The pro's equipment -discussion and questions!

liXiao wrote: beeray1 wrote: fair enough.    why haven't we seen anything internationally from Kan Yo, by the way? I like him. Well he had a serious back problem for a very long time. Some of his old matches you would see him wearing a brace. His results in Japan have been pretty poor, and I don't think he's ever been in the top 5 for the All Japan Championships, odd considering he was the number one Japanese player according to the ITTF. He lost a considerable amount of weight, and has upped his game. He had really poor results in Yokohama, losing to Gacina in like the second round, and he failed to qualify for Moscow, as well as the upcoming Rotterdam. He still has been a dominant force in the JTTL though, with his club Tokyo Art winning the past three years.

i see WLQ using HK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGRWIvca3QE

beeray1 wrote: liXiao wrote: beeray1 wrote: fair enough.    why haven't we seen anything internationally from Kan Yo, by the way? I like him. Well he had a serious back problem for a very long time. Some of his old matches you would see him wearing a brace. His results in Japan have been pretty poor, and I don't think he's ever been in the top 5 for the All Japan Championships, odd considering he was the number one Japanese player according to the ITTF. He lost a considerable amount of weight, and has upped his game. He had really poor results in Yokohama, losing to Gacina in like the second round, and he failed to qualify for Moscow, as well as the upcoming Rotterdam. He still has been a dominant force in the JTTL though, with his club Tokyo Art winning the past three years.    If he plays the chinese super league this year I bet we will see him make a bit of a comeback. He's so steady.

he even changed his blade now (wang liqin):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YJoZMQniv8

minute 1:13

is that a rosewood?


Edited by Mottaku - 04/14/2011 at 12:47pm

Yeah those rosewoods are popular. Tang Peng is using Rosewood VII. I bet WLQ is using the Rosewood V like Xu Xin.

beeray1 wrote: Yeah those rosewoods are popular. Tang Peng is using Rosewood VII. I bet WLQ is using the Rosewood V like Xu Xin.

did u see the rubber?

when was that picture from? I couldn't find the video where I saw Rosewood.

At Asia-Europe Challange Tang Peng was using Rosewood.

AMonteiro wrote: At Asia-Europe Challange Tang Peng was using Rosewood.

Judging by the way the ball bounces on WLQ's racket before he serves, it makes me wonder whether his rubber is tacky at all. The ball can't bounce in such a lively manner on a tacky topsheet right?

cls2222 wrote: racquetsforsale wrote: Judging by the way the ball bounces on WLQ's racket before he serves, it makes me wonder whether his rubber is tacky at all. The ball can't bounce in such a lively manner on a tacky topsheet right? If his topsheet is not tacky, then is he just playing with a grippy topsheet on a firm sponge? Is that sponge even firm, after he tunes it?   Which pros play with a truly tacky Chinese rubber with a firm sponge?             It's most likely heavily boosted with the Haifu oil many Chinese players use. That stuff really gives some life to those tacky rubbers. He also has one of the most powerful forehands in the world so his forehand will look a lot more powerful than pretty much any other player's forehand with the exception of some J-pen players.

Strictly speaking, Wang Hao and Ma Lin are using Skyline 2 and 3, which carry both grippy and tacky characteristics.

One plausible explanation, from what appears to be the norm among many users, is that European rubbers(e.g. Early-gen ESN tensors) tend to play springy but feel blank(as in feedback lacking firmness, 虛彈 in Chinese) whereas Japanese rubbers(e.g. Tenergy, Sriver, Mark V etc.) give off the mushy(肉) feeling, and both, owing to their grippiness and bounciness, suffer in short games(e.g. more difficult to keep pushes short and low.)

The majority of top Chinese players base their close-to-table, forehand-dominant, offensive games on third, fifth ball kills after service and short, touch plays when receiving to keep opponents in check.  On those occasions where these two approaches are not effective they would proceed to mid-to-long-range forehand rallies assisted by transitional backhand loops, fishes or lobs.

In that regards, Chinese tacky rubbers fit the bill.  The added tackiness facilitates spinny serves and low touches while still maintaining lightning speed on hard strokes thanks to the underlying rock-hard and dead sponge in return for a sense of solidness.  For those few and far between smashes high off the table, Ma Long and Zhang Jike, among others, have "innovated" by twiddling to the backhand rubber to overcome the one major weakness common to tacky rubbers.

As for gluing, the idea is to expand, liven up the sponge and in the process cranks up the tension of the topsheet, but with the "side-effect" of softening the sponge, which may lead to it bottoming out on fast hard shots, hence the brick-hard sponge.  Tuning with Haifu oil serves a similar purpose but less effective.  The topsheet and sponge of the NEOs are drastically different from and a degree or two softer than the old one.

lovemagicworld wrote: lovemagicworld wrote: wat is the sponge of Wang Hao's Sriver? thnks 4 d tip

In this clip at 0:13 it can clearly be seen that Wang Liqin changed or is testing a Rosewood blade...