Answer: Hi Mike,

Your current equipment should be fine for a player at your level. While we can give out general information regarding equipment, it is not possible to give specific advise to a player you have never seen play. I would encourage you to seek out a coach to work with. Besides helping you learn the game, your coach would be able to provide you with suggestions regarding your equipment needs. A list of USATT Certified Coaches can be found at USATT.org.

Best Wishes,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hi Kenny,

A player’s first couple of years in the game is a time for learning and experimenting, so it is not surprising that you have tried to play several different styles.

I strongly suspect that you backhand has more power because you are using the slower rubber, Sriver FX, on that side. Sriver FX’s great control allows you to keep the ball on the racket longer and thus produce better technique which produces a better result. At your level of experience, you might do much better using one of the Sriver rubbers on your forehand as well. Power comes from having proper technique. Faster rubbers like Bryce, are actually more difficult to learn with.

Best Wishes,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hello Adam,

Unfortunately, I have no experience with the Xiom line of rackets. However, I can give you some feedback on the Butterfly models that you are looking at. Both the Maze and Timo Boll Spirit are among our most popular blades and both are available in a straight handle. I suspect that both are going to be a little faster than your current blade. With this is mind, you might want to consider the Timo Boll Spirit as it has a little more control with a medium/hard feel. This blade is very popular with better players as it has a great blend of speed and spin properties. The Maze is similar but faster and has a harder feel. By the way, if you click on “blade specifications” on our website you can compare all our blades by their measurements.

Best of luck,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hello Yurily,

I would suggest that you try Bryce Speed as an unglued replacement for your glued Bryce. Bryce Speed is the next generation of our high-tensioned technology and plays well even unglued.

Best of luck,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hi Chris,

To be VERY honest, there is really no such thing as MORE SPIN -> MORE CONTROL . The spin factor of a rubber will help you put more spin on your pushes/chops but will also be affected more by your opponents spins which minimizes your control slightly. I would suggest Tackifire-C 1.9 or Tackiness Drive for your backhand. You will have to practice some to learn the same control as Flextra.

As for the forehand , my only suggestion would be to try Tenergy and see what you think. It is quite different from Bryce as it FEELS very sticky but still has explosive speed.

Sincerely, Mark Nordby

Answer: Hello Karl,

I became interested in learning the close to the table defensive style when I had the opportunity to watch Dr. Neubauer (many times World Vet Champion) at several events. I learned most of my long pips techniques by studying his videos. This style of play can be an excellent choice for the older player who has limited movement. The style does have it's limitations and this is especially true now that frictionless long pips rubbers are no longer legal.

If you wish to learn this style, I would suggest locating a coach to work with you and also to study videos of Dr. Neubauer. Also, please remember that learning any new style of play takes time and commitment. It took me more than six months of training before I began to feel comfortable with my game, after switching from my previous looping style of play.

Best of luck,
Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hello Phil,

I would suggest that you change to a faster defensive blade with a harder feel. The Joo Se Hyuk would be an excellent choice. To play the modern attacking defensive style actually requires a faster blade than your def-Alpha.

Best wishes,
Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hi Jordan,

For rubber, I would strongly suggest Tackiness Chop and Tackiness Chop II. They are really sticky without the super speed. As for thickness... 1.9 will be faster than 1.5 and this is subjective based on your preferences.

As for blades, I personally would recommend the Defence II defensive blade. It will give you good size to defend but also a NICE feel for all-around play.

Regards, Mark Nordby

Answer: Hello Joyce:

The Kong Linghui Special and the Balsa Carbo X5 have very similar playing characteristics and weights. I think either blade would be a good choice for your style. However many players of your style prefer blades with a balsa core and you may want to go with the X5.

In regards to glue sheets, this is a matter of personal choice. They work well but most players still prefer to use glue.

Best of luck with your game,
Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hi Aleksandra,

I have used the Schlager Carbon for the last 3 years. It has a "hard" and very stable feel along with being quite fast. The Primorac carbon is very similar with a slightly thicker handle. Several years ago I tried the Primo Vitesse, and liked it for its quickness but with a slightly "softer" feel at impact. I know many players still use the Viscaria for the softer feel and great speed also.

I would recommend trying players blades at your club as much as possible also to help guide your decision. I want to add that you should also consider trying the new Tenergy rubber if you really LOVE all out speed. I have played Bryce FX for the last 2 years and it does not compare in speed with the Tenergy.

Answer: I notice that you have been using Jo Waldner rubber on your current blade. This is an all-round type of rubber and if you want something similar, I would suggest Sriver EL. If you want an all-round rubber that is both softer and faster, then Sriver G2 FX would be a good choice. The rubber with the softest sponge is the Solcion.

Best wishes,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hello Edwin,

I would suggest you try the Joo Se Hyuk Blade. It has more than enough speed for your attack but more control and “dwell” time than your Timo Boll Spirit Blade. The larger head size of the Hyuk blade will also allow you to better control your chops against your opponent’s strong attacks. Most choppers also prefer to use one of our Super Spin Rubbers on their forehands. You might want to try Tackifire. It can produce great spin, good speed, and will be easier to chop with than G2.

Best wishes,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hi Ajay,

You really can't go wrong with trying Flextra or Sriver. I would suggest Flextra 1.7 for your bh and Sriver 2.1 for your fh. The Flextra is slightly slower and less sticky. This means you will be affected by opponents spin a little less with this rubber.

After doing this I would HIGHLY suggest a few lessons with a solid coach to make sure your strokes are on the right path for improvement.

Any follow-up questions ... let me know.

Sincerely, Mark Nordby

Answer: Hello Damanik,

For the beginning player, developing the hands skills necessary to control your strokes is very important. For this reason, I normally recommend a medium speed blade with a high control value to players buying their first professional racket. The Boll Tricarbon is one of the fastest blades on the market and not a good choice for a beginner. I would recommend that you consider either the Timo Boll or Primorac all wood blades. Both Sriver FX and Mark 5 are good all-round rubbers and should be fine. You just need a slower more controllable blade.

Best of luck,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hello Shawn,

You can find a density rating (sponge hardness) listed in the descriptions for each of our rubbers. The higher the number is, the harder the sponge. Ekrips Soft has a density number of 35 and Sriver FX is a 33, so the sponge on the Sriver FX is a little softer than the one on Ekrips Soft.

Best of luck,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hello Calvin,

Both the Oh Sang Eun and the Schlager Carbon will play a great deal differently than your Viscaria. The Oh Sang Eun is slower, has more control, and a softer feel. The Schlager Carbon is much faster, will have less control, and a harder feel. The Schlager Carbon is a get blade for the advanced power player where the Oh Sang Eun will hold the ball a lot longer on the racket allowing for a wide range of spin and speed combinations. Not knowing your level or the details of your style of play, it is not possible to tell you what to buy. I hope the descriptions above will help you make an informed choice.

Best of luck,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hi Roman,

First of all, the problems with serve return and control are not going to be fixed by changing your rubber. These are problems related to your technique and best solved by finding a good coach. In regards to your questions about Sriver, I will try to give you some answers. Sriver, Sriver EL, and Sriver FX all have the same topsheet and the difference lies in the hardness of the sponges. Which one you should use depends a great deal on the length and speed of your swing. Players with faster swing speeds most often like the regular Sriver. Sriver FX has the softest sponge and works well with players who rely on shorter strokes with heavy amounts of fresh glue to provide power for them. Sriver EL is right in the middle. As to your question about the use of 2.1mm or Max, the thicker the more speed and the higher the ball throw off the blade. Finally, if you are happy with your current blade, there is no reason why it would also not work well with Butterfly Rubbers.

Best wishes,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hi John,

When comparing wood vs carbon blades, I personally would find it to be completely subjective based on the feel you like. As for more stability, I would actually have to say carbon would be more stable because it would be stiffer. When your friends talk about accuracy, I believe strongly that this is based on FEEL alone. Wood would generally feel softer and more flexible than carbon blades. The top professionals play with both kinds of blades, so it would be almost impossible to say 1 is better than the other in stability or accuracy.

As for your blade, if I was you I would try every blade that I could at your local club until I found one that FELT good. For example, I played with softer feeling wood blades most of my life, but the last few years I have really begun to like the speed/stiffness of the Schlager Carbon which is very simliar to the Primorac Carbon. Initially liking the "feel" and lots of practice are really the keys to finding a blade/rubber combination.

Any further questions, let me know.

Best wishes, Mark Nordby

Answer: Hello Joseph,

It looks like you are confusing High Tension and High Tune technologies. Our High Tension rubbers have been on the market for some years now. This technology adds tension to the topspin in the assembly process making these rubbers more powerful than non-tensioned products. Using this technology, Catapult was designed to mimic the feel, spin, and sound of a speed-glue rubber.

High Tuned rubbers feature a new technology that creates tension in the rubbers by expanding the sponge, the same way that speed glue does. This effect is much more dynamic and pronounced than the effect of High Tension alone. By the way, if you like the playing characteristics of Catapult but want more speed and spin, try our new Speed Optimizer on it.

Best of luck,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hello Bert,

It sounds like you are an all-round style of player, so your equipment needs to be able to support that style of play. You indicated that you are using a pre-assembled racket, so I am also assuming that you are looking to purchase your first professional blade and rubber.

First of all, please realize that professional quality equipment is much faster and will produce more spin than pre-assembled rackets. I would suggest that you look for a blade in our All-round plus or Offensive minus categories. The two that I usually recommend to my students are the Timo Boll or Primorac. For your rubber, I would suggest Sriver. Sriver is the most all-round rubber we sell and because of this the most popular. As you like to chop more with your backhand and topspin more with your forehand, I would suggest getting a little thinner sponge (1.9mm) on your backhand for more control and 2.1mm for your forehand.

Best of luck,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hello Bernardo,

Sriver High Tune keeps it’s built in glue effect for quite a while. However, if you feel like it is slowing down as it ages; you can certainly use our Speed Optimizer to restore the glue effect.

Best wishes,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hello Roberto,

It would be hard to give you a good answer regarding long pips with out knowing much more about your style of play. C8 Long pips are a popular choice, especially the no sponge model. However, if you are looking for a more offensive long pips, you may want to try our new Feint AG.

Your Raystorm pips produces the most spin of any of our short pips rubbers but because of this, its returns will seem very normal to your opponents. If you play your forehand with more spin than with a flat hit, then this is the perfect rubber for you. If you want a little less spin, a lower trajectory return, and more control try our Challenger Attack Rubber. If you want more speed, and a more difficult ball for your opponent to handle, try Speedy PO or Flarestorm. Finally, our Relop pips rubber has a little longer pips, almost medium long in length. If will produce a wide variety of returns that will cause your opponent’s the most problems dealing with.

Best wishes,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hi May,

I personally used Sriver FX for many years and recommend it to many of my students. Here are some options. Sriver FX is great for speed gluing so you can use what you already have on your forehand. If you want more spin but don’t want to lose the control on your backhand, try Tackifire or Tackifire Soft (Without speed gluing). But if you are more confident and experienced and want both more spin and speed, consider Bryce FX or Sriver G2FX for backhand and forehand speed glued.

Masaaki Tajima

Answer: Hello Rob,

The pricing of various types of rubber or blades is based on production costs and does not indicate one is a better quality product than another. For example, far more tournament players use Sriver rubber which is much less expensive than either Bryce Speed or Bryce High Tune. The technology used to produce the permanent fresh glue feeling of our High Tune rubbers is very expensive and thus the high cost of these products. Bryce Speed is faster than Bryce Tuned. Be aware that rubber this fast requires lots of training time to achieve good control.

Best wishes,

Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach + Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Erwin,

This is a difficult question without being able to see the serve you are asking about. Back in the days of the hidden serves (around 5-6 years ago you could hide contact with your arm and body) this result would happen more often because players would wiggle their wrists super fast and move almost simultaneously in both directions as they grazed the ball. This made the results you describe because it MIGHT look like they made contact in one direction ... but REALLY it was the opposite way causing you to be surprised by the bounce.

My next thought would be to search on the internet for videos of serving techniques especially using Youtube. Also, the Chinese grip was famous for fast wristy motion and why all others copied their grips for serving by using their index finger and thumb instead.

Sincerely, Mark Nordby

Answer: Yes, Gergely blade is very fast but not very soft. Consider Viscaria or Kumpuru blades; Viscaria is faster than Kumpuru, both are Arylate/Carbon blades with soft feel.

I am surprised you use Bryce FX on forehand and Bryce, which is faster, on backhand, especially when you like to use backspins also; I am assuming that you use backspins on your backhand and all topspin on forehand because this is the norm for some offensive oriented players. For this style of players, usually players select slower, spinier control rubber on the backhand for pushing, chopping, blocking and sometimes attacking, and hitting or variation of topspins on the forehand.

I suggest you stay with Bryce or Bryce FX on the forehand and Tackiness or Tackifire series on your backhand.

Masaaki Tajima

Answer: Hello Mitch,

All Butterfly tables are made to the highest standards in Germany. My own experience with the Personal Rollaway is that it offers an excellent bounce which is comparable to tables costing much more. For home use, I don’t think you can beat the value.

Best wishes,
Richard McAfee, USATT National Coach and Hall of Fame Member

Answer: Hello Flint,

The difference between the 2 antispins is the speed.The super anti special is much slower than the super anti. The super anti has a white sponge that is fast. The super anti special has a yellow sponge and is 40 percent slower.

Dan Seemiller