Using Dr. Evil rubber for the first time in a competition

Margie Hadden Asked 2 years ago

hello Alois, how are you? 

A coach in my last traing session was trying to get me to use a Dr. Evil on my backhand I have a big (for me) competition coming up in three weeks so is it a bad idea to change bat at this late stage? Basically I’ll be playing the exact same game just letting the bat do the work. I wont be learning any new techniques for the bat. Im not sure if Im getting an entire new bat or just swopping the rubber on my own, but I played with the new bat in the last training and it seems to block spins easier and keeps the ball in play just by me doing what I always do only with this bat instead. I am able to do some backhand serves with the forehand spinny rubber and twiddle back easily enough. So I got on well with the new bat. The only concern I had was top spinning short balls at my back hand side. 

I like to top spin a short ball at my back hand but rarely succeed, the ball usually goes in the net as i’m too slow to react to get to the ball. I lose a lot of points and games doing this. But I don’t want to do a push as it is very passive. Would I be inclined to fail even more with trying to top spin with Dr. Evil rubber on my backhand? I top spin when it would be safer to push but now I find it hard to push as trying to top spin backhand is engrained in me. I lose a lot of points by not pushing but the odd successful top spin feels so great! I will have to concentrate really hard and tell myself to do the odd push at backhand as this competition coming up is one where winning is important as it is a team event. So my question  is will top spinning with dr evil on my backhand be even harder? The comment I have read on the internet is saying it’s hard to topspin Dr. Evil. I might not have enough training sessions to try this out between now and the competition. that’s why I am asking you. Thinking about it now I would usually be more successful and win a point out right, when I attack a short backhand ball from a serve using my ordinary spinny rubber but I should try to push more during a short backhand ball in a rally as there is less time to react. What do you think? I’m not sure  should I be trying the Dr Evil,  it would be more fun to have longer rallies but am I getting away with poor technique by using it? The coach said Id get more practise with forehand as people would be inclined to play to my forehand more if I use this rubber. I definitely need forehand practise as I’m not good with it. 

Thank you

Alois Rosario Answered 2 years ago

Hi Margie,

My initial thought is to not change rubber that close to a competition.  I think in general it is easy to adjust in training however, when it comes to the heat of battle it is often to adjust to the subtleties of the new rubber.

If you feel it is an important enough competition I would stay with the old rubber but change straight after that competition and allow yourself more time to make real adjustments in your game.