Do You Need a Spare Bat? Interesting Facts About Main and Spare Bats, Part 2
The images are from the Tabletennis Kingdom site.
How Some Japanese Players Prepare Main and Spare Bats
Kenji Matsudaira: Joola Scepter, Hurricane Inferno on both sides. Matsudaira was previously under Victas, then signed Joola. This Hurricane Inferno may be new, because I have not found info on this code. Matsudaira says his main and spare differ by about 1g. The sponge hardness is the same, but the weight differs. The heavier feels harder, more suited to summer. The lighter is a bit softer, more suited to winter. But by the venue’s feel, he sometimes chooses the spare to compete. It seems some pros are extremely sensitive too.
Yukiya Uda: inner ZLC custom, forehand D09c, backhand Z03. When changing the main blade, the old one becomes the spare. Before a match he changes the rubber on both blades to fresh, generally every two days or so. His new blade also has the G-FLESS anti-slip handle, like the Boll 30. As for the spare, we often saw him use it in matches in recent years. Butterfly customs — many handle inlays are Vis.
Watanabe Yusuke: Fan Zhendong SALC, D09c on both sides. He is the above two’s club teammate. Generally he changes the main’s rubber the day before; for the spare, he changes the rubber a few days early, then simply adapts, for special cases. Normally, four-five days to a week, he changes to fresh rubber. Boll usually prepares four setups, with the same blade and rubber, then uses them irregularly at random. Ma Long, as everyone knows, also prepares and tests all three setups together.
Old Tales of Spare Bats
Shigeo Itoh was the 1969 Worlds men’s singles and team champion. In the team match against Yugoslavia, his main bat, a single-ply hinoki, cracked. But the spare was left at the hotel, so he used a teammate’s bat, leading to his loss that match.
At the 1989 Dortmund Worlds, after Sweden won the men’s team title, Waldner’s bat was stolen at the practice venue. So he could only use a reportedly “completely different” bat in singles, finally beating teammate Persson to win men’s singles. That is ability!
At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Zhang Yining’s bat was deemed in pre-match inspection to have “insufficient rubber flatness” and barred. So she used a “shoe-sole-like” spare — actually just a description that the glue was not boosted well those two days — and beat Feng Tianwei 4-1. She still won back-to-back Olympic titles.
At the same Olympics, in the men’s singles semifinal, Wang Liqin vs Ma Lin, right at the start Wang Liqin’s backhand rubber got knocked. Ma Lin objected to the umpire, and after changing to the spare, Wang Liqin felt it off, finally losing 2-4. Subtle feel differences can be big or small, depending on how you see them. Wang Liqin admitted afterward that although he usually practised with the spare, suddenly changing mid-match really brought maladaptation. Maybe precisely because of these cautionary precedents, Ma Long always prepares three identical bats, then practises with each as the main.