DHS 651 short pimple

"The optimum racket covering for near table attack. This was the best choice for traditional Chinese quick attack player.
It is (or at least was at some stage) used by some top Chinese players such as Yang Ying."

The pimples are fairly hard, rough and quite wide. Doesn't feel terribly grippy, probably because the hardness of the rubber,
but might be grippy under impact.

It has a bright yellow sponge, which feels soft and very light...very unusual for DHS! In fact the whole sheet feels very light
and flexible...unusual for a DHS rubber.

Click here for pricing on DHS 651 from One of a Kind Trading

I finally got to test the DHS 651 yesterday, so here is a short review. I put it on a LKT Pro XC Balsa Transformer blade. Normally I use the SP in my forehand, but this time I put in on my backhand. It wasn't really my intention to play more than a few minutes, but I was in for a surprise.

Colour is black and sponge is 1,8 mm.

Compared to globe 889, the pimples are not so wide but the spacing between them are bigger. The pips were a bit longer, but not much.

All in all they felt like something between SP and MP.

Speed: Medium/fast like must SP. Much faster than medium pimples f. ex. globe 888.

Sensitivity to incoming spin: Depends a little on the stroke. Using a light forward stroke, the 651 showed only little sensitivity to spin. I was able to attack many serves taking my opponents by surprise quite a few times. It is definitely less sensitive than most other SP I have tried.

Ability to create spin: Quite amazing. I could serve with heavy spin and push backspin back over the table almost like inverted. I could also make controlled loops. The pips doesn't feel that grippy on the top, so I guess they most bend on impact.

Blocking: Superb. I have never tried anything like it. Tons of control both directional and how fast you want the block to be. It was also quite easy to chop-block. The deception of my blocks wasn't great, but I had enormous staying power and could block over and over again he he.

Chopping away from the table: Compared to LP the 651 is of course somewhat faster, but for a SP the control again was amazing. After just 10 min I was able to chop more than 8-10 times both on spinny and on fast loops from my opponents.

Counter Hitting: Didn't really do any, but I hit or smashed the ball several times with my backhand, which is not normally my strong side.

Serving with pimple doesn't normally give me so many points, but since the pips on the 651 bend a little on impact, I was able to serve a fast pendulum serve and disguise the spin. It could both be a no spin ball, but also a quite spinny backspin/sidespin or topspin/sidespin ball. This can of course also be done with an inverted side, but it felt so much easier with this rubber. It gave lot of cheap points or pop-ups returns to kill.

All in all an extremely versatile rubber with the ability to both attack and defend far from the table.