Very dangerous rubber for aggressive allround player with a
relative good control or good defender from distance with much underspin. Too
fast for beginner.
I used
this rubber on a Stiga Energy wood blade:
This is a
very deceptive, medium-fast pace, long pimples rubber. The pimples are skinny, very
flexible and grippy. This allows you to put a lot of variation on
returns. This is essential at the higher levels of competition, as simple spin
reversal will no longer fool your opponent.
Blocking
against topspin loops is very good and easy, although some minor adjustment need to be made for high
spin loops (because of the extra grip). It produces a no-spin flat ball, hard
to attack again. The sponge really absorbs a lot of the power, taking the pace
off the return, producing an awkward slow floating ball, very hard to loop
again. Chop block also worked well and are effective. Against very fast
loops/hits the rubber seems to bottom out a little, but the control was still
surprisingly good.
Attacking chops is
very easy, consistent, quite fast, and produces decent spin reversal. Chopping
against chop can be kept low with very good control. The soft 1mm sponge allows
you to generate significant chop yourself when you play a full stroke coming
right under the ball.
I found it
has outstanding control in the short game. I was able to block or chop short balls
with easy, and I had great control over the placement being able to get huge
angles. Even 'no spin'
balls were relatively easy to handle, which are some of the hardest balls to
handle for long pimple players.
Choppers
will find this rubber offer very good control mid to far -distance against loops, with good spin reversal.
By changing from a more downward chop to a more forward chop you can vary the
spin from heavy backspin to no-spin, drawing errors from your opponent.
By changing the angle of your chopping
strokes, sidespin can be produced against spinny loops. The grippy pimples make
this very effective and awkward for your opponent.
Return of
serves are very effective with this rubber, but because the rubbers has
significant grip, you need to adjust a little more for the spin. Particularly
against heavy sidespin I found it really gripped when I tried to chop it hard. A
light & soft stroke is more effective against heavy sidespin, returning most
of the sidespin to your opponent. Against a light or heavy topspin serve, a full
stroke coming right under the ball can produce deep shots with very good
backspin fairly easily. These can be hard to attack effectively for your
opponent, especially when placed deep to their backhand.
This rubber offer
excellent variation but is a little harder to control than many other long
pimpled rubber. However it's offensive capability makes up for the less control
in a defensive game. This rubber is suitable for those long pimpled players that
want to mix a defensive game with a good amount of offensive shots. A blade
that's not too fast (OFF- or slower) with good dwell time would be most
effective and controllable.
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