The pro's equipment -discussion and questions!

bbkon wrote: zeio wrote: AMonteiro wrote: Greenfield wrote: Any one knows Miu Harano equipment , pls post , thanks Clipper Wood + Tenergy both sides (don't know what versions). T05/T64, extra thick, 2016 All-Japan Championships. http://www.tt-ouendan.com/topplay.pdf Pitty i cant translate

I just spent an hour translating all of these and I was met with an "access denied" page and lost all my work. IF you have any specific questions I can translate them for you. But a few observations:

Only one penholder (So Eka). In 2005, the semifinals of the men had 3 penholders (Kaii Yoshida, Seiko Iseki, Hyogo Kayama). Not coincidentally, all 4 of them are Chinese. In fact as far as I can tell there are only 2 Chinese players on the list (Kazuhiro Chan and So Eka), there are some I am unsure about but those are the obvious ones. That's probably the fewest Chinese players in the top 16 of the men and women in years (the last Chinese player to win the All Japan title was Oh Ki (Wang Hui) in 2010). Only three players (Koki Niwa, Yuka Ishigaki, and Masako Wakamiya), don't use Butterfly products of any kind- the homogenization of playing types and equipment is is truly astounding compared to what it used to be. Hopefully more companies can step up and compete with Tenergy. The only good thing I see is that the women vary in style and equipment far more than the men, but only one penhold out of all 32 players is probably also an all time low.


Edited by liXiao - 10/15/2016 at 7:55pm

Is it just me or is Timo playing with his TB ZLC now?

It does seem like a zlc, but it would be a really used alc that changed its color after Hoursss of playing.

check out 3:36 and 3:59 of the video, the handle looks grey to me.  Definitely not blue.

Edited by liulin04 - 10/20/2016 at 4:41am

Can you make the same performance as TM when you use his racket? I doubt

liulin04 wrote: Is it just me or is Timo playing with his TB ZLC now? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-spaLOr534

Yesterday he stated his prefered weight of his Tenergy 05:

Tenergy 05 with old packaging: VH 98,21 BH 94,80
NOW
Tenergy 05 with new packaging: VH 99,01 BH 96,67

jonyer1980 wrote: kakapo wrote: liulin04 wrote: check out 3:36 and 3:59 of the video, the handle looks grey to me.  Definitely not blue. At first I thought it might be an ALC since Timo has been playing with that all his career.  But I thought it couldn't be an ALC, no way he's going to play with a blade whose handle has been that heavily stained with sweat.  Not to mention that funky smelly odor too.  And Butterfly would have replenished him with new batches of TB ALC.  So from that deduction, I was made to think that it very well could be a TB ZLC, since Timo's shots do seem to be a bit faster in this match against Tokic. What I know is : 1) Michel D. keeps on preparing and sealing blades for TB. I have seen very recently a box with +/- 10 blades which will go to Düsseldorf very soon. 2) All these blades are TB Spirit (the head). 3) TB has never played in any official match with ZLC or ZLF. And last thing...TB has always played with TB Spirit....It was only ALC handle :)) I´m sure you´ll know it but he was playing Viscaria on his prime. There wasn´t any TB alc or Spirit at that time

Edited by kakapo - 10/20/2016 at 12:58pm

looks like we will see in FS section many TB ALC for sale and everybody looking for TBS
I have one for sale
hahaha

Gionis played today with a 98gr Korbel ! Amazing !!!

But, what about the pictures of Timo gluing rubber onto his ALC's? You know, those blades with TB ALC stamps on the blade surface? Are those fake stamps too? Just to confuse him just as much as confusing us? 

beeray1 wrote: But, what about the pictures of Timo gluing rubber onto his ALC's? You know, those blades with TB ALC stamps on the blade surface? Are those fake stamps too? Just to confuse him just as much as confusing us?

But in this picture, one of them is very clearly worn. What, did he borrow someone else's used TB ALC and then grab another newer one, pretend to glue some rubber in his room for a super official photo-opp (clearly a casual picture), just to convince us he's using a slightly different Arylate Carbon blade that has his name on it to the real arylate carbon blade that... also has his name on it? 

Idk... all these "theories"... Plus those rackets sealed by some guy in europe look super worn. Like beeray said its hard to buy this...

Edited by DreiZ - 10/20/2016 at 2:56pm

I think that MD sealed a lots of pro players rackets during sg days. However I'm not sure that he does that that much anymore. Why? Because rackets of for example Timo Bolls looks like they haven't been treated with anything what so ever. Earlier it was quite clear that they had a heavy sealing but not anymore. Or Maybe MD has developed much nicer looking sealer:).