Short pips on backhand
I recently read an interesting article from Tabletennis11 about advantages and disadvantages of using short pips rubbers. On reading this, I got the feeling that a short pips rubber on my backhand may be well suited to my playing style. So far I never played with such a rubber, so maybe it was worth a try? Besides the price of the rubber, I didn’t have much to loose in experimenting with it.
So I right away ordered a TSP Spectol Red sheet. As it was meant to be just an experiment, I didn’t spend hours reading reviews and comparing rubbers, like when I picked my Evolution EL-S inverted rubbers. Anyway there was only one way to know, to try it.
I received the rubber Friday and yesterday I played 2 hours with Mart using it. Mart is a rather fast player with big top-spins and progressing quite quickly. Our matches are often quite intense, but I would say he has a small edge over me currently. When we play at our best, we are quite close, but I have more often bigger drops in level than him, so he wins more often. Yesterday, we did our usual “first one to win 10 sets”, and surprisingly considering I had a new rubber I wasn’t used to yet, I won 10–7!
While I was hoping for this rubber to maybe help my game, I wasn’t expecting such fast gains. It’s promising!
So what does it bring me?
Most important probably is that I didn’t have to really change anything in my game to use it — the rubber suits well my style. It’s an offensive rubber with grip, that you should use almost like your usual inverted rubber, with minor angle adjustments.
The most immediate benefit I got is that fast and/or long serves to my backhand were easier to return. This has been a troublesome are in my game and it was really the main thing I was hoping this rubber would help me with. I wasn’t disappointed. Now I just need to permanently overcome this insecurity that I have sometimes in these shots.
The second thing that was good in this rubber was blocking. To be honest, I didn’t feel that my Evolution EL-S was a problem in this area, but the short-pip one made it even easier. In particular, it was good for well placed blocks and counter punches. I thing this could become a strong weapon. There is one caveat however: Blocks have to be taken early. Late blocks tended to fall short and not pass the net.
Finally I felt this rubber has some serious potential in an area that I barely scratched as it felt so unreliable so far with my inverted rubber: Attacking short-mid serves, with any spin. The few flips I tried felt easy and were quite successful. That’s easier than with the inverted rubber.
The rubber has a correct level of grip, so it was also clearly possible to do some good top-spins when the occasion was there. I didn’t try much heavy backspin balls, this could be a small downside. In any case, it’s not a rubber for playing far from the table, which is anyway not my style or something I’m very good at.
Another immediate downside is that this rubber doesn’t suit well by backhand serves. My backhand serves are a powerful weapon these days, because I can give them lots of spin / speed and they are also rather deceptive. The TSP Spectol is both too fast and doesn’t have enough spin for these serves. I will have to learn to use the inverted side for these serves and then twiddle (turn my bat) immediately after the serve.
Of course a rubber doesn’t fix footwork issues :-) Killing weak 3rd balls was in theory easy with it, but as I end up often not ready and out of position after my serves, I didn’t get to profit too much from it.
It’s too early to jump to definitive conclusions. I’ve played only against Mart with it. I need to try it against different type of players. What is sure is that I will continue the experiment for at least one or two extra weeks.
