Review: Nexy Tuvalu

First impressions:

as some of you know I am not a pips-out player so I do not (most likely) belong to the target audience for this blade. But still, I put on both sides of Tuvalu my regular offensive rubbers - Xiom Omega IV Asia and started hitting.

First of all, I should say that with my regular sized rubbers balance was more or less OK. But I imagine that when the rubbers are cut to the size of this VERY OVERSIZED blade, the balance will be worse. That's where having pimples out on one side will surely come in handy, lowering the overall weight on the face side of the paddle and rectifying the balance issue.

Secondly, the edges are pretty rough - I would really recommend rounding the wings.

Thirdly, it was already mentioned on OOAK that having a picture on the BH side really messes up things for OX players, since the image bleeds through the no-sponge topsheet and makes it illegal.

Now to the game.

The combo is very poppy on the FH side. Not a surprise really - having a thick balsa core will do that to you. So I am not recommending having fast tensors on your FH unless you are already accustomed to playing with thick balsa blades and know how to handle that high throw angle and "balsa catapult" effect. O4Asia plays in OFF style on FH, looping quite decently but with a medium-OK performance in short game.

On the BH side I could instantly see the muffling effects of not having that carbon layer. The blade was noticeably slower, and even driving with Omega I could feel the ball slowing down and flying shorter than expected. I can only imagine how interesting the BH blocks with slow pips-out rubber will go.

So then I stopped playing and gave the blade to my clubmate, a veteran with many (decades!) years of experience playing with medium and long pips on BH, a 2000+ USATT level player. He will put his regular rubbers (including long pips) on Tuvalu and will test it out shortly. His impressions will be conveyed here, in the following posts.

Thanks!

is that a rosewood layer with balsa inner core? looks a bit thick

yogi_bear wrote: is that a rosewood layer with balsa inner core? looks a bit thick

I am not sure. I doubt it, but we could always ask Nexy (if that's not a secret).

I do not recall playing with T-10 but it is slower (on FH) than T-8, that's for sure... about the same as W-1 I would say. On BH it is on the top of ALL+.

My clubmate (see my post above) played with it a little, putting RITC 563 short pips with 1.5 mm sponge on its BH but it seems that was not the right choice. He commented that BH turned out to be a little too fast for him - he usually plays with medium pips and thinner sponge on his Schlager Carbon. As for FH - he liked that, but then again he is not a defender, he is close-to-the-table flat hitter and blocker.

I think the next guy to get this blade should be an actual defender. I put it up for a trade - in Buy/Sale section.