TTMaster Swing Back I Friction

• Excellent control, allowing varied return ball
• Active pushing and lifting on back-spin ball
• Extremely effective against service and top-spin

Swing Back I Friction is suitable for active defensive play as well and classical defensive play."

This new long pimple rubbers from TTMaster, a Swiss based company, are reported to be the closest to the traditional frictionless long pimple rubbers (like the Dr Neubauer and Hallmark ones), while they still meet the new ITTF regulation on minimum friction. According to TTMaster they are designed to meet the regulation, and have been tested successfully.

Click here for pricing on TTMaster Swing Back IF from One of a Kind Trading Australia

Review by haggisv

OK I've finally had a hit with it... In summary it's certainly no Superblock (SB)... It's a lot more lively and a little more sensitive to spin. However it's slower and considerably more reversal on blocks against loops than any other friction pips that I have used. So I DO agree that it's likely the clostest to SB that will still be legal... it's also likely to require the least adjustment...

Frictionless strokes can still be played with this, but are not as effective and do require some adjustment to incoming spin. On the upside, it's a lot easier to attack with, and it offers some of the advantages that friction pips offer.

I used it on my normal Donic Cayman blade, and used it in OX;

1. blocking against loops - definite spin reversal with a passive block, whereas almost all friction pips return a floater with this. For more backspin more of a chop-block stroke is required, which works very effectively.

2. Counterhitting against loops - hard to do as it behaves more like frictionless, so backspin instead of topspin is generated resulting in the ball floating up instead of dropping.

3. Chopping against loops - outstanding control and it's really easy to keep the ball low...much easier than with frictionless...and since it's so insensitive to spin the control compares favourably to friction pips as well. The spin reversal is very high as you would expect, but not much spin can be added as you can with some friction pips. Changing the spin is a little harder, but can be done to some extent, but not to the extent of some friction pips.

4. attacking backspin - very easy to attacking backspin, as easy as some of the better friction pips...good reversal helps the ball drop quickly.

5. serving - very hard to add significant spin to serves...similar to friction pips.... still good for fast flat serves or deception by twiddling compared to the flip side of the bat...

Conclusion: It's no SB, so for those that expect a legal alternative to SB with the same qualities will be disappointed... but it easily seems the closest alternative requiring the least amount of adjustment in strokes. With some adjustment from SB, the lack of spin reversal is compensated by much improved attacking ability and the easy of keeping the ball low when chopping...