Qiu Dang's Grip and Equipment in Table Tennis
Qiu Dang’s grip and equipment choices 
This article draws from an interview with Qiu Dang by Butterfly, supplemented with insights and personal reflections from the Heima team. As a penhold player who emphasizes backhand play and focuses on looping, Qiu Dang’s grip balances both forehand and backhand strokes. He believes his grip style is similar to Wang Hao’s, maintaining equilibrium between both sides of the racket. 
The three fingers on the back of the racket (middle, ring, and pinky) naturally form a circular shape, while the index finger slightly hooks the handle. During my early days of learning table tennis, my coach, a penhold player, taught a different grip where the three fingers were kept straight. This was believed to enhance forehand looping. I recall feeling that this grip gave better control over shot placement and improved the ability to change directions. My father’s penhold grip involved a circular shape with the back fingers, which made his forehand and backhand attacks very efficient. However, this grip seemed to make it easier to generate sidespin on forehand loops. Back then, I didn’t dwell much on the backhand finger placement because my father insisted that the shakehand grip was the future, so I started with that. Despite this, I haven’t quite lived up to that ‘future’ from a technical standpoint… Qiu Dang believes that the circular grip with three fingers provides better balance for both forehand and backhand, which is crucial since backhand play is a significant part of his technique. As for the index finger, he doesn’t grip the handle too deeply, only hooking it slightly. He thinks a deeper grip would benefit forehand attacks, but he prioritizes balance between both sides. 
Finger pressure In a previous ‘Peak Performance’ segment, a national team player explained the importance of finger pressure for shakehand players during pushes. The basic idea is: apply more pressure with the thumb for forehand pushes and with the index finger for backhand pushes. Qiu Dang applies similar logic to his forehand serves, focusing on applying slightly more pressure with the thumb during the serve. For backhand loops, he grips the index finger tighter to stabilize the arc and direction. 
(The handle is thinned at the back, which he believes makes it easier to feel the racket’s response in his fingertips.) Before the advent of backhand play in penhold, players focused on keeping the thumb, middle, and ring fingers tightly pressed against the racket. Now, with the backhand rubber, the index finger also needs to exert more pressure. Blade and rubber choices In the interview, Qiu Dang was using a special edition of the Butterfly Viscaria blade, though he had previously used the Butterfly Innerforce Layer ALC, which he had been using for about 10 years. Despite trying other handles and structures, such as the outer-fiber SALC, he found the rotation and power of the ALC to be superior. He also mentioned that he doesn’t like changing rackets frequently. (I previously wrote that pure ALC is not as elastic or fast as SALC, but it handles incoming spin better.) However, Qiu Dang now uses a special edition of the Viscaria blade. Qiu Dang believes that the longer he uses a racket and rubber, the more he becomes accustomed to them, and the better his overall feel becomes. Therefore, he rarely changes his equipment. He previously used Tenergy 05 Hard on his forehand but switched to D09c after its release. His backhand, which was originally using D05, also changed to D09c around 2023. He prefers rubbers that offer a longer dwell time, allowing him to better achieve the spin and power he desires. Spin is easy to understand, and power is similar. As I mentioned earlier, using sticky rubber allows for more aggressive strokes because the tackiness and arc stability are much better. This is likely one reason why inner-fiber blades and sticky rubber are so popular in our national team. 