Defensive bat
Equipment
Isbat Syed Isbat Bin Malek Asked 4 years ago
In order to make a defensive TT bat... What should I equip?
Alois Rosario Answered 4 years ago
Hi Isbat,
It is best to have slower blade for more control.
For the rubbers there are a lot of options. Again I would go for something a little slower. A lot of defenders like to use a slower rubber or even long pimples on the backhand side and a faster rubber on the forehand to be able to take advantage by attacking any weaker balls.
Other readers may have opinions as to actual brands or specific names of equipment.
Thoughts on this question
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D K Posted 4 years ago
Isbat,when it comes to defensive pimples,TSP and Spinlord have good equipment.
Actually professional defenders mostly use TSP longpips or Butterfly longpips.
Spinlord is,as far asI have seen,more frequent among players who play semi-professionally and use short pips to defend.
But TSP and Butterfly stay at the top among longpips.
Joo Sae Hyuk,the legendary Korean Wall,has been using TSP CUrl P1-R and Tibhar Grass D.Tecs.
Regarding slower inverted rubbers,I can only tell you what I have seen among stronger players around myself,since you do not see pro players using it.
I know about a single player at pro level who actually uses defensive inverted rubber.
Evgueni Chtchetinine,a former Belarus national player,uses TSP Triple Spin rubber.
THis rubber is very thin and has no catapult,focused only on the greatest spin and control. That is why Evgueni is almost unable to attack.
I have not played with this rubber,but I tried to play with Donic Slice and STiga CHop&Drive.
SLice,combined with otherwise offensive rubber,was quite dangerous rotation-wise,despite being originally defensive,but I would say that rubber is rather for blocking defense,being too hard for backhand chopping defense and too slow for forehand,since you are bound to chopping with slow blade and unstable with fast blade.
Stiga CHopDrive is how I imagine playing with TripleSPin. Does everything except BOUNCING.
I had it combined with enormously slow blade and it was simply dead.
Tons of spin,but that was all. I had to push forward hard even against stronger topspin to reach the table at all.
I have heard about pro defenders in the past using Friendship rubbers and Butterfly Tackiness rubbers.
Friendship rubber is not a defensive rubber,it is a rubber officially ranked as offensive,but due to lack of catapult effect it is not that fast and has a huge amount of control and spin. Very cheap,cheaper than any other material I mention in this comment. But not valueless.
Butterfly tackiness....seems to require some skill to get the rotation,I was nto able.
I currently use Victas VS401 for defending on forehand. Not recommended to combine with another thick rubber,as it is very heavy rubber itself.
Having enough power to counterattack and enough spin and control for defense.
Victas is a sister counterpart of TSP. These two companies actually share a CEO.
WHen it comes to blades,there are numerous blades for defending.
I am not sure of TSP produces some DEF blades,but I think they do.
Victas has its Matsushita blades,which are great for modern defense. I use it.
Butterfly rivals it with its Joo Sae Hyuk and Butterfly Defense Alpha series,which I have no XP with,but JSH blade is said to be heavy.
Another good blades for modern defense come from Yasaka,namely Yasaka Defense CLassic or somehow like this.
if you are more classical,maybe you could also look among numerous Der MaterialSpeizalist and Dr. Neubauer blades and rubbers.
These two companies are specifically focused on disruptive playstyle and have huge amount of various superslow blades and rubbers.
Also I must not forget Donic's Defplay blades. Enormously light,slow,but fragile.