Have you played with Anti Power / Anti Spin rubbers

[pingpongrob]

Last night I made up a bat with a Red Plasma 430 one side and a Red 729 Anti on the other. This was going to be the first time I had played with an Anti, against another player.

The reason I made it up, was now that Dr Neauber has had most of his frictionless rubbers banned, player are going to anti, and I thought that I could get my coach to give me a lesson on the finer points in playing against it.

When my A grade son saw it (he's susposed to be resting his shoulder), he immediately decided to challenge me. Well I never back away from a easy challenge.

I have to say the following after beating him 3 straight. YUK.

It was relitively easy to play with, although a little adjustment was nessasary, knowing that the ball would not react as violently as with normal rubber.

Serves were easy to return, and ball placement was also very good. The hardest part of the game was flat smashing - I just could not smash a single ball, but I could mini loop, which also put my son of.

We have a few players in our Metro league that have good results playing with Anti.

1. Have you ever had trouble against it ?
2. Do you have any tips on Playing it ?
3. What sort of player would benefit from using it ?

My answers would be as follows.

1. Yes - Lots  
2. Always drive the ball forward.
3. Lower level players, that have a hard time reading spin, and prefer a flatter, shorter game.

[Silver]

the friendship anti (804) isn't very anti compared to others. It's more like a very low grip rubber.

[speedplay]

1. Have you ever had trouble against it ?
2. Do you have any tips on Playing it ?
3. What sort of player would benefit from using it ?

My answers would be as follows.

1. Yes - Lots  
2. Always drive the ball forward.
3. Lower level players, that have a hard time reading spin, and prefer a flatter, shorter game.

1: No, since I'm aware of the effects from it, it doesn't bother me that much. I actually prefer playing against a anti player compared to a two winged looper.

2: With or against? With: Twiddle! The major advantage of anti is that you can make shots that looks similar to inverted but carries a very different spin. So use it and twiddle and you will get your opponent confused. Against: Anti isn't as predictable as the frictionless pips but remember that they don't get nearly as much reversal as the FLP (frictionless long pips) but rather tends to return either a no spin ball or a very light reversed spin. Avoid playing short push games as this is where anti players gets the most benefits from twiddleing.

3:Anyone who prefers to use one wing (mostly Bh) for something else then looping. Also, people who likes to use tactics rather then brutal speed/spin to win the game. As opposed to the FLP I actually think anti wont do much good at the lower levels, but a tad higher it starts to get useful.

[ckhugo]

I think anti rubber does not produce as much variations as Long Pip, and some oldies actually purposely leave an old sheet of sriver under the sun and then there goes an anti for you  

Nways, I think anti is effective when there is a follow up shot, so if you hit or blocked with anti and the opponent was caught and did a lift and the quality of shot that follows will determine how good the player is. (I being caught out a few times by this).

But ya, twiddle as said by Speed is very effective, and if you got a shot that follows then you will be extremely hard to play.

H

[gekogark1212]

1. Have you ever had trouble against it ?
2. Do you have any tips on Playing it ?
3. What sort of player would benefit from using it ?

As you all know by now, I've used anti for about 2-3 weeks before realizing its true weaknesses that I could not overcome, so here goes:

1. No, I usually do not get too much trouble against anti, unless the player is much stronger than me, which in any case could beat me anyway.

2. Anti EATS SPIN ALSO!! (terminology explaination: by "eat" i mean it reacts negatively), but rather it "eats" it in the opposite sense than inverted. I serve topspin with deception, then kill the next ball with a flip kill or smash. Or backspin with deception, then brush over the ball for a winner, just like you'd do for a weak flip by the opponent.

3. Players that are very technical. When I started with the more grippy anti's like the one Rob tested out, I could confuse and punch kill against players stronger than myself. THAT is why I saw the potential to switch.


Nowadays when I see anti, I smile, since I have SP BH so dead no spin ball = easy game strategy ^_^