Why do the Chinese top players use H3???

smackman wrote: I just like to see the real quotes and not guesses, but you go ahead and boost your blue sponge something and buy your made to order viscaria and you pick the heavy tenergy that allows you to spin better, you use the same chair that they use, you get Mikes Nikes and jump a metre high and in two years you will telling others to just practice My job is TT, I have a shop, Im a ITTF coach, National selector, I see and talk about these things on a daily basis, I like to know what pro's do, I have customers buying the black sheet out of the cheap 729 twinpack because it has a blue sponge, we all want to play better,  but at the end of the day having the same gear is 1 thing, then who knows and knowing what they use ,what sponge, what thickness, when they use it , how often, how many coats, how many days do they leave before using, do they have more than 1 blade, when do they discard rubber, who does it for them, how do players not get caught, those are the questions someone should ask a pro?

Maybe you should tell us all these things then to end the mystery :P

unstopabl3 wrote: As the title asks, why do they still use the H3 on their FH even though there are rubbers like Tenergy out there? Is it because nothing beats H3 for a FH rubber, or is it because they are so accustomed to using the H3 since an early age that they don't want to switch, or is it because they must use a DHS rubber as it being their sponsor??? Thanks in advance!

Edited by seguso - 06/30/2015 at 4:48am

Contrary to popular belief, you cannot boost a chinese rubber "to the extreme." Doing that will actually make the topsheet lose its tackiness, and the rubber becomes unstable. You can boost it for sure, but overboosting is definitely possible. CNT members usually play with 40 degree hardness (because only they can handle that hardness), and top-tier players like Ma Long and Zhang Jike use 41 degrees. I'll repeat what I said: chinese players insist on using hurricane because the arc produced is harder to return when compared to arcs produced by euro/jap tensor rubbers. More spin can also be generated from hurricane. 

ahsq wrote: Caz the H3 they use is the fricking Nat version. That piece of sheet of rubber costs $120+.  Tell them to use the $15 commercial H3, they will tell you to **** off.

MLfan wrote: I'll repeat what I said: chinese players insist on using hurricane because the arc produced is harder to return when compared to arcs produced by euro/jap tensor rubbers. More spin can also be generated from hurricane.

Edited by tack_and_grip - 07/01/2015 at 12:49am

MLfan wrote: the CNT members are all given a certain number of rubbers each month. If you're a main player, eg. Fan Zhendong, you get 40 national hurricanes a month to choose from. Yes, they can tell the difference of quality among NATIONAL hurricanes.

Vanjr, the europeans ARE UNABLE to get the best H3 available. People like Feng Tianwei can only get provincial hurricane...you need to understand how the system works lol. The tenergy that we can buy, is also not the ones that the japanese team/chinese team use. The japanese team gets the best tenergies, and the Chinese team gets the second-best tenergies. The public then gets the rest. 

MLfan wrote: the CNT members are all given a certain number of rubbers each month. If you're a main player, eg. Fan Zhendong, you get 40 national hurricanes a month to choose from. Yes, they can tell the difference of quality among NATIONAL hurricanes. <mytubeelement id="myTubeRelayElementToTab" ="relayPrefs" =""loadBundle":true"></mytubeelement>

You touch the sponge of a natversion and the texture is diferent

NextLevel wrote: I love all these stories. They make it sound like having the best Hurricane makes you a better player.

Many people equate "best" with "most expensive". That's basically it.

vanjr wrote: The corollary to this question does ANY european/japanese or korean (who did not begin training in China/Taiwan or Hong Kong) use H3 national at the highest level? If not (and I doubt it) then one can be pretty sure that: 2. It has to do with how one begins their career not the rubber

I am sure these things are true.  I am basing my opinion on the level that I have seen some people play -- such as former province team members who are still pretty good but not necessarily real serious anymore.  These are people who certainly would not have access to the "best top secret" H3 people here talk about (which I assume people here are correct when they say it is a real thing).  This is because they were never good enough in China to get the good stuff (although they are really good by US standards) and because of course they now live in the US.  Most people trained and accustomed to Japanese and European rubbers would find the Hurricane can get here pretty unplayable (I know I do but I am not alone) and yet some of these very well trained Chinese guys (one person I have specifically in mind) with absolutely perfect modern Chinese technique love the stuff.  This guy (former Fujian province junior team, now a student at the university where I teach, still around 2400 although he rarely plays) also absolutely hated Tenergy when I gave him  a sheet.  It was almost impossible for him to keep his ridiculously powerful forehand on the table.  For awhile we were playing quite a bit.  His opinion was that it was what you get used to when you start.

My opinion is also based on what happened when a top player here in the US on the advice of a Chinese coach briefly attempted to switch to Hurricane.

When i first went to China in my late teens and through my early twenties. Which is about 20 plus years ago, native chinese needed special passes to move from province to province. Many of times the passes were attained through bribes and who you know. While us tourist could get through as long as we have our approved travel visas. China was very restrictive to there residents, but today most of the time people can move freely. Like any country, they have there issues with corruption and bribery.

Thanks, Argothman. I get the logic. Unfortunately, being a CNT wannabe doesn't make you play like a CNT player. But I guess there are worse things on which to waste your time and money.

Moreover, there is a conservatism built into professional sports equipment at the highest level in all sports. Innovations that help play tend to comefrom the lower ranks more often than not and take years to get to the higher levels. Of course, figuring out which innovation will get there is next to impossible. But that also applies to the player who made it there. Copying him is risky if you don't ha r his ability. I love this sport because playing at a fairly high level doesn't require you to play exactly like a top player.

berndt_mann wrote: Alas, alack, woe is me, well-a-day, oh the humanity and hot mercy Martha Argothman, the fairness of table tennis has taken quite a shellacking over nearly the past six and one half decades.  I believe I know why, but I'm reluctant to say so any more on table tennis forums for fear of the rhetorical pastings I know I'm gonna take from Tenergy terrorists, Hurricane heroes, and Big Dipper demons.  Not to mention Tin Arc tuners and Bluefire boosters. I may, like Sgt. Hulka, just be getting too old for this sort of s**t.

there is a pro version of Tenergy. it even has a different laser marking on the sponge.

of what?