Suggest a tacky rubber

Lately I have been wanting to go back to a tacky rubber on the forehand.  I played Cream MRS for a while when we could speed glue, and I liked it.  The only tacky rubber I tried without speed glue was tuttle beijing II.  Overall, I liked the rubber but it was just a touch too slow. 

Currently, I am playing Xiom Vega Pro on the FH.  I like the rubber but I want to focus more on close to the table play.  I want the advantages that a tacky rubber would bring back to my game. 

Please help me choose a new tacky rubber!

Note:  I've always been a little afraid to use DHS because of the quality control.

Guess I've been lucky then, as I haven't experienced any major differences with any chinese rubbers that I have used. The biggest difference I ever experienced was with T05, from BTY who supposedly have the highest quality control of them all.

Anton Chigurh wrote: I highly suggest the new red sponge Haifu Blue Whale II. I would also suggest Palio Thor's. Both are excellent, speedy, tacky rubbers; although, they are a bit different from each other. Coming from a Tensor (Vega Pro) you might be better off with Thor's since it's a tacky Tensor.

I read some reviews of both rubbers and the red sponge BWII sounds very interesting.  Thor's also sounded good aside from people mentioning that it would occasionally respond weird.  Is there any place in the US to order the red sponge BWII?

Actually, I did a little more reading and it seems that the new BWII red sponge isn't that tacky.  What about the factory tuned BWII?  I also remember reading a review from a guy who thought that Grip-S was worth the money because the quality control is much better and only at 1.5x the price of BWII.

Do you think it is worth giving Grip-S a shot?

notgood wrote: Actually, I did a little more reading and it seems that the new BWII red sponge isn't that tacky.  What about the factory tuned BWII?  I also remember reading a review from a guy who thought that Grip-S was worth the money because the quality control is much better and only at 1.5x the price of BWII. Do you think it is worth giving Grip-S a shot?

It's up to you. Personally, I think Grip-S is just an overpriced BWII. Yes, it may have better quality control. Personally though, I've never had any quality issues with Haifu rubbers (and I've used a lot) and neither has my training partner (and he's used BWII exclusively for the last few years).

The BWII, both the black sponge and newer red sponge, aren't "extremely" tacky rubbers to begin with. But yes, the newer version is slightly less tacky than the old version. The older version is also notably heavier, slower, and less forgiving (at least in my experience).

So if you have a nicely grooved stroke with really good arm speed (and you don't mind the extra weight) then the older version might be best for you.

Honestly, although a couple people were describing some anomalous behavior of Thor's, I think it's probably your best bet especially if you've been playing Tensors recently.

Any hard, tacky rubber will be a bit less forgiving, which requires a more "refined" stroke and Thor's is not terribly different in that regard. But, of those types of rubbers I think it is the most user friendly.




Edited by Anton Chigurh - 08/16/2011 at 3:58pm

Yes I think Thors often hard to hang onto behaviour is simply because it's lively hard and tacky, if you put all those things together you get a pretty wild rubber no matter what way you go about making it. It's the price you pay for a high performance tacky rubber. There's no denying it's a beast though, so long as you are sharp on the day you are playing you can do wonders with it, but there will be bad days if you are not on form :0. I would choose it over the old BW2 anytime, both for the weight issue and BW2s lack of spin in the low gears which Thors has plenty of. Everyone says the red sponge one is better and I'd believe that. Also don't discount the 5$ super rubber Galaxy II, the harder versions of that are a bit of a weapon, lively too. Coming from Vega pro, Thors is going to be the easiest to switch over too but it wont be as forgiving as Vega pro

Edited by bluebucket - 08/17/2011 at 11:59pm

Thanks for all the suggestions so far guys.  They've been really helpful.  I've been asking around to see if I could find anyone in my area who plays with some tacky rubbers, but not much luck so far.  I only managed to find a guy who plays NEO Skyline of some sort.  Hopefully he will let me hit with it this weekend.  I just wish I knew someone who uses Thors...

Globe 999 National is very good. $15 at TTNPP. I bought a couple of sheets quite a while ago and gave to my colleague which doesn't play much and tacky rubbers are not actually suitable for his play, but recently I put it on a carbon blade and liked how it plays.  It's performance somehow is close to Thor's, but the Globe is tackier and more controllable (thus slower, but not dramatically).

I tried for a few days BW2 black sponge on a slower blade (Virtuoso), I made less unforced errors, but still too many in my opinion. Serves are not spiny, pushes the same, opening against backspin is hard: if you don't hit hard the topsheet doesn't grab the ball, it's not tacky, if you hit too hard the chances to make a mistake are high, dwell time is low. At higher speeds is better than most of the Chinese rubbers, but if your opponent keep the game short you're toast. Maybe if you tune it it'll behave better, but out of the package it doesn't worth the 20$+.