First impressions of bounce the ball on the blade were that it was VERY fast and very consistant, almost total blade sweet spot as you expect from a thick and hard carbon with super thin outer plys. The first week I played with it I used some very tacky nine nine nine T's 999T @ 45 degrees sponge. This certainly were not the right rubbers for this blade because the result was an uncontrolable pig :p. So I gave up on that idea.

 

During the week I tried a few different rubbers on it and after whacking some balls against the living room wall I decided no19 H2 @ 35 degrees for the forehand and a Stiga Mendo on the backhand, not sure how hard/soft the Stiga is but it's of a similar speed to the no19 H2.

 

So this week I had a big hit out with the T-1 with the above rubbers, It was still a little hard to hang onto close and over the table but was possible to loop and hit from that close and would come to you with practise. But the really amazing thing and the reason I'm going to keep the blade/combo is when I had a practise season with it. I was counter hitting on the forehand with a guy and could loop drive from 3-4 meters back hitting 90+ % winners with this blade, it made these kind of shots very very easy, very nice big curving drive loops from that distance at insane speeds. Which were getting getting alot of "niceeeeeee" comments from the other guy :). Also when he hit one back onto my backhand I could smack them straight back at his forehand like a fly swat flick backhand for winners from along way off the table such is the pace of this blade.

 

So after such an inspiring practice it was my turn for another game in the teams and I decided to have a go with this blade but in this scenario against a looper that sets up with slow chops I found this blade useless, it's just a little too fast for this job and since I'm mostly a close to the table looper It wasn't really doing the job for me, I still won the game but he wasn't a player at my same level.

 

All in all I think if I had someone at my club that could push me back from the table with genuine pace where I could loop from a few meters out pro style, then this blade would be very good for the job, but then if they brang the game back short mid point it would be an issue to keep control of it. Anyway for the moment I'll use it as a slogger for practicing from distance, I was so sore today when I woke up after using this blade as it's alot heavier than my main blade (balsa 6.5) so it's ideal purpose in life is a muscle training device I think :D and for showing off.

 

I'd reccomend this blade to anyone looking for a fun blade that has a HEAP of room around their table, I feel you would want to be a very good player to actually use it in serious competition, it's well beyond my skill level for that kind of job but it certainly has the right stuff for enjoying a hit out :).

 

P.S I was mostly hitting the H2 forehand, but swapping sides from the no19 H2 to Stiga Mendo could still produce the same winners from the same distance with the exact same stroke so there was very little difference between those two rubbers in terms of how they hit the ball on this blade