Review: Giant Dragon Taichi Soft

I put Taichi Soft Red 2.2 on the fh of my Timo Boll Off-. The only rubber I had kicking around for the BH was a black PME 42.5 in max that was pretty used up.

I did the usual warm up drills fh and bh counter hits. I used Taichi both times to get a feel for the rubber. Taichi is a very linear rubber in the slow to mid range. Very controllable and good feel. When I picked up the speed the rubber gave an extra kick and the balls started to fly over the end of the table.

I played a few games and the rubber performed pretty good. I (and my opponent) was alway surprised at the speed at which the loop drives came across the net. The rubber was a bit harder to control on these fast shots so I had a lot more misses than usual. I am sure if I would get used to that characteristic of the rubber.

Serves were not necessarily more spinny than my previous set-up (Hexer+) and I had to adapt more to incoming spin. Pushes were easy to control and had decent spin.

One area where the rubber feels to be a bit lacking (for my current technique) is the brush loop. I found it hard to find the right amount of 'touch' to get great brush loop going. The ball wouldn't really slip off, but would still end up in the net quite often.

I just like the feel and characteristics of a tensor better. Taichi is not your typical chinese hard  sponge rubber, but not really a euro/jap rubber either. For what it's worth, the rubber clicks quite nicely.

For the price a really nice rubber that has quite a bit of kick in the top end. If I remember anything else I will update this.

Thanks for letting me try this rubber. It will go out on Monday to beeray1.