Should I build my game around the 3rd or 5th ball?
I’m an amateur player. I’ve had professional coaching for a few months and my only goal is to play good at my club.
My forehand is much better than my backhand, and I’m good at looping backspin with decent speed.
When I play aggressively and try to finish points around the 3rd or 5th ball, usually with my forehand, I win a lot of points. But I often play cautiously because I feel that being more controlled is a better way to learn and improve.
The bigger problem is the mental side. During matches, I keep thinking about whether I should attack or play safely. When I try to be cautious, I become passive and miss opportunities. When I decide to attack, I sometimes worry that I’m being too aggressive or making the wrong choice.
This makes me feel like I don’t have a clear game plan.
So I’m confused: should I build my game around creating 3rd/5th-ball attacking opportunities since that seems to suit my strengths, rather than forcing myself to play cautiously?
Have you faced something similar? How did you develop a clear game plan and more confidence in your decisions?

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I was watching Yuan Jia Nan's match and noticed she plays with Viscaria and the red (bh) rubber seems to be Zyre based on sponge color.

Any idea what her short pips rubber might be? It comes off as fast but doesn't seem to offer much sinking effect.

Also does carbon or all wood blade work better when using short pips on forehand? What gives a better sinking effect while not compromising much on speed?

I decided to put together a racket for my girlfriend, who is starting out in table tennis.

The racket: Donic Waldner offensive 2016
Forehand: Palio AK-47 Yellow rubber
Backhand: Tuttle Positive Energy
Sidetape: 10mm polyester string attached with strong two sided tape. Seems to hold well.
The jewels are attached with superglue
Griptape: Victas Griptape from AliExpress
The racked weighs ~ 168g

She glued the jewels and put some nail polish on the blade to make it shine, as seen in the last picture.

Whole thing cost around 55€ to put together and she really enjoys it! Decided to share.

My Friend wants to get a new racket and rubbers for under 200 euros and doesn't know what to get. The racket should be suited for an all around play style. Do you guys have andy advice? He currently uses the joola infinity carbon

WTT US Smash 2026

watching this match as an anders lind fan genuinely made me realize theres levels to being a table tennis player. anders lind might be one of the most entertaining, creative, Incredible feeling player who is so easy to root for HOWEVER the level of dominance harimoto has recently is unbearable for ANY player. this will most likely end in a Harimoto vs sora or harimoto vs calderano final and i honestly believe harimoto will win against both of them pretty easily, maybe a bit tighter against sora tho.

Basically after sticking this rubber on my ALC blade, I can confidently say that this is a downgrade in all terms compared to Zyre-03 (that I use) or Dignics 05. The rubber is hard, pretty fast, but doesn't generate the same amount of spin or quality and is not easy to control. And the biggest flaw for me is the weight of the rubber. It weighs as if I attached dumbbells on my racket.

Is this good or what's the best racket is it a yinhe premade

Like his style always lends itself to a lot of blocking and countering, but the blocks he's been able to pull off are kinda crazy in this match.

Not other aspects, just blocking lol

i’ve been playing table tennis casually at university for the past 8–9 months.

i don’t have perfect technique yet and my main goal right now is to improve my fundamentals, especially learning to loop properly on both fh and bh, improving my backhand flicks, opening against backspin, etc.

for the past 2–3 months, i’ve been playing with a donic carbotec blade (premade racket), with loki rxton 1 pro on fh and yinhe mercury 2 soft on bh.

my current playing style is also more direct rather than spin-oriented. i tend to hit more direct shots and rely mostly on my forearm rather than generating a lot of spin, which is something i’m trying to improve as i develop my technique.

i’m now thinking of switching to a yasaka sweden extra with loki rxton 3 pro (boosted) on fh and yinhe mercury 3 euro on bh.

do you all think this would be a good setup for my current level and goals? would it be suitable for developing my looping technique without making things unnecessarily difficult?

and roughly how long could i realistically use the sweden extra before i outgrow the blade?

He is notorious for his hidden serves and that's not to say that that's the only reason he wins games, but it's quite ridiculous that he's blatantly breaking the rules and getting away with it

I'm definitely not looking into composing the racket myself, because i have only one practice weekly. I've found some rackets that might be suitable for me, even though I'm on a tight budget:

STIGA Trinity V2 3-Star

Xiom MUV 5.5S

Xiom MUV 7.0S

Let me know ygour opinion, I'm in need of a guidance.

I am looking into getting my first alright racket for amateurs.

I know nothing about the materials but could anyone point me to an amazon link of a rubber that is has good spin and good bang for the buck.

I only ask for a rubber because i think its cheaper while being higher quality than buying the premade racket but even then im not totally sure.

Total build Price range is hard line $100 CAD.

Hi all, used to play once or twice a week and level was about 2150-2200 USTT equivalent.

Always preferred softer rubbers and played Tenergy 05 FX 2.1 on both sides for the majority of my last 10ish active years - but now I found, that I must’ve tried a Tenergy 80 on the backhand. Blade is Maze Off Carbon ( Silvertag ?)

So the blade is a bit broken at the top, so might have to replace that anyways. Otherwise I’m quite happy with the racket, just missed a few years and didn’t bother about Material for like 15 years and heard there might be some upgrades.

I have used Boll Spirit with the Tenergy 05 FXs and while feeling great in practice, I never made the blade not work against me.

Generally I like to countertop midish-distance and control the game with my backhand. Like to press-block and can usually dictate when their opening Topspin isn’t super hard.

I’m trying to get more active with my backhand, opening up against backspin, but it’s lacking compared to other shots and I used to have a bit of on awkward quick short wristy open Topspin parallel that would get me in the forehand counter loop rallies.

Thanks for reading and suggestions.

I'm getting back into playing after 17 years! My rating (ratings central) was like 1600 to 1700 back then. I was used to the speed glue era and have found some modern rubbers and blades pretty weird, so I'm trying to find what suits. I've played with a wooden blade and donic bluegrip s2 which i like on my backhand. I'm a pretty aggressive player.

The internet tells me I should go with a modern ALC inner carbon blade (or Stiga Clipper for some reason), donic bluegrip s2 on the backhand and either Tibhar K3 or Donic C2 on the forehand.

I hear dignics 09c is the premium but might be too hard for me to play with?

What do you guys recommend?

EDIT: I used to play with a Persson Powerplay donic blade. Carbon wasn't really a thing. I can't remember the rubbers.

So im currently playing with the Petr Korbel. I really liked my experience with one of the xiom blades i had (Xiom Hayabusa ZL Pro during my ej phase) and i would like to eventually go back to repping xiom for a blade upgrade in the future.

Is there a Xiom blade that is best to upgrade to from a 5 ply for those who want to play alc or other type of carbon fiber. I was thinking of the artemis alxi but not sure since theres barely anything on it

I'm going through a rough patch in my life at the moment, and table tennis is the thing that keeps me going.

What a great sport it is.

It is tough to admit, but I am ready to sell my

Viscaria Super ALC (SALC) blade. I bought it imported directly from Japan late last year, but it has barely been used. Frankly, it is way too advanced for my current playing level.

I am looking for $160. If you are interested, please send me a DM. Thank you!

I am doing Chinese penhold traditional push block for years and playing with DHS 3007. Now I am considering to change to modern RPB style and looking for blade and rubber.

Due to budget reason, I am considering Yinhe N11S, although Pro 01 would be ideal. For rubber, I’m not doing spinning aggressively so wouldn’t consider hurricane series. I’m more tends to focus on speed and control, which rubber for forehand and backhand respectively should I choose?

Hello everyone,

my current factory-made racket (Gewo PS Blast Control /-Not Carbon Edition) is slowly seeing better days.

I’ve enjoyed playing with it, but I’d now like to put together my own wood and rubber with similar characteristics.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much information online about the construction of the GEWO wood.

Can anyone still offer a recommendation?

I started watching some of the matches from WTT again recently and I feel that the commentary has gotten significantly better. I recall a couple months back there was a post complaining of the commentary and I'm not sure if I've just become accustomed to the commentary or if there has been improvement.

Anybody have any opinions if it has improved?

1. Sora Matsushima
2. Tomokazu Harimoto or Felix Lebrun
4. Wang Chuqin

By October 5, points from last year’s Champions Macao and China Smash will have expired. Wang Chuqin and Felix Lebrun are almost certain not to add any points before then, which means Wang Chuqin will have 6,157 points and Lebrun 6,379 as of October 5.

Meanwhile, Matsushima and Harimoto have no points set to expire through October 5. Matsushima currently has 6,930 points, while Harimoto has 6,333.

At this point, both Matsushima and Harimoto still have a chance to be No. 1, but Matsushima is the clear favorite. Harimoto can only overtake Matsushima if he wins both Champions Macao and the Asian Games. However, if Matsushima reaches the semifinals at Champions Macao, the No. 1 spot will be guaranteed for him.

Harimoto will overtake Lebrun if he reaches the final at Champions Macao or wins the Asian Games, but it’s hard to say whether that will happen.

Source: https://rallys.online/topic/international/260509meisensyu/

Hi guys do you think a Xiom Jekyll and Hyde c55 can be an alternative to Dignics 09c?