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Table Tennis Tips

A real low and short no-spin serve can give you some easy points in matches, as they are difficult to flip hard, and they require good timing to push hard. Mix it up with a heavy backspin in the same spot. Remember to get it short, the ball should bounce short on your side close to the net...

 729 Focus II

Characteristics:

  • High speed inverted rubber

  • Superior speed and spin

  • Suitable for mid distance loop

  • Made with special sponge  

  • Provided to SPONSERED 729 players

  • ITTF/USATT/CTTA approved

Ratings (out of 12):

  • Speed: 12
  • Spin: 11
  • Control: 10

Comments:  

New concept in Chinese rubber. Increased elasticity with an extremely flexible under pip structure give Focus II more dwell time and more power. The pip structure of Focus allows the ball to better friction through increased contact area. Very mild tackiness and a firmer sponge makes this rubber real quick!

Click here for pricing on Focus II from One of a Kind Trading

 

 729 Focus II Review:
Review by LawOCG (with thanks):

(Please note the majority of this review is done without speed glue to get a accurate review of the rubber, Speedglue will dramatically improve this rubbers performance as I will explain later on)

The focus 2 out of the packet looks very different to any other 729 sheet youve seen before. Friendship have redone the labelling on their Focus line, The logo's look very nice and the overall appearance of the topsheet is promising. The topsheet is very thin with long pips underneath them, the topsheet has a supple elastic look to it and it reminds me of a cj8000 topsheet which is very nice. The topsheet is not tacky like the other 729's out but its "Grippy", Its stickier than jap rubbers but its less tacky than traditional chinese rubbers. The sponge on the Focus 2 is fairly hard and I would rate it around 42-44 Degrees out of the packet, the weight of the rubber is very light. Although I don't have a scale to measure it I would rate it as the same weight as a lot of jap rubbers out at the moment, which is quite light.

When counter-hitting and blocking with the focus 2 I instantly noticed a large speed boost from my previous rubber which was the Faster III. The combination of a supple/elastic topsheet combined with a fairly hard sponge allows the ball to be struck very hard straight on without it topping out as easily as most friendships out at the moment. I must mention that the throw on this rubber is fairly low, Even lower then the faster III. For blocking this rubber is a dream, the ball is controlled and any topspin thrown at you can be controlled with ease and will rarely bounce out. Most of the time blocks are very solid and penetrating, but be warned it takes time to adjust to the low throw.

Looping is where this rubber shines. When you loop at a normal controlled pace, there doesn't seem to be anything special at all. The rubber behaves well and lands where you want it to. When you start to pick up the pace, its really starts to shine. The harder you loop the more apparant the second kick is. Power loops with the focus 2 are beautiful to execute as the arc is very low but at the same time there is a immense amount of spin on the ball. Loops that are hit hard penetrate and will frustate any player because of its different trajectory( namely being Fast, low and very spinny).

But now..... onto the most crucial factor. This rubber can perform mid-distance and long distance!!. I was counter-looping against a ex top level buddy of mine. Against glued up bryce fx, the focus 2 held its ground. Counter-looping with the focus 2 is superb, when the ball is struck at the right angle counter-loops are enormously fast and have loads of spin on them. This is confirmed as the other player will hesitate on the re-loop because of the sheer volume of spin on the ball.

Speedglue - When the focus2 is glued up you can expect about 20% more spin and speed and increased looping potential.

 

Review by dwruck (published with permission):

I played with 729 Focus II rubber for the first time today, and I absolutely loved it! I've been playing with the LKT Torrent in 2.2 mm sponge for a few years now. It really helped me to develop my forehand loop and gave me a lot of spin. I loved the control, but I felt like it was time to look for something with a little more power in loops, hits and smashes. I have a sheet of Focus II with peach sponge in 2.2 mm thickness that I got from Zeropong.

First impressions The packaging was some of the nicest for a Chinese rubber, and it was of very high quality. I could tell right away that the sponge was much more firm than the Torrent, so I knew there would be a speed increase. The question for me was, how would the spin and control be? First hits I warmed up with mdjenders and could instantly tell it was a lot faster. At first, I was dumping a lot of shots into the net. It really does have a low throw. We played a doubles match and I still wasn't quite used to it yet, and thus was quite useless and the main reason we got thrashed in doubles.

After more experience... Then I played more singles matches and was really getting the hang of using the rubber. It definitely had more power. Loops and hits that people were able to return in the past were now more difficult to return by my opponents, or now flying long. On the serve, it had plenty of spin. It was really dangerous when serving with my forehand and mixing in topspin with backspin. I got some easy winners when the ball jumped on them more than they expected. It served quite well with the backhand too, I was able to make some really spinny sidespin serves.

On return of serve, at first I had some problems returning the short serves to my forehand. Getting a handle on the short touch shots took me a while, but once I did I felt like I could push with a lot of spin on the short serves to my forehand. Against anything long, I could loop or hit pretty aggressively. Playing close to the table, even though it's much faster than my Torrent I had no problems in a counter-hitting rally, and I was able to adjust the blade angle to block well. I found that I could also counter-loop pretty well close to the table. When I was backed off the table a little and looped from mid-distance, the rubber really shined.

I whitas able to loop or counter-loop pretty easily, and the rubber had a lot of gears. I count slow loop with a lot of control over the placement and type of spin, but when I cranked up the pace of my shots it really became a serious weapon, much more than the Torrent which wouldn't add much speed as I swung harder. The ball really shot off the table the harder I hit, and I didn't feel like I lost control at all. I got a lot of winners off hard loops, more than I typically would get. It also helped me to hit more clean winners on smashes. Combined with the Bomb blade, it had a nice little cracking sound to the hard hits, which gave people all kinds of trouble.

As you can tell, I'm quite excited about this rubber. After only one use, I was very successful with using it. I even beat a guy rated about 150 points higher than me, who I'd never beaten in the past. Even in my losses today, I could feel it helping me, and they were close losses. My backhand keeps getting better too, so I think I have a combination now that will allow me to be much more effective in being aggressive and attacking or counter-attacking from either close to the table or at mid-distance. I can't wait to keep developing this game!!!

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