Fast blade/slow rubbers vs slow blade/fast rubbers?

[speedplay]

Now, imagine that the speed ratings actually were accurate and also try to imagine that the used the same scale to measure blades and rubbers, what difference would there be if I used a blade rated at 10 and a rubber rated at 5, compared to a blade rated 5 and a rubber rated at 10?

Me, I use reasonable fast stuff for both blade and rubbers, but some guys swear by their combination and claims that one is better then the other, my question is, in what way does it matter where the speed comes from?

[pingpongrob]

This is a very Good question. Although I dont believe either is correct. With the banning of speedglue, and the major introduction of softer sponge german tensors, you will find that a good blend will always be a hard blade can use anything, but a soft blade must have softish sponge rubbers.

Now this leads me to another question. Should we use slow blades with fast rubbers. (Speedplay asked first). Well it all depends on your game. Do you rely on speed or spin. Do you play close to the table or far away.

Fast blades with fast rubbers require plenty of training. when I stopped training at one stage, I found it hard to control my equipment, and had to slow the blade down.

Slow Blades with fastish rubbers give great topspin (as long as you have the correct technique). Simon Gerade uses a Andro Super Core ALL+, and generates enough speed. He tend to play fairly close to the Table.

When recomending blades to lower level established players, players that push & smash, I tend to recommend a stiff fast blade with hardish rubbers. This gives them less dwell time and more direct smashing.

I would be intersted to see what the resy of you have to say.

[speedplay]

This is a very Good question. Although I dont believe either is correct. With the banning of speedglue, and the major introduction of softer sponge german tensors, you will find that a good blend will always be a hard blade can use anything, but a soft blade must have softish sponge rubbers.

This goes against pretty much all I have read before, as it is usually suggested that a soft blade along with soft rubbers will get a mushy feeling to it. Often the recommendation is to use hard blade/soft rubbers or soft blade/hard rubbers.

My own personal belief in this is that you should use as hard as you can handle, both for blades and rubbers. Speaking in general, hard blades gives more speed and hard rubbers gives more spin (provided you use the right technique) so using the hardest possible set up would give you the most speed and spin. Now, we can't all handle this, not even the pro's can do this, cause we need some dwell time to generate spin, so picking a softer rubber will make it easier to generate spin and I think the same goes for a softer blade.

But the question remains, what difference would there be between the combinations suggested in the original post?

[Der Echte]

A mid soft FH rubber on my pretty stiff BTY TBS blade (Firm sponged on BH) does me right for opening the point and I feel no lack of power to finish.

On faster blades like the Wavestone and T-8, I have to use an even softer FH rubber to tame it down to controlability.

[gekogark1212]

This goes against pretty much all I have read before, as it is usually suggested that a soft blade along with soft rubbers will get a mushy feeling to it.

I'm not picking sides here, but after (what 3 years now?) EJing with many differing combinations, I can understand what Rob is saying there, especially if he is referring to softer tensors.

But there seems to be a slight adjustment in technique, as opposed to loop killing as we would like harder rubbers, the sponge tends to bottom out and give us nothing. Thus, my solution to this problem is an all out smash, the super soft sponge forgives generously for mishits, and you'll be surprised how many balls can be put away like this as opposed to driving the ball continuously.

There you go Rob, I finally see that you had it right all along, lol, proof that he doesn't talk shit guys!  :P :P jokes mate  :-*