OOAK Table Tennis Forum

After spending an inordinate amount of time obsessing over different options I have decided to ask people who know much more about this than I do. I hope someone is bored enough to read this through and make educated suggestions because I am at my wits end!

My level is something between beginner and intermediate. Give me an opponent who sometimes used to play in their back yard or at school and I will decimate them. Give me someone who actually has properly played and I have no chance. I've played for about 2 hours per week for roughly a year. before that I played like 15 years ago semi regularly for a few years, but never had any coaching. I have obscure techniques for some shots, s*** footwork, poor consistency etc. In a forehand rally if I make 4 shots in a row that's better than average, but my backhand chopping is good for my overall level. My game consists of chopping from the backhand mostly with the occasional flicks when the return is high. Because of my level and the level of my opponents, this happens mostly pretty close to the table.

Forehand I try to play a looping game and also when it's really low or short I do forehand pushes. I like spinny serves and having tried more expensive rackets with fresher rubbers I feel like my serves are instantly better even though I'm not used to the racket.

My current setup is Joola Falcon Medium blade with Joola Zack rubbers on both sides. I think the rubbers aren't what they used to be anymore even though I've took pretty good care of them with cleaning and with using rejuvenator.

For backhand I've been considering two things, either something that has a ton of spin for my chops or long pips for a totally different approach even though I've never even tried them. I know how they work from tutorials in theory and it's something that intrigues me. Especially the option to change sides during the rally to confuse my opponents. I'm not 100 % married to the idea, but it's there.

For my forehand I'd like a very spinny rubber that doesn't have a really high throw angle. My forehand loops go over more often than they hit the net. At the moment I don't feel confident that I get enough spin on my shots and I feel that is the reason they go over instead of the blade being too fast.

For blade I'm thinking something like all+ or off- so it'd be slightly faster than my current one. Is this even suitable to long pips or should you have a more defensive blade? I'm worried that if I go slower than what I have currently it's not enough. I've tried off+ carbon blades and even though the control was worse than with my setup, I could tell the opponent had a much harder time returning my shots. One thing to consider with the blade is that a big sweet spot would be preferred, because I often don't manage to hit with the middle part of the bat.

My budget is pretty flexible, but I'm willing to fork out about 150-200 euros in probably. If someone made it this far, thank you for reading!

How about 15 Euros?

We get a post like this every week or so. I hate using this forum on a phone do I will just post a link to the suggestion I made to last week's post.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=36627

Iskandar

I once ordered from there and it took six weeks to get my stuff to Finland so that's a hard pass

I'm currently thinking Donic Defplay Senso V3 with Spinlord Dornenglanz long pips for backhand. I know I know, I probably shouldn't go for pips before I have fully mastered my basics, but the heart wants what the heart wants okay? Forehand is still a bit of a question mark. I've tried Rakza 7 and Stiga Genesis and they felt much better than my current setup (and they were in a carbon off and 5 ply wood off- blades) even though I had no experience using them. The spin generation was so much better that I actually felt more in control with my forehand loops with both of those than with my own slower stuff. I liked Genesis better, but since I've only tried a handful of rubbers and usually only with a single blade it's hard to tell if I like the rubber or the blade, if you know what I mean. I'm probably ordering from tabletennis11 due to a few reasons (very good experience with customer service and 25 % off as we're ordering stuff for more than 1 person at the same time).

I'm thinking since the blade is pretty slow, I need to go for somewhat fast forehand rubber to keep some speed in my game. Serves and spin generation are priorities.

IMO if you feel yourself as defensive player you should try first some classical defensive rubber on BH. Something like Curl-P1R or Feint Long 2 with thin sponge. Dornenglanz ox is not an ideal defensive rubber I know as I played 8 years with DG starting from your current level.

Donic Baracuda, Yasaka Rakza 7 and Xiom Vega Pro are much more popular rubbers then any inverted Stiga rubbers. I think they are safer choices and are easier to sell used if you decide later.

Donic blades are good choice for their price. I personally think that 40+ balls need faster blades for everyone including defenders.

I recommend you donic defplay senso, because it chops well (as most def blades) and can be very fast and spinny with proper fh rubber and brushing technique, even faster than some offensive blades imo. For fh get xiom Vega pro
or just anything that is at least 47.5 degrees in hardness.
For bh tsp p1r 0.5, tsp p4 0.5 or if you want something less expensive - spinlord agenda 1.0 or dhs cloud&fog 3 1.0.

I've been playing with the Defplay Senso V3 for well over a year, and I have a love-hate relationship with it ... Although, the blade is not as fast as other defense blades like, say a Butterfly Joo, or a VKMO, I won't say that it's entirely lacking in the speed department... It's pretty good for producing spinny, fairly fast top-spins, I'm guessing, due to quite a bit of flex, this blade has... .. I prefer to have LPs with a thin sponge, on this blade ... The (biggest) down-side is that I find the blade to be very springy ... Currently, I've paired it (Read setup 1 in my signature) with an inverted rubber, which is on the softer side, but, I have a feeling it'd be better with inverted rubbers, that're on the harder side..

Your budget of €150 - €200 is quite a bit; based on which I'd recommend the following Blades ..

• Nittaku Shake Defence (I feel it's an All blade, but could be made faster with rubbers)
• Victas Koji Matsushita Offensive (Off blade)

...The following inverted FH rubbers

• Tibhar Evolution MS-X (Monster spin)
• Xiom Omega Pro VII
• Xiom Vega Pro

...The following inverted chopping rubbers (All in less than max thickness)

• Spinlord Marder
• Butterfly Tackiness Chop
• Victas VS>401 (Never tried, but I hear good things about it)
• Xiom Vega DF

As for Long Pips - If you've never played with them before, then I'd suggest trying out one of the cheaper/beginner friendly options, from one of the Chinese brands such as

• Yinhe Neptune (0.6mm Sponge)
• Dawei 388D-1 (0.5mm Sponge)

Thank you guys for all the suggestions! They are making my life even harder I see no love for the Dornenglanz here which does make me think... When I was googling about it I found a lot of posts from around the web saying how it's great for someone who hasn't played Pips before and how it's also incredibly confusing for your opponents. Lots of people said they liked it the best, but I suppose that could be said for almost any rubber. The main drawback I've been reading is that it's quite brittle and needs to be replaced semi often. Is it just harder to play with because there's no sponge? Are there even sponges for that? If ox is harder to use, why are people saying Dornenglanz is a good first lp then? It did make me wonder because as far as I understood, having a thin sponge make pips easier to play with (and against).

Having gone even deeper to the rabbit hole I've now also been reading more about combination blades. One super expensive one that had a marketing blurb that hit me deep in my equipment psychosis was the Dr.Neubauer Special. I saw a few threads about it here and there but there's a surprisingly low amount of info about it. Didn't find a single thing about combining it with Dornenglanz either.

DG is "incredibly confusing for your opponents" that leads you to play even more confusing instead of developing defense technique. Manika Batra's style is a bright example of a professional ox pips player. She is definitely not a defender. She plays Tibhar Grass D.Tecs ox.

Gustaf Ericson is a chopper with DG ox. So it is possible to chop with DG but his game are hardly classical.

Combination blades are marketing gimmick. The minimal side difference if present is not worse an effort. I suggest to buy a one of the well-known bestseller blades and modern rubbers not something "incredibly confusing" or "incredibly unique". It is easy to trap yourself into idea that you are an unique player with unique technique that needs unique equipment.

Very true.You can very well play with 729 fx, inexpensive rubber,....plus globe 979 ox, Bt Ox,Snowflake ox,scylla ox,Talon .... cheap and still effective,however, these pips work well when old,....you must wear them down a lot,...

When My DG is dead with massive pip loss ,... I may change to the cheap pips,... that´s why I am wearing them down in the meantime,.... in training,.... outdoors,....

Whether or not it's "incredibly confusing" for the opponent depends on the opponent. Even lower level players get used to playing against it after a while. It does confuse yourself - there's a longish learning curve involved. What it DOES do is make it easier to return balls that have lots of spin, which is why top defenders use it instead of inverted. I suppose at the lower levels it also makes serve return easier (though not trivial).

I don't know about "brittle" - maybe some long pips will eventually have pips break off, but pips-out rubber generally lasts a while. Inverted rubber usually wears out in a few months. Some go dead in a few weeks.

Iskandar

Yasaka Goiabao. It will satisfy the hard top ply and crisp department.

Although, as Omut said, a blade with hard top ply doesn't mean it will play hard. "Boxy/hollow" is the word I would use, lacks density on high impact.

Thank you for the suggestions guys! I've decided to not gor for long pips because so many are advicing against it for someone my level. I think I'm going for Nittaku Violoncello, Tibhar evolution ms-x 1,9-2,0mm for FH, Stiga Chop & Drive 1,5mm for BH.

If you are are not decided whether you are a defender or a counter attacker I suggest to try classical short pips like original TSP Spectol (not 21, not Red, not Blue, sure not modern spiny tensor short pips) or much cheaper but still very popular Friendship 802 orange sponge. Default thickness for short pips is 1.5.

Slow thin inverted rubber is fine choice but only for one style thus limiting exploring various playing style possibilities. IMO classical short pips are more universal in playing style then defensive inverted on BH. Later you can decide whether you want true offensive inverted for spiny attacks or long pips for safer defense.

Long pips is an obvious choice if you are a true defender in soul but it seems you are not determined yet.

My instinct from backhand is to chop almost everything in table tennis, which I guess is slightly odd because in tennis I attack just as much from backhand as I do from my forehand. But I think the instinct at least partly comes from knowing my top spin is very inconsistant from bh unless it's a very easy ball to hit. I went and placed my order already now so what is done is done Maybe the next time I feel like my rubbers are losing a bit of their touch I'll go for pips of some kind. Thanks for your help dude!

Are you getting a commission Iskandar? You recommend this one a lot, but objectively the Yinhe W6 is a much better blade for the same money.

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