FH rubber change

In an effort to stop EJ'ing, for the past year or more I have solely used an Extra 3D with Thors' on FH and Shark II soft on BH.  I have gotten a fair amount of coaching and practice and have improved my overall game significantly.  For reference, I play an all-out attack two-winged loop driving/hitting style and my aim is likely to blow you off the table with power.   

I enjoyed reading the dynamics and your analysis of your progression. 

If you still have your TBS, I'd put Xiom Omega IV on the FH. It helps to balance out the whole blade and you will have more accuracy with your FH.

If you're serious about improving, a proper setup is always important. It lays a foundation of your learning the proper strokes, feel of the ball...etc.

Has you level improved with t80?. I would have suggested you go from thors to tg3 until your control improves. Thors is more powerful, way too much power (as is tenergy) for 1500 level. Tg3 is cheap, just as good in a less powerful way. I think it'll be more suitable for your development. It serves better than thors and in the end serves and consistency should be you focus under us2000. I'd keep the extra if you were going to use tg3, it'll suit the rubber more than the butterfly blades

Let me also add that the T80 on the IFZLC has certainly not been too powerful.  It definitely has a "just right" feel in my loop driving/hitting game.  

In my experience TG3 works excellent without booster on a springy blade, which is why I thought you would try it on the extra 3d, its got nothing like the mid effort pace of thors or tenergy, the thing is it's more usable with less mistakes and allows more spin in the short game.  Shark is the best non tacky Chinese rubber so I guess you are happy to keep that on your backhand. You could possibly try Tau on the ZLC, I'm not using it myself but a 2000+ friend is on a stiff blade and he rates it highly, he's more a hitter than a high spin looper so I was surprised he'd like it so much, then again general specific is more of a hitter too and he likes it. I'll try Tau and get back to you on what I think in a couple of weeks. Thors is a great rubber, my experience with it was you could play amazing one day and not so great another day just because it's so demanding of perfect ball contact. TG3 is less demanding so on average I can play better with it, of course without the power Thors has

Edited by bluebucket - 06/02/2013 at 10:27pm

Hi,
I was struggling with the same issues you are and tried a lot of equipment before I realized few things:
1. Blasting the ball will only get you so far. Even more so when you play against pips. Ball placement by controlling the depth of the ball and trying to hit near the sidelines is more important.
2. What is more important than sheer amount of spin in serves is variation in spin and placement. If your opponent has trouble opening your serves or pushing deep, you can take the initiative.
3. It is very important to develop a good BH block picking up sharp angles on the BH side for someone who tries to hit through the ball so that he can open up the table and then pivot and load up from the FH.
4. Every service outside the table should be looped. Every overspin or side spin service inside the table should be brushed on top or side of the ball just enough to get it over to the other side. Try never to chop/push a service if you can help it (except a short underspin serve).

Before I realized these things I was around 1500 and went through a series of equipment changes without any luck (H3, TG3, T88-I, Omega IV Pro, Sigma 1 Europe, Sigma 1 Pro). Once I implemented the above I stuck with OIV Pro and my rating has been increasing constantly (around 1950~2000 at present).

What damages a developing player more than anything is constant change in equipment. I've hardly seen anyone have an impressive loaded with underspin short push (which cannot be dropped short or pushed or flicked long) up to 2300 levels so there is nothing wrong with using a non-tacky rubber or a hard rubber like OIV pro and not having enough spin in the short game till then.

Thanks




Edited by ashishsharmaait - 06/03/2013 at 12:17am

My turn again to respond to a few...

khmd wrote: There are 4 players rated above 2000 here who use TG3 for forehand, 1 shakehand and 3 pen. It has excellent spin and is powerful in looping. H3 is purely Chinese-style tacky, but TG3 is half Chinese-style tacky so you probably can make a try. It also saves you money.

how about a video to demonstrate what you are really like. preferably a vid of you playign someone your level then someone higher a bit higher

ZLC + T80 is really REALLY hard to beat for looping FH. I agree completely with your assesments of the new paddle. I myself find that T80 is not as spiny during serves or pushes as BlueFire or Evolution MXP. But once you swing and engage the sponge... it's like going through 2000RPM and the Turbo kicks in. Leaves you breathless.

I forgot to add that I recently tried a friend's Aria + Tau combo. And Tau is AMAZING on Aria (at least compared to W6). So much so that after hitting with the Aria + Tau, I immediately went home and ordered an Aria.

I can certainly understand where you're coming from on the officially 1500... BUT... thing.  My personal struggle is with serve receive, odd styles, and mental mistakes.  A few local players give me fits on serve return and that is one of the hardest areas to practice since you can't easily say, "you know that serve you killed me with?  hit me a bunch of them so that you can't beat me with it in the future"   

bluebucket wrote: Return of serve has next to nothing to do with rubber once you have experience. Youll notice even long term players of intermedate standard have almost no problem returning serves compared to someone young of the same level. The problem is if you are using a highly reactive rubber its harder to learn about spin, to learn something you need to get it right once in a while to understand what worked, if you miss everytime you cant learn. That is the main reason we need to go through a stage of rubbers which are forgiving to become good table tennis players. Without that step you cost yourself many years of wasted effort

+ infinity, and beyond!