Chinese rubber; My experience!

Chinese rubbers are highly dynamic and allow a much more active game (which I prefer).

To me, it's always telling of someone's technique when they complain that the rubbers are "crap" or "totally dead" etc. Especially considering that I used to be one of those people. 

Anyone who claims that there is no need to adapt one's stroke to Chinese rubbers, or that Chinese rubbers are "unplayable" without boosting/speed gluing simply haven't exploited such rubbers sufficiently with their technique, IMO. 

And now let the haters commence in flaming. 

 

So far, so good - opinions are a good thing.

Chinese rubbers are highly dynamic and allow a much more active game (which I prefer).

 

Depends on the player.  Sometimes, you don't want to do something if you won't get rewarded, and some players will not swing if they aren't rewarded by Tenergy's catapult, while some players would prefer to provide all the catapult they need.

 

 

To me, it's always telling of someone's technique when they complain that the rubbers are "crap" or "totally dead" etc. Especially considering that I used to be one of those people.

 

I told a 2200+ active chopper (whose max rating was 2400) that I prefer Chinese rubbers to European rubbers like Tenergy.  He told me "They suit your current level/strokes - things change all the time."  A 2100+ power attacker who I sold Juic 999 Turbo (my favorite Chinese rubber) told me that he liked it, but he preferred Tenergy for his stroke as his extremely closed strokes and loop drive style worked better with it.

 

So I think in a world where Timo Boll uses Tenergy and ZJKMa Ling are using boosted Hurricane, and both can play with me like I am the dirt under their fingernails, everyone has a right to say what they want and that you are the one trying to make a matter of personal choice a matter of objective cardinal ranking.

 

Anyone who claims that there is no need to adapt one's stroke to Chinese rubbers, or that Chinese rubbers are "unplayable" without boosting/speed gluing simply haven't exploited such rubbers sufficiently with their technique, IMO.

 

It's a matter of degree.

 

And now let the haters commence in flaming.

You're 100% correct. Sometimes i forgot that it's mytt that i'm posting on

I'm not so much missing your point as I am saying that you are overstating it in a way that reveals your personal biases and incites disagreement.  Why must one do something with technique that one can do with equipment?  So I should walk to school in old canvas rather than modern sneakers because I should improve my walking skills before getting better shoes?   Too often, we assume that everyone needs to get better the same way.  Since most of us are not going to be 2000+ players, letting everyone find his or her path within the common sense boundaries of winning and losing is not as silly as it sounds without making it sound like your path is the holy grail while the path of others is the road to perdition.  Reminds me of people who think that the only valid way of playing table tennis is two-winged looping.  The only skill required universally to play table tennis is the ability to read the spin imparted to the ball.  After that, how one plays is up to one's goals, limitations etc.

You seem to be mind-reading quite a bit without actually asking people for their opinions or watching them before forming opinions.    Using any old school or  hard Chinese rubber unboosted/untuned makes it harder to generate mechanical spin and not everyone can or wants to swing hard at the ball all the time for health reasons among other things.  Just that by itself could be a reason to choose softer European style rubbers for some people.  In addition, some players prefer soft contact with the ball with more dwell time while others prefer hard contact - these are all issues that relate to what kind of rubber you might prefer, what your short game is like etc.  To simply make it a case of technical limitations based on rating is pretty parochial.  One may just as well argue that short pips, which are the extreme end of what Chinese rubbers were derived from (hard contact, surface spin, hitting game) are the best way to start off one's game.

There's nothing wrong with choosing the equipment that allows one to play his best. It's another to go around professing that the main reason why Chinese rubbers are difficult to use is because they need to be boosted or tuned.

also we are not Chinese National level players training 25 hours per week with the best coaches and best facilities etc

 Just keep them clean and against plastic when not in use

I'm getting tired so after this post I'm going to bed. 

To me the only thing that is relevant is if you can get the ball to do what you want. For an attacking topspin shot, we presumably want the ball to go forward, fast, with a lot of spin. Some people claim that hard tacky rubbers cannot do that well. I'm saying that is wrong, and if someone has trouble using hard, tacky rubbers to create a ball that moves forward, fast, with a lot of spin then the problem lies in their technique and not in the rubber. Period. Parsing it further into people's desire to create mechanical spin or what-have-you is irrelevant in my mind. 

Can you (not you personally) create wicked, killer top spin loops/drives with hard, tacky Chinese rubbers? If not, fine. But it's not the rubber's fault. That's "The End" as far as I'm concerned. 

But this is an entirely separate question than what kind of equipment one should use, or what kind of game one should play, or what kind of physical limitations one has, etc.

I see that people using Euro/Japanese rubbers have problems counterlooping  against me - many times they miss the ball or make erroneous shots as the ball often dips earlier because of the spin, I experience some problems with counterlooping only if I don't move back from the table, but it's definitely not the rubber problem. On the other side, I feel that hitting is the weakest part of the classic Chinese rubbers exactly because of their hardness (so it's difficult to control direction when hitting flat). Maybe I am doing something wrong?

The summery of what the guys are trying to explain is simply about technique/equipment and their relation to being superior/producing a better game.

- I think the selection of either euro/jap or chinese rubber depends TOTALLY on technique.

Anton was accompanying the world problem with technique more than once, thus NextLevel was misunderstanding.

- Technique can be affected by many factors, physical limitations, personal taste, your fav player, etc.

- Rubbers: -Euro/Jap rubber are more active, more responsive, softer (to an extend) and faster. These characteristics allow the player to be more tricky and more variant with a lot of gears, and just because of these characteristics they are not very constant, because you need to be very attentive to each hit you make... That only if you wanna stand out and be the best there is (I am not talking about a normal player, playing for fun).

The best example I would say is JO Waldner and Karakasevic. Their shots and trickery are different from a game to another, very amusing and fun to watch but still they do miss a lot of balls in the course of doing so.

Aggressive full body motion is not needed because the rubber is already active.

- Chinese rubbers: are simpler, slower, more control and maybe harder. These characteristics allow the player to be more consistent even with continues attacks, but with a limited (lesser that euro/jap) range of trickery... Yet dynamic= fast on fast swings, slow on slow shots.

Best examples are Ma Long and Zhang Jike. Their game is not trickiest of all, but very constant, and on the competing levels consistency is more important and more winning.

Aggressive full body motion is needed to excrete the best out of the rubber.

In comparison, non of the two types can claim to be the dominant.

If you are able to tame euro/jap rubbers with control and consistency, or if you can swing hard enough then you are already a good player.

So it all comes down to what the player prefers and how he/she uses the rubber...

Me, personally I like very much to move, swing hard and smash, I tried both and found that I miss less shots with Chinese rubbers.

Finally, there is no ''problem'' with either of techniques (active of less active), neither is there any ''problem'' with any of the two rubbers (active or less active).

If a player doesn't like Chinese rubbers because they are tiring and too requesting, shouldn't address it as being bad, dead or crappy. Just simply say ''I prefer the other type'' or ''my technique reuqires the other type.

EDIT: A guy with a wide feet cannot claim to be a better rubber than a guy with narrow feet. Its HOW you run that makes the winner, not the type of the feet!