Table Tennis Rubber Advice

Different table tennis rubbers suit different playing styles. Look at the way you play and the way you hope to develop your game and try and choose a rubber that will hopefully complement this. If you your play differently on your forehand side to your backhand side you might want to choose different rubbers that complement the different playing style. For example if you play with fast topspin on your forehand and a more controlled blocking game on your backhand you might want to choose a fast hard sponge spiny rubber for your forehand and a more controlled soft sponge rubber for your backhand. If your game is similar on both wings then you may prefer to use the same rubber on both sides of your bat. All the rubbers on the Topspin Sports website are graded for spin, speed & control to help you choose the rubber which is best suited to your particular playing style.

There are several things to consider when choosing your table tennis rubber sponge. These include the sponge thickness and hardness.

The thickness of the sponge will affect how fast the overall rubber will be, and also how much control it has. Thicker sponge is faster but has less control than thinner sponge. Most attackers use sponge of either 2.0mm or Max thickness (2.2mm), while many defenders use thinner sponge for the extra control. Most professionals use thicker sponge for increased speed.

Similarly to sponge thickness, the hardness of the sponge has a major effect on how the rubber plays. The harder the sponge, the less the ball will tend to sink into the sponge, and so the 'dwell time' will be reduced. This tends to mean that harder sponge will produce more speed than softer sponge. Very fast attacking players tend to prefer to use harder sponge rubbers and loopers and more controlled players tend to prefer to use softer sponge rubbers. Soft sponge rubbers also make a distinctive noise when the player hits the ball.

It is possible to not use sponge at all with pimple out rubbers. This is classified as OX against the thickness of rubber on our website. It's not legal to use a smooth rubber without sponge. Using no sponge can be an effective tactic for those players who defend or twiddle their bats!

The topsheet of a table tennis rubber is the surface which sits on top of the sponge and which makes contact with the ball. For a bat to be legal to play in an organized competition one topsheet must be red and the other black. Like sponge, there are several factors to consider when choosing topsheets for your table tennis rubber.

The majority of table tennis players in the modern game use pimple in (smooth) table tennis rubbers. Our table tennis experts at Topspin recommend that when you are starting out in table tennis to begin with pimple in rubbers as this allows for the correct development of technique for the basic shots in table tennis whilst you are learning the game. Once the basic techniques have been learnt and the individual players playing style is developing then players can decide if pimple out rubbers or anti spin rubbers would best suit their playing style.

The tackiness of the topsheet is a measure of how much the rubber grips the ball when hit. Some rubbers, such as Donic Slice have a lot of grip and the topsheet surface is very tacky. Other table tennis rubbers, such as Donic Bluefire or Donic Acuda are a lot less tacky and will allow a ball to be slid across the surface quite easily. Anti-spin table tennis rubbers will offer virtually no resistance when a ball is pushed across the surface.

Tacky rubbers are able to place more spin on the ball but due to the tacky service are also more effected by the opponents spin as well. Defensive players often like to use these rubbers so they can get maximum spin on their backspin defense. Chinese players also used to prefer tacky rubbers with hard sponge but in today’s modern game most players prefer a less tacky topsheet rubber which are still very spiny but also have increased speed with the latest technology producing highly tuned rubbers similar to the days when players used to fresh glue each time they played to increase the speed!