Equipment advice needed (USATT 1650)

I am USATT 1650 player, loop (at least try) from both wings.

Your USATT 1650, so playing with T05 on a medium-fast blade should not be a problem for other than the horrible price. Why do you think you have to play with T05 or T05fx? There are tons of excellent rubbers out there designed for the looper that won't break the bank.

@andy.h

Hi, Andrey
you are welcomed to http://ttw.ru

Ha! I was playing at Westchester only 2 weeks ago! Anyway, I'll throw in rakza 7 for the forehand and rakza 7 soft for the backhand.

garwor wrote: @andy.h: primorac off- and two soft rubbers

+1
But T05FX Bh and T05 would be perfect if you can afford that.

totally agree T05 is great for those who can afford it. personally i do not think the price is all that bad since i change my rubber once every 6 months or so and $300 a year on my rubber is pretty good. club fees, coaching and gas money cost more than that easily

GSOM_GSOM11 wrote: DHS Hurricane or DHS Skyline might suit you better because you prefer to brush loop on your FH It`s a common mistake. Hurricanes and Skylines are NOT for brush looping. Of course, you can brushloop with them, but it`s not their main funtion. They are FOR LOOPDRIVING with powerful swing.   Subj: Korbel + 2xT05 1.9mm or 2xAcuda S2 2.0 will do the job.

Edited by mikepong - 06/15/2012 at 10:00am

I briefly looked at your video and here is what I suggest - DON"T CHANGE A THING!

You seem to be developing your game. You make most shots ( in controlled training environment ) and you miss few - which is ok. Its just what one would expect when learning.

Here is an interesting thing to note. It is harder to learn to loop slow consistently than to loop hard. Maybe some people would disagree, but soft loop requires a special kind of touch and if you are just beginning to improve - it will be a while for you to develop that extra touch of control. No rubber will guarantee an improvement in this area. Sure you can go with a thinner sponge or a softer sponge, but it will not help your touch. Its just a skill you will need to learn.

For now, focus on shortening your strokes and maintaining your balance in transitions between the forehand and backhand. Also try to maintain your balance when stepping out of the way to use the forehand ( when the ball comes to your middle ). Work on slower loops by varying the timing when you can contact the ball.

Your equipment will open up more potential as you unlock the various skills in your game. Good luck!

Leshxa is right.. just go ahead and get more practice. The most important thing is to invest your time and energy.

As for the equipment - Photino is a great blade that can last you till you hit 2700 (why not...)

The rubbers - playing with Tenergies is OK for the player who already knows he wants to stick with them. Then yes, the price issue becomes not that important and not extremely relevant, too.

But you are a developing player who is also in search for the right equipment - at least for the next 6-12 months. And experimenting with rubbers at the price level of Tenergy series is very harmful to your wallet.

Here is my advice on which cheap rubbers to try (and where to buy them):

Yinhe (Galaxy) Mars II 37-39 deg Black or 39-41 degrees Red (FH only!) - ttxonline
Dawei Inspirit Quattro Ultralight 35-40 degrees, both sides - ColesTT
Gambler Outlaw Golden Cake (lavender) sponge, both sides - Zeropong, ColesTT
LKT Rapid Speed, both sides, but more on FH - Zeropong or ColesTT

all of them are 14-17 dollars per sheet

Cheaper tensors

Xiom Omega IV Europe (FH), Palio Blitz 2.0 (BH) - from ttnpp.com

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You can try them all for less than the price of one pair of Tenergies. Then decide which ones you like best on your FH/BH and go ahead with more and more practice.

FireHorse wrote: Leshxa wrote: ... Here is an interesting thing to note. It is harder to learn to loop slow consistently than to loop hard. Maybe some people would disagree, but soft loop requires a special kind of touch and if you are just beginning to improve - it will be a while for you to develop that extra touch of control. No rubber will guarantee an improvement in this area. Sure you can go with a thinner sponge or a softer sponge, but it will not help your touch. Its just a skill you will need to learn. ... Totally agree!!!  Some people would disagree, of course (one of them would be my practice partner who has been insisting on developing hard loop and doesn't think soft, slow loop is needed for becoming a strong player).   FireHorse

I am beginning to experience it again - the need to develop a better slow loop. Against better players that are able to block the hard loops, spin and placement is the only answer. The harder you go, the riskier the shot is and more likely one would lose on percentages.

Leshxa wrote: FireHorse wrote: Leshxa wrote: ... Here is an interesting thing to note. It is harder to learn to loop slow consistently than to loop hard. Maybe some people would disagree, but soft loop requires a special kind of touch and if you are just beginning to improve - it will be a while for you to develop that extra touch of control. No rubber will guarantee an improvement in this area. Sure you can go with a thinner sponge or a softer sponge, but it will not help your touch. Its just a skill you will need to learn. ... Totally agree!!!  Some people would disagree, of course (one of them would be my practice partner who has been insisting on developing hard loop and doesn't think soft, slow loop is needed for becoming a strong player).   FireHorse I am beginning to experience it again - the need to develop a better slow loop. Against better players that are able to block the hard loops, spin and placement is the only answer. The harder you go, the riskier the shot is and more likely one would lose on percentages.

I guess that we need to have varieties in our strokes and I personally think both slow loop and hard loop are needed since without one of them, we will not be a very good offensive player (and of course, with a lot of other things too but we're talking about loops here).

I think that your equipment is fine but the only thing I noticed about T05FX is that for me it is way less consistent than regular T05 and I would not suggest that anyone use it IMHO. T05 is just way too good of a rubber to mess with. Sure it has control issues, but these can be overcome with practice and you can shore up the control of the game with your backhand rubber being more chill. I use a much more control oriented rubber on the backhand (see signature) and I really like it. I will try T64 on backhand one day, but for now I like these two rubbers. Maybe Photino interacts differently with FX than on my ZLC but I just felt it was WAY too soft and unpredictable -- with a very few exceptional loops. The setup I use is great because I get incredible backhand blocks and very consistent loops, pushes and even chops. Then T05 lets me open up underspin service to loops. I would give T05 a try.

My POV was always that playing with Tenergy series rubbers for 99% of the  players below USATT-2000 level (especially for a developing player) is not only unnecessary, it is also counterproductive.

dauntless wrote: JimT wrote: My POV was always that playing with Tenergy series rubbers for 99% of the  players below USATT-2000 level (especially for a developing player) is not only unnecessary, it is also counterproductive. I think under 2000 is just too high of a bar. I think at 1600 its fair to say Tenergy is an option-- not for everyone of course. But if you loop with any regularity its going to help a lot of players. The game is just different with this rubber on the market. Yes, your stroke will change with Tenergy, and you have to fight laziness, and the tendency to do the lame T05 half stroke. I know this well, but even with these disadvantages, I think Tenergy is a viable rubber for sub 2000 players given that they are committed to improvement and want to continue refining their strokes and footwork. I think Mark V is the best all around rubber to develop on starting at 1.8 on a crisp more stiff blade and moving to 2.0 as they increase in skill. Moving to T05 after this should be fairly intuitive IMHO, but of course everyone is different and my thoughts here could never apply to everyone.

I am not saying that a 1600-1900 player cannot play with Tenergy. I am saying that

a) he doesn't have to (there are tons of replacements, some of which will certainly be better for that player than Tenergy; and three times cheaper, too)

b) if he is still a developing player then Tenergy will actually hurt the development (first of all, developing proper technique should not be done with Tenergy, second, in some shots player is helped by Tenergy's qualities which prevents him from learning  the proper stroke, third, in some shots, player will be hampered by Tenergy's sensitivity which will present unnecessary extra difficulties in learning... etc)

acud s2 or s3 .. or both of them s2 for FH and s3 for Bh... s2 is reany nice play with... use an all+ off - blade it shuld do no harm.. or  jsut get s2 for fh and keep the coppa silver