Are soft rubbers not good for FH?
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Topic: Are soft rubbers not good for FH?
Posted By: unstopabl3
Subject: Are soft rubbers not good for FH?
Date Posted: 09/01/2015 at 3:44pm
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I've read a few times before that most players don't like soft rubbers or softer versions of rubbers on their FH and I always thought it's about preference. But recently I've started to realize that it could be more than just preference, it might be that the characteristics of the softer rubbers are not meant for strong FH. Here is what has happened recently: As mentioned I switched over from using r7 on my FH to r7 soft on my FH as I started liking how the ball would dig in the soft topsheet and allowed me more dwell time to generate more sidespin. Since past few days I've noticed something weird about r7 soft. I didn't have any problem picking up heavy spiny serves but since a few days I've been playing against a player who does an impression of tomahawk serve from his left sided FH. It's sometimes a short and slow spiny serve and sometimes a fast long spiny serve. When I used r7 soft to pick up the serve, I would either go long or go into the net, and showed huge catapult even when touched slightly, my serve receiving on this particular serve became a nightmare for me even though I've played against much higher level players in the past with this same setup and didn't have as much problem returning their heavy spin serves. For a few days I was thinking maybe my technique is wrong and I tried everything from changing racket angles, to changing the level of power or friction I would use to receive the serve, and I was only successful on some occasions but mostly losing points on his serve. So today I started using my BH rubber Rakza X to pick up his serves on my forehand and to my amazement I could return all of his serves very easily and accurately and I came to the conclusion that it's not my technique at fault but more or so the r7 soft which could be the culprit, maybe it's way too sensitive to incoming spin, even though it's not so great at generating heavy spins on serves (atleast not for me). Also I was reminded how fast Rakza X was as compared to r7 soft, my opponent was having hard time when I would drive the ball with Rakza X but with R7 soft he could usually return the slow drives. I also noticed my serves were spinnier and created more trouble for the opponent as opposed to r7 soft. So are these the reasons why most players don't use softer versions of rubbers such as tenergy FX or r7 soft on their FH??? |
Replies:
Posted By: Baal
Date Posted: 09/01/2015 at 3:51pm
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I also don't like rubbers that are too soft on my FH. I haven't bothered to give too much thought to what is actually happening, but for the most part it just works badly on the shots I need to hit most often. I guess the question for different players is where to draw the line -- the hardness that is the limit they can use? Also, can they in time get used to something and compensate without thinking about it? The answers probably vary from one person to the next based on a lot of things. To me T05FX is too soft, I very much prefer T05. It could be that a lot of players trained on Chinese rubber will find T05 too soft too. I am not sure I could ever get used to using something even as soft as FX. Maybe. I don't intend to test it. So I would guess also that it is something more than preference. (Operative word here is "guess", though, I can't say I know for sure). |
Posted By: AcudaDave
Date Posted: 09/01/2015 at 4:00pm
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I think it's just a matter of preference. I used to compete regularly against a 2250 - 2300 player that played with Desto F3 on his FH and BH and he played off the table with it. ------------- Joola Zhou Qihao 90 blade Joola Dynaryz Inferno max - BH Nittaku Moristo SP 2.0 - FH |
Posted By: MLfan
Date Posted: 09/01/2015 at 4:21pm
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It's not really a matter of whether soft/hard rubbers are good for FH. Softer rubbers are easier to use, because they provide more dwell time = more control. But harder rubbers can give more power. It all depends on your style. But if we're talking about why chinese players use hard sponge rubbers (h3), that's a completely different story, because chinese rubbers and european generate spin differently. I'm sure there're plenty of threads out there to elucidate this if you're unclear of the differences, but long story short, chinese rubbers tend to be much harder than european ones because they are not tensor rubbers, and they are tacky, which requires a hard sponge to generate any real power.
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Posted By: NextLevel
Date Posted: 09/01/2015 at 5:08pm
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It all depends on the kind of contact you prefer to make to manipulate and generate spin. R7soft is not *that* soft, but my experience is that when I make very hard contact, I prefer the way hard rubbers behave to the way soft rubbers do and since I like to make hard contact fairly often, I prefer to use harder rubbers than most people who like Euro sponges. ------------- https://youtu.be/jhO4K_yFhh8?t=115" rel="nofollow - I like putting heavy topspin on the ball... Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
Posted By: NextLevel
Date Posted: 09/01/2015 at 5:24pm
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The other factor has to do with the blade being used. But its not so much again that the blade and rubber do or do not go together - its more about whether the way they behave together match your intuitions in that stroke/ball speed range. ------------- https://youtu.be/jhO4K_yFhh8?t=115" rel="nofollow - I like putting heavy topspin on the ball... Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
Posted By: unstopabl3
Date Posted: 09/01/2015 at 5:48pm
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I pretty much like everything I do with r7 soft, sure it's not as spiny or speedy as r7, sure it bottoms out a few feet away from table, sure it requires more power to generate decent spin and speed on serves or drives. I can live with all these things because I get tremendous control and dwell time and can loop all day and do massive sidespin loops and just love the overall feel of the rubber. So where do you guys think the problem lays, is it the way I'm picking up his serve (a flaw in my technique)??? If you say yes, then how come I can pick up the same serve in the same exact way with RX and play worse with hard RX? Could it be that r7 soft is more insensitive to incoming spin than I thought? But if that were true it would mean the rubber should be able to generate more spin when I serve or loop, which is not the case as per my experience. I find R7 and RX to be better at spiny/speedy serves/drives. |
Posted By: wilkinru
Date Posted: 09/01/2015 at 6:52pm
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I found the R7 soft to be a very difficult rubber to control on my forehand. The catapult effect was pretty obvious and lead to control issues for me - I started not making full swings even. I'm not sure why the serve is difficult, but perhaps your getting into the sponge and that's causing issues. Either into the net (not enough power) or long (enough power but catapult makes it go long?) While a harder rubber tends to give you the touch you expect? ------------- TB ZLF inverted inverted |
Posted By: doraemon
Date Posted: 09/01/2015 at 8:35pm
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I was thinking the same, as I always use harder sponge rubber on my FH. But recently I used Boost TC on FH side of my Samsonov Alpha SGS and then on my Samsonov Premium Contact (since Boost TC is lying around unused). Surprisingly, it suits both blades fine. It is probably the blades that add control to the soft rubber. SPC is All+ and Alpha SGS is Off-. I have not tried soft rubber on my OFF blades yet. However, I agree with you, it feels better using harder FH rubber. The above is just exception. ------------- Blade : Just wood FH : black rubber BH : red rubber |
Posted By: JacekGM
Date Posted: 09/01/2015 at 10:24pm
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... there are many shades of European medium rubbers out there to try, too...(Blufire M3, Calibra LT Spin, T80, Pryde 40, Fastarc S-1, etc etc) ------------- (1) Juic SBA (Fl, 85 g) with Bluefire JP3 (red max) on FH and 0.6 mm DR N Desperado on BH; (2) Yinhe T7 (Fl, 87 g) with Bluefire M3 (red 2.0) on FH and 0.6 mm 755 on BH. |
Posted By: yogi_bear
Date Posted: 09/01/2015 at 10:42pm
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If you like to hit the rubber using more sponge compression then soft rubber is good. ------------- Independent online TT Product reviewer of XIOM, STIGA, JOOLA, SANWEI, GEWO, AIR, ITC, APEX, YASAKA and ABROS ITTF Level 1 Coaching Course Conductor, ITTF Level 1 Coach |
Posted By: Baal
Date Posted: 09/01/2015 at 10:46pm
I wonder though, if he stuck with it long enough to like the feel of it, whether your friend might have been even better with F1. That's the question that is always almost impossible to answer. |
AcudaDave wrote:Posted By: tabletennis11
Date Posted: 09/01/2015 at 10:53pm
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It's down to playing style and preference. A player who plays more control and spin generally likes softer (or tacky) rubbers. Generally speaking you don't often see a player block and control on their forehand anywhere near as much as on their backhand, the forehand has always been the more dominant offensive stroke and so usually players look for a little more firmness to maximise their ability to play fast and more powerful shots. ------------- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6QlKrAbsMQ?utm_source=mytt-signature" rel="nofollow - Click Here to see TableTennis11 CEO Sergei Petrov's Introductory Interview - Tabletennis11.com |
Posted By: rocketman222
Date Posted: 09/02/2015 at 12:06am
| I play R7 soft on my forehand and regular R7 on the backhand, and find it much easier to receive serves as well as generate very spinny loops compared to regular R7 |
Posted By: rocketman222
Date Posted: 09/02/2015 at 1:04am
As a recreational player, that mostly plays with old people at a senior center, i need to use every trick in the book to keep up with players practicing 500 serve receives a day
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