It's like new beginning, new blade come. Donic Waldner Carbon Senso V1, my first carbon blade. I played with some chinese borrowed one carbon for some time, but this one is mine. Intentionally bought this slow one, dont want to switch to fast one, consistency is my key concept, speed is less important. Measuring weight, balance, trying wrist bh to check balance. Making contact with equipment. Handle is st, but it's actually quite circle, better than I expected. It's relatively stiff, but not too much, not too fast, looks like good mix. And new rubber, Yasaka Mark V 2.0mm, well, I bought it because it was only 19eEur at Dandoy. And without this, I'd have to pay for shipment if I buy only blade (less than 50 eur). So, new fh rubber and new blade, worst possible scenario :) . Yesterday I tried yasaka on fh and existing sriver fx on bh. Blade is stiffer than my previous perkosan, and I like it, because I attack lot of serves, also like active bh block and flat hit. Sriver fx performed very vell on this blade, but glued. Mark V has high throw, so far I'm not sure I can adapt on this(I use to play with bryce fx, which have very low throw).  Today I was on small tournament to check equipment. Although I won, I'm not sure mark V will suit me, harder to attack block, because here most of players block passive, and it comes high and spiny (they have money for t05), so with mark V you have to close bat very much, which I physically can't do easy. bh rubber sriver fx I didn't reglue, and it was very bad. I have to find replacement for my rubbers, some sg effect rubbers, I really hate gluing process. Lot of attackers around plays with donic coppa silver, so maybe I should try this for fh ,will see. It now is with increased price here than 2 months ago, I don't like this. At least I found good blade, which should work for next year or two, until I develop better attack of everything (today I was slightly better with attacking high pushes, stiff blade helps with this) and be ready for Samsonov carbon, or something similar.

Really really annoying thing. Most people now even not trying to play with me, just push or wrist chop anything I sent to them, it comes as high back spin, and I cant make it over the net, it's always around half of net, although I almost dislocate shoulder during my loop. Was on tournament today, where all players had only two shots, push with occasional fh loop, of course all with off blades and tenergy class rubbers. Although I have all possible shots for attacker, seems that my equipment really limits me. I always used soft rubbers like sriver fx 1.9, few times I asked my ex coach to recommend equipment for my play style, but answer was simply 'you have to find what suits to you' so I stayed with srivers fx. For last 6-7 months I play with bryce fx 1.9 on fh, just wanted to try something faster. But both rubbers I play mostly unglued, and in combination with current not so fast and very flexible blade, result is that I struggle against any pusher, one loop will go into net, while another one will go 3 meters longer than table. Really annoying, because I'm trying to be most aggressive player in my quality rank, with flips, flats, smashes, loops, and blocks, mostly using 3rd ball attack, but...everything goes into net :(

I think it was different once, in past I had always advantage against pushers (but I had faster harder stiffer blade), now I can hardly beat even pusher beginner by using loops, can only if I push better than he. I think I have at least two times slower equipment that anybody else here, slow flexy blade and unglued sriver fx 1.9, against off carbon and tenergies/coppa silvers, max.  One old guy, pusher of course, tried my bat and said 'oh God, how slow it is...'. He uses some off carbon with andro hexers. Probably I have bad equipment for close to table attacking play . Ordered Waldner carbon senso blade from Dandoy, hope it will come soon and help... now just to find adequate rubbers...

It happened. Why to be only one who didn't try tenergies. Friend bought two new sheets and offered me his old ones, T05  2.1mm to try. These are 1.5 years old, glued at least 100 times with both old and new glue, sponge is very damaged due to removing glues,  probably 20-30% of sponge is missing, rubber is also very old and not shinny, you can see all pips...but it plays like hell :)

I played with same rubbers before, but never on my current Perkosan blade. Blade is very heavy and head hevy, 7-ply, I'd say speed around 8 on Btty scale, good for block and loop, bad for flat kill. It reminds me on somebody's Borko blade (Wingspan?) where he said that blade is good for short touch, and for long shot, but sucks with half long shots and low/medium power. Mine is like that, I'm still not sure is it very good or very bad. Tenergy should be logical choice to add some extra kick on these low power shots. Combo is extra heavy, and this is problem, hard to maneuver. Today I was on small tournament to test combo. Lot of problems with serve returns in the beginning, but later I improved this a little. Opening loop worked very well, opponents could hardly return this, very spiny. Unfortunately after their block, instead of flat kill before, now I had to use topspin to continue attack. I like much more flat kill, but it's quite impossible now, so I had to switch to looping only. Pushing also worked well, block also. Smash and high balls terrible bad, as usual. Best thing with tenergy is that is very easy to sink ball into rubber, so you can loop easier. Possible that "(" or ""movement is better than ")" for some loops, I still have to work on this.  Anyway, I beat some good players I couldn't beat before, so maybe it is rubber, who knows. I played before with 1.9 mm, now it's 2.1, but still loops are into table, which is good.

I almost bought new sriver L, when tenergies came, so I little bit hate this situation, dont like to change plan. Resizing blade would be smart move, maybe 1cm shorter would be better. Although I'm not sure how it will affect block, because of smaller mass?

I have enormous oscillations during play. I can play very good first two sets and then easily lost next three. Or I usually play better on tournament in the beginning and then play terrible bad  5-th or 6-th match, being unable to attack or return simple push. I understand that other players also oscillate sometimes, but nobody so much as me. Wooden legs, uncomfortable grip, bad feel in back, missing or hitting with bat edge almost 50% of incoming balls, panic move for push...are some of symptoms. It usually starts with my first serve in match which I usually cant put into table (although I have good serves). It increases with first high push missed or hit into net . I developed some serves hard to read, and most of opponents think it's backspin while it's topspin, and they push , it comes like 50 cm high slow ball with small backspin...and it's opponent's point. Which destroys all my playing strategy and makes me angry.

Worst situation was today, small tournament, opponents mostly have only one shot - push, some of them still learning how to hold the bat...I almost lost two matches in 5th set. In one of them I won easily first two sets 11:0 and 11:3 (simple play, opponent pushes, I loop, he maybe blocks, I smash/loop...it's my style of play) and decided to not be so cruel, to allow him some play. But he started pushing high by bad returns of my serves, and I almost lost match. Nothing high I could return.

...

I remember situation of 10 years ago, I was captain of faculty team in university tt league, we played important match for 1st place in group, I was only third player in our team and really easily beat opponent's 3rd player, he was really bad, knew only push, and in 7th match, decider, my team mate, much better than me, educated player and extra fast penhold looper meet this 'weak'  guy...whatever looper sent to him, serve/drive/push/loop...weaky pushed no less than 1m high, slow and close to net (he couldn't read any serve), my looper missed every of these balloons, despite timeout and changing strategy, we lost a match 4:3. I blamed him for impossible defeat(difference in quality was like between me and Ma Long) . Although older and much more experienced than me he generally never liked loses and when he is criticized (I  understood it too late), he stopped playing (until this, we practiced regularly together).

Now,something  similar happens to me. I wonder...is it a curse...?

It's now approximately one year since I joined small club in last division. My expectations in the beginning were big. But, it was tense year, during which we lost coach,  club, players and probably possibility to use sport hall, due to some political revenge (amazingly, it's possible even in so minor area like is last division club). But I improved my game definitely although not to level I expected. I learned new shot - flat kill and I really enjoy it, slightly improved block, but lost one shot I had before, it was something like chiquita bh flip but more in vertical axis, I used it against both short and long backspin and serves. Too much practicing push somehow killed my attacking game, although I'm recovering it in last period. There actually was constant rise in results in first 6 months,  and big fall in second 6. Fall somehow coincided with starting changing equipment, and gluing rubbers before play, although my shots are now more dangerous, the ball returns faster to me, and there is less time to react.

For next season goals are:  switch to sg effect rubbers, its really boring to glue every time, find right not too fast blade, improve block and serve return, and develop better attacking of push. And of course better handling of my nightmares - high push and high block :)