Table Tennis Gear's "Puzzling Questions," Part 3
7. Are short pips/raw rubber faster than inverted rubber?
Butterfly’s gear R&D department thinks it depends on each rubber’s type and performance — you cannot generalize which is faster. Generally, balls hit with short pips/raw rubber fly in a straight line, while inverted-rubber balls mostly fly in an arc. Especially at the front table, short pips/raw rubber shortens the time from striking to bouncing on the opponent’s table, so it feels fast. Pips/raw rubber being thought faster than inverted has these reasons: (1) Brands describing rubber performance mostly use “speed,” “spin” and “stability.” Generally, pips and raw rubber’s spin is less than inverted, and cheap rubbers often use “stability” as a selling point (Rozena: are you cueing me?), so pips/raw rubber generally use “speed” as the selling point. (2) Pips/raw rubber is relatively insensitive to spin. To exploit this, players smash and play fast more. Players using pips/raw rubber mostly adopt faster styles. Not because pips/raw rubber itself is surely faster than inverted. Pips/raw rubber relatively does not need spin, and the ball’s contact time with the rubber is short, giving a sense of faster off-the-bat speed.
8. Does more tackiness mean stronger spin?
I suddenly recall Victas’s old Triple Double Extra (TD) — the tackiness really was strong, but the speed was fast too. Actually its spin was not strong; the looped ball did not feel especially pinning. Instead, it was a speed-type tacky rubber. Butterfly thinks tackiness does not mean increased spin. Theoretically, if tackiness is too strong, the ball sticks firmly to the rubber, equivalent to spin of 0. How spinny a rubber is depends on the surface friction and that dragging feel. (Heima: many domestic tacky rubbers are tackier than Hurricane 3, but actually have less friction.) Just relatively, a good-tack rubber, compared with a non-tacky one, has suppressed elasticity, not easily erring, so some players think with tacky rubber they can raise the swing speed and freely add spin. Tacky rubber gives players more security, with richer spin and rhythm variation and creation. ESN thinks what governs a rubber’s spin ability is not just the surface but also the sponge. Tabletennis Kingdom’s editor Joota Ito thinks tacky rubber making more spin than tensors is just an illusion makers created. Because tacky rubber’s true performance is only “not as springy,” good control. Just that, with weaker elasticity, players can freely add spin. Suppressing elasticity is an interesting topic. For example, for me, the backhand with T80, though fast with ample explosiveness, is not especially stable. If I switch to Rakza 7 or Blue Fire M1, these with less elasticity than T80, the backhand is more stable. But these two rubbers’ support for the forehand is not as good as T80’s. That is, after using them on the backhand, the forehand is not as punchy as before.
9. Do more plies mean stronger elasticity?
Actually this relates to the wood type used. For example, single-ply hinoki is one ply, but above medium power, the elasticity is big and the speed fast. A seven-ply balsa blade is not fast either, and the elasticity not necessarily strong. So ultimately, it depends on the wood type and the blade thickness. And too many plies make the blade weight hard to control.
10. Among Chinese, Japanese and European players, who values blade weight more?
Chinese and Japanese players value blade weight fairly much. European players care less. Wood is a living thing; the same hinoki and limba, in different seasons, have different water content, and different weights after drying. So for makers’ quality control, it is a challenge. But more than blade weight, many people more easily ignore rubber weight. Actually rubber weight also affects the blade’s balance point. Besides, many rubbers’ weight quality control is fairly poor — a several-gram difference is normal.