Combination for close to table spin-game

Sounds like your playing style is similar to mine and I have the same problem of looping off the end of the table sometimes.  In my opinion, you might consider an all wood blade especially the Hinoki wood because it gives you a very gentle feeling and yet delivers the power when you need it.  Besides, it's not expensive, around $20-30 for a 5-ply blade.  Most importantly, its weight is quite light, around 70-75 grams so when you pair it up with heavy Chinese rubbers, the final weight is not over 180 grams which is an ideal weight for most people.  DHS Hurricane or Skyline rubbers are good choice, but I would recommend that buy Hurricane II or Hurricane III on No.19 sponge and don't go for the 2.2 mm sponge, 2.0 mm should be enough to give you the speed and spin you demand.  The max. thickness is too heavy and more difficult to control.  The reason I recommend No. 19 sponge is because the sponge gives you the feeling of Japanese or European rubber.  Chinese rubbers (the top sheet) are good because they are tacky and hence produce heaps of spin.  But their disadvantage is that they give you a rather dead feeling; the ball just doesn't bounce that much, not like Japanese or European rubbers.  So if you want to counter loop from mid distance to about 3 meters from the table, then you need to hit the ball really hard with most Chinese rubbers.  I hav tried almost 20 different rubbers and I must admit that DHS Hurricane II or H3 have the highest spin generating top sheet.  So pair this top sheet with a lighter and more bouncy sponge, it will deliver the results you expect.  And the whole setup won't cost you more than $50 at most.

Wow, thanks a lot for sharing your insight!

Hard, tacky topsheet with softer sponge sounds great, I think I'll go for that in 2,0mm as you suggested. Then I'll stick it onto an all-wood flexible, soft blade for best touch. This should be perfect.

Thanks again, I'll report back as soon as I get to play with it.

I dont know much about geospin but the tg2 skyline is an extremely sticky rubber and is specially made for those heavy backspin serves that ma lin does. i dont know you want to do those serves but otherwise you should take the skyline 3 version, the rubber is faster and less sticky. The skyline tg2 is lower on serves and need more of an foreward motion in topspinning to get the ball faster. But this rubber is specially made for ma lin so i only reccomend it if you want to play like ma lin.

Well, as I said - I need a rubber with less speed and more spin (I tend to use to much force anyway) to be able to do high quality attacks close to table.

I'm not a penhold player, but seeing Ma Lin staying close to table and hitting excellent strokes from there, plus the ability to do slow, spinny serves definetly are reason enough for me to consider buying this rubber.