisses. Facile a remettre les coups aggesifs et les balles avec forte rotation.. Tres lent. Conserve la rotation donnée par l'adversaire a un tres haut niveau. Permet des balles bien coupées en defense classique loin de la table.

Anti-Spin-Schlägergummi. Reproduziert ein Effekt wie die glatten Noppen. Superlangsam. Erhält die gegnerische Rotation hochgradig. Schupfbälle entwickeln störenden Vorvärstdrall.

Players comment: The best rubber so far to replace the frictionless longpimpled rubbers.
Q.-

And this is the e-mail I received, giving a bit more of information:

Hello,
Now the new Hallmark Mirage has arrived. We have tested it and it is the best rubber so far to replace the frictionless longpimpled rubbers. Price 40 euro with free shipping.
Hallmark Mirage 2,0mm (It is not coming with thinner sponge because then it would be faster)

Anti spin rubber with a new super slow sponge which make it possible to play close to table with block/attack/defense and with good spinreversal. Chopping away from the table is very easy. Excellent to return spin serves. Hitting causes major disturbance to the opponent and pushing gives the ball some forward rotation opening up opportunities for attacking.

Antitop. Developpe l'effet connu par les picots lisses. Facile a remettre les coups aggesifs et les balles avec forte rotation.. Tres lent. Conserve la rotation donnée par l'adversaire a un tres haut niveau. Permet des balles bien coupées en defense classique loin de la table.

Anti-Spin-Schlägergummi. Reproduziert ein Effekt wie die glatten Noppen. Superlangsam. Erhält die gegnerische Rotation hochgradig. Schupfbälle entwickeln störenden Vorvärstdrall.

The rubber is already approved by ITTF so it is possible to use in Tournaments direct.

Best regards/Salutations/Mit freundlichen Grüssen/Saludos
Lars Borg
Japsko AB

sounds interesting. With such a thick sponge it seems like it would be hard to have as much spin reversal. I imagine the sponge would have to be a combination of very hard, and very dead...at any rate, sounds like yet another rubber to tempt speedplay

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It's tempting me already too! I like the sound of this, and so does one of the other LP users I know, but then again, we fall for every marketing trick in the book. It does sound too good to be true from the descriptions.

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Tango Ultra 2mm black, DMS Storkraft 1.6mm red, DMS Invictus
Well done bat!

Look closely, they have just released an ANTITOP rubber, not a LP. That gives the answer to the 2.0mm sponge

Marketing, Marketing & more marketing... 40€ for an ironed rubber? You have JUIC NeoAnti for 22€ and BTY SuperAnti for 23€... I say: Go to hell hallmark!

Right on Nittaku!!!!

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Shakehand, left handed.
Blade, Yinhe, W-1
Forhand, H-3 National
Backhand, Sriver FX Max

It will most likely fail the frictionless test like the other hallmark rubbers

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By the time I am finished they are Scrambled in the Head

As nittaku suggests...no mention of pips anywhere so it cant fail any tests scrambled ... it appears to be a new anti, just as they describe.

fosss

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SETUP
Blade: HM Balsa.
FH = Transcend SP on a MAX Big Slam sponge.
BH = Bomb Talent OX

I looked in the ITTF technical leaflet the other day, and if you look at section 1.4.4 you'll see the minimum friction level of 25mN seems to apply for all rubbers, not just pimples...

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Shhhh, don't tell Hallmark. I slipped it in quietly and no one's noticed yet.
(Also, when people finally read the bit about no coatings: bye bye Super Nova)

Soon all of you whimpy frictionless blocker types will be squashed like ants. BAHAhahahaha. Attackers will rule the world. BHAHAHAHAHAH.

If you read the last edition of the approved materials list in the ITTF web page, you'll see that Mirage is Pimples IN. So it's an anti rubber, and that's why I also posted the first mail in the anti rubbers section.

I completely agree with Nittaku above. And perhaps we (TT players) have to accept one of our clearest weaknesses: most of us are always chasing the holy grail, the perfect blade/rubber/pips that will convert us in almost invincible players. We tend to forget that there's a hand holding the blade that should be properly trained. As one of my friends use to say, leave the perfect blade alone on the table and watch if it's able to move by itself.

My personal promise is that I'll try to stick to my current material until the end of this season. Then, like it or not we'll all begin a new testing period: VOC free glues!

I'll try not to fall into temptation...stop singing mermaids!!!

Today I got this rubber in my mailbox, I will try it later and post a brief review here. What I can say know is that the rubber is extremely hard and you can't bend it much. It doesn't feels like any other rubber I have tried so far. The sponge is very different, if you take your finger and push it into the sponge (as if testing the sponge hardness) you can still see the "hole" from the finger when you release the pressure. It takes 1 or 2 seconds before it's flat again. This proves that the sponge is extremely slow and I'm very excited to try it out. The surface feels like it has a bit of grip and I would compare it to the surface of a wooden table that hasn't got too much varnish on it.

I will return with a update as soon as I have tried out the rubber!

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Read about my adventures to perfect my style and the ever-present battle against the evil EJ virus!

After successfully curbing my EJ tendencies for 12 months, I've got the bug again! I've got a sheet of Mirage on order and am really looking forward to giving this a go. I like the fact that everywhere is decribing this as super slow, because I think that's where a number of the replacement LP's are letting me down, ie an increase in pace over the current frictionless crowd. My game is very much about length, with a mix of long and drop shots, as much as it is reversal of spin, so I want slow slow slow all the way.

So, I will be testing this over the summer months against the Swingback IF and also I guess I'll get at least 1 of the Dr N rubbers. Will keep you all informed.

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Tango Ultra 2mm black, DMS Storkraft 1.6mm red, DMS Invictus
Well done bat!

It arrived today - it's now glued on a Hallmark Ultra blade. The rubber surface is hard - I used to play with Joola Dingo, which almost didn't feel like rubber, but the Mirage seems more rubber like, although similar.

If you rub a ball over it, you can feel some grip. If you knock a ball up with sidespin and then let it land on the Mirage, it does kick with the spin and seem to make it a no spin ball from the bounce, ie not much reversal effect. But it also does feel slow, like the scalpel OX i'm used too.

The strangest thing is the sponge. This is very slow and if you push a finger into the rubber hard, this seems to leave a small indentation which takes a few moments to release itself. I also noticed this just from a few hits against the wall, which left a few small dents. Very interesting!

I have no idea how this is going to play from my brief inspections, but I think this is going to be a fun one to try out.

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Tango Ultra 2mm black, DMS Storkraft 1.6mm red, DMS Invictus
Well done bat!

interesting...when I tried out neubauer's pistol the strange foam-type sponge was similiar exept it was extremely soft instead of hard. It seems this type of extreme non-elastic sponge is very effective for slowing the ball down because there is no springback.

I'd like to try a sponge like this but much softer with a soft, grippy long pips topsheet for chopping...you could probably get away with a 1.5mm+ sponge thickness then!

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