Complete Donic Coppa JO Gold X1 review - results

I received the Donic Coppa JO Gold X1 rubber from mytabletennis.net for forum testing.I didn't have much expectation out of it, but let's see what happened...

Set-up:

Blade: YinHe Venus 1, blade with some kind of soft carbon composite layers and thick KISO Hinoki outer plies (82 gms)

FH: Donic Acuda S1 - max

BH: Donic Coppa JO Gold X1  

Glue: Tearmender + 30% H2O 

The red translucent topsheet as a matt finish, but still has a shine  on it (unlike hexer); suggesting still significant percentage of artificial rubber, but may be less that roxon generation. Expectedly its not tacky.

A white Type 2 ESN sponge (type 1: large pores like hexer, type 2 : medium pores like hexer+, type 3: very small more like roxons) The sponge is mid-soft, feels like 42.5 on ESN scale.  

Pip density is medium, less than Acuda. 

I feel throw angle for rubbers has agraph similar to internal combustion engine's torque delivery x speed graph. if speed is on x axis

THis shows the sponge effect on throw angle in loops. For rubbers throw angle keeps increasing initially with speed, till it bottoms out and then suddenly drops nd stay constant. Coppa Gold X1, due to softer sponge has high throw angle at low speed range, and also bottoms out earlier than hexer or acuda.

So it is easy to loops serves (low impact speed), but not easy to counter loop ... you will have to open the face and use that with upward movement or just block with power.

Spinniness: Expectedly the soft rubbers are less spinny on power strokes, while in slow strokes are spinny. However i think this generation tensors are little spinnier thanks to a little improved topsheet grip. For first 3 days i could easily generate the same amount of spin as a tenergy on serves and underspin pushes, without looking obvious. After that it settled for a tensor level grip.

I depend on my serves a lot and i love winning service points even while playing 2000+ level players. [the flip side of that is when i put so much emphasis to make camouflage my serves, i end up 1 or 2 serve misses per game]. While we talk of tenergy being good for service, we didn't realize with tenergy's speed we need to be more cautious in the hand jerk while serving. With cjx1 i was able to use a faster stroke, imparting more spin in serve. very deceptive amount of spin. 10/10

The topsheet like most ESn topsheets is quite insensitive to incoming spin.... and lets you play any shot you want, push, deep underspin push, flick, or loop (thanks to soft sponge).

The rubber is pusher's heaven... it pushes consistantly and easily, but not necessarily easy for your opponent if you vary spin. I had a few long boring push-push mind-game with a higher level player... and while his pushes all had same spin, i was able to vary spin.. and get pop-ups and nets out of his reactive tenergy 05.

With low spin topsheet its easy to flip or flick the short balls...however while retuning longer serves, there is some directional instability.

Awesome blocking rubber. i haven't seen any rubber that can block so well other than long pips. however passive blocks mostly... active blocks creates some directional instability. i try to twist my blade at last moment to place the blocks at different places on the table. but i kept missing the spot with cjx1.... so while blocking is more secure (you wont miss a point)... you end up losing some ground on block placement.

Opening loops 'were' a breeze... it 'gave' a kind of safe feeling while opening for first 2 weeks. after that it still opens well, but not as good as earlier. the rubber being on slower side, its easy to use forward movement and use the sponge for looping, and still not losing the table.

You almost cannot counter...or rather i cannot counter with this rubber, i can block or i can hit, but not counterloop with any bit of respect. The soft sponge bottoms out, and gives a flat trajectory. i think once you used to that you can actually hit more balls than loop... which would be great.. because i won lot of point just like that. the vicious flat trajectory on counterhitting was almost impossible to deal with for my opponent. or of course you can block :) 

I don't but anyone can with this rubber.

Durability:

Hmmm... 2 weeks and already it shows signs fo loss of surface grip. the rubber is not fragile at all... if you hit it in the corner it will survive... but definitely the surface does lose grip with time. 

I will give this rubber a few more weeks to see if there is any major change... but definitely in first 2 weeks i was in heaven with this rubber on my BH... liteally doing anything i want to and punishing my opponents including 1900-2100 players