By: Greg
Letts,
All About Anti
Ban Junk Rubbers!
Anti-spin and long pimples, yuk! They should be banned!
Everyone should have to use normal rubbers!
Sound familiar? I think we all have
heard a fellow table tennis player say this at one time or another. I'm not
going to get into why I think they should be allowed and even encouraged,
that's a topic for another article. Suffice to say that anti-spin and long
pimples don't look like disappearing soon, and although there may not be many
players in the World's Top 100 Men using anti-spin or long pimples, I'm willing
to bet that you, dear reader, are not in such elite company either or else you
probably wouldn't be interested in hearing my views on how to play against
these 'funny' or 'junk' rubbers.
I'll start with
anti-spin because it's a bit simpler to play against than long pimples.
(Note: Due to the length of the
article, I've split it up into two smaller articles, this one dealing with
anti-spin rubber, and another article dealing with long pimpled rubber.)
In general, anti-spin rubber is a smooth sandwich rubber with
little or no grip on the surface of the rubber. You can hold a table tennis
ball in your fingers and rub (not roll) the ball along the surface, and the
ball will simply slide along the surface with very little friction when
compared to a 'normal' smooth rubber. Different anti-spin rubbers have varying
amount of grip, which is why not every anti-spin plays exactly the same, but
they will all have much less grip than a normal rubber.
Anti-spin is used by
players of a variety of styles, but overall there are three main reasons why
anti-spin is used.
There are several
factors involved in how a particular anti-spin rubber works. Each anti-spin rubber
uses these factors differently, which is why no two anti-spin rubbers play
exactly the same way. The factors involved are listed below. Please keep in
mind that this is my theory about anti-spin, so I'm not claiming to be the last
word on the subject.
All anti-spins have much
less grip than normal rubbers, but this does not mean that they
all have no grip. There is actually quite a difference in grips between
different anti-spin rubber topsheets. The more grip they have, the more the
player will be able to change the spin that you have put on the ball.
The softer the topsheet,
the more the topsheet will 'wrap' around the ball when the player attempts to
put spin on the ball, and the more spin the anti-spin will generate. Keep in
mind that this will not be anywhere near the amount of spin that comes from a
normal rubber, but it is still significant. A player with a soft topsheet will
be able to produce more spin variation that a player using a stiff topsheet,
such as one of the Dr. Nebauer topsheets that is rock hard.
As in (2) above, the
thicker and softer the sponge, the more the rubber will be able to wrap
around the ball and generate spin which a brushing motion is used. This will
also affect the speed of the return, as noted in (7) below.
The faster the overall
rubber, the less time the ball will stay on the rubber and the less opportunity
to spin the ball. I think that there have been studies done that indicate that
the speed of the rubber does not affect the dwell time, but this is my gut feel about the
effect of rubber speed.
Speed glue softens the sponge, allowing the
rubber to wrap around the ball more and generate more spin as well as speed.
A stroke where the
rubber makes flat contact with the ball without brushing it will have the least
effect on the spin already on the ball. A brushing motion will apply more spin
than a flat stroke (but still a lot less than a normal rubber), keeping in mind
that if the ball already has a lot of spin on it then the anti-spin rubber will
struggle to change the spin in any significant way.
The effect of the
anti-spin on the spin of the ball is not the only problem that you will face.
Compared to a stroke with an ordinary rubber, the amount of speed on the ball
will be less with the same stroke made by an anti-spin rubber. A thicker,
harder sponge will tend to return the ball faster, but it will still not be
anywhere near as fast as a normal rubber. A speed-glued anti-spin rubber might
just about get there, though. In addition, the bounce of the ball off the table
will also be different, due to the difference in spin and speed applied by the
anti-spin rubber.
All of these factors will affect the
amount that your opponent can change your spin. Bear in mind that if you spin
the ball and your opponent does not change your spin, the ball will keep
spinning in the same way but it's overall motion will be in the other
direction, so if you hit a topspin it will come back to you as backspin, and if
you hit a backspin it will come back to you as topspin. This is true regardless
of what rubber your opponent is using, it is just easier to do with anti-spin.
(Think of a chopper chopping a loop, for example. The spin on the ball is always
in the same direction, but it is coming to the chopper as topspin, and to the looper
as backspin.)
How does
anti-spin work?
To explain how anti-spin works in reality, it is probably
easiest to compare it to how normal rubber works. Imagine this scenario:
You and your opponent are both using
normal rubbers such as Sriver. You topspin loop the ball to your opponent, and he plays his
stroke by moving his bat from near his knee to above his head, in a
fairly typical topspin action. What type of speed and spin will be on the ball
that is coming towards you?
Answer: The type of spin can vary all the way from a slow heavy
topspin if your opponent has spun the ball without much forward motion, to a
medium-fast loop with medium spin if he has spun the ball and hit through the
ball about equally, to a very fast loop or drive with not very much spin if he has hit through
the ball without spinning it much.
In this day and age of smooth grippy
rubbers, most intermediate and advanced players will know what is happening
instinctively when they are playing, and adjust accordingly. This type of
topspin rally is what the many hours of training has prepared you for. It is an
entirely predictable scenario - if you watch your opponent's stroke closely
enough, you will know what spin and speed is on the ball coming towards you.
Now imagine that your opponent is
playing with an anti-spin rubber. Once again, you topspin loop the ball to his
forehand, and he uses the anti-spin side to play a stroke from his knee to his
head, in a fairly typical topspin action. What type of speed and spin will be
on the ball that is coming towards you?
Answer: The ball will be anywhere from a heavy backspin ball to a float ball, depending on the type of anti-spin used
and the type of contact made by your opponent. It will not be a topspin ball.
Read on for the reasons why.
As Carl Danner was nice
enough to point out, the short version for both topspin and backspin is as follows - "Basically, anti-spin continues the spin already on the ball,
so you get (effectively) back the opposite of what you have hit -- only
slightly less intense, as you noted."
Since I lack Carl's
ability to take a complicated idea and boil it down to it's essentials, here
are a few example scenarios and an explanation of what will happen in each:
(A) Your Topspin to Your Opponent's
Topspin Style Stroke
(B) Your Topspin to
Your Opponent's Chop Style Stroke
Ok, so much for returns from your
topspin strokes. But what happens when you backspin the ball to your opponent?
For all the information that matters, go to What Happens when You Backspin?
Here are a few example
scenarios and an explanation of what will happen:
By Greg
Letts,
Anti-spin and long pimples, yuk! They should be banned!
Everyone should have to use normal rubbers!
Sound familiar? I think we all have
heard a fellow table tennis player say this at one time or another. I'm not
going to get into why I think they should be allowed and even encouraged,
that's a topic for another article. Suffice to say that anti-spin and long
pimples don't look like disappearing soon, and although there may not be many
players in the World's Top 100 Men using anti-spin or long pimples, I'm willing
to bet that you, dear reader, are not in such elite company either or else you
probably wouldn't be interested in hearing my views on how to play against
these 'funny' or 'junk' rubbers.
I've covered anti-spin in an another article, now
it's the long pimpled rubbers turn.
(Note: This guide is more to do with the
theory behind how long pimples work. I'll be giving specific tips on how to
play against different types of long pimple users in separate articles.)
So take a deep breath, gird up your
loins and read on...
If you are still with me
after all that heavy going, congratulations! Now go back and read it again to
make sure it all makes sense. Then go out and find a long pimples player and
try it out.
In a nutshell, there are 4 basic rules
that you must remember:
1. What Did You Just Do to the Ball?
It is important to keep track of what
the last stroke you played was - chop or topspin? If you chopped the ball, your opponent
will only be able to use his long pimples to give you a return that ranges from
float to heavy topspin. Similarly, if you loop the ball, your opponent can only use the long pimples
to give you a return that varies from float to heavy backspin. Remember, the
range of possible returns is wider with long pimples than for anti-spin.
2. What Stroke Did Your Opponent
Play?
If he plays the opposite stroke to you
(ie chop against topspin), he will be able to float the ball or put heavy spin
on the ball by accentuating your original spin. If he plays the same stroke as
you, the ball is likely to be lightly spun but the opposite type (ie his
topspin stroke from your topspin will give slight backspin), or a float ball.
3. What Side of the Bat Did He Use?
Remember, all of the above assumes that
your opponent actually hit the ball with the long pimpled side. All bets are
off if your opponent twiddles the bat and uses the conventional side when you are
not looking!
4. What Type of Contact did He Make?
This is more important for long pimples
than for anti-spin, which has much less ability to change the spin on the ball.
Remember, the advanced long pimples player will assume that you know how to
adjust to his long pimples, and he will be trying to both vary and hide the
type of contact he makes, in the hope that you will play the right type of shot
to the wrong type of ball.
When in Doubt, What Do I Do?
Sooner or later, it's going to happen.
Your long pimples using opponent hits the ball and you don't remember what spin
you put on the ball, or you didn't notice what side your opponent used. Or even
worse, you don't know what type of contact he made with the ball. What is your
best course of action? The way I see it, you still have the same two choices
that you had against anti-spin rubber:
Which theory works best for you? - try
it out and see!
The name "long
pimples" pretty much gives it away. Long pimpled rubber is a table tennis rubber that
has pimples, or pips, coming out from the surface of the rubber. This pimples are much longer than the
traditional short pimples that are popular for flat-hitting
attackers. The actual length of the pimples can vary from manufacturer to
manufacturer, so what one person calls long pimples another may call only medium pimples. The overall effect of medium
pimples is the same as long pimples but just less pronounced, so you can extend
this guide to medium pimpled rubbers as well. Sponge rubber may or may not be used underneath
the topsheet.
Long pimples is used by
players of a variety of styles, but overall there are three main reasons why
long-pimples is used:
¡P
To provide
good control of the ball regardless of what shot your opponent makes;
¡P
To provide
variation in the behavior of the ball in comparison to strokes made with the
normal rubber that is typically on the other side of the
bat;
¡P
To allow the
user of long pimples to turn or 'twiddle' the bat in his hand and make his
opponent incorrectly guess which side of the bat was used, thus forcing a poor
return.
As we discussed with antispin rubbers, there are several factors
involved in how a particular long pimpled rubber works. Each long-pimpled
rubber uses these factors differently, which is why no two long-pimpled rubbers
play exactly the same way. The factors involved are listed below. Please keep
in mind that this is my theory about long pimples, so I'm not claiming to be
the last word on the subject.
Please keep in mind that in the items
discussed below, the amount of spin we are talking about is much less than for inverted rubbers, but it is still significant.
All long pimpled rubbers
have much less grip than normal rubbers, but this does not mean that they all
have no grip. There is actually quite a difference in grips between different
long-pimpled rubbers. The more grip they have, the more the player will be able
to change the spin that you have put on the ball. Some long pimples have smooth, almost
glassy pimple tops that do not grip the ball at all, while others have rougher
pimple tops that will grip more, and yet others have a smooth pimple top that
grips.
The sides of the pimples
can vary in the same way as the tops, with similar effects. Bear in mind that
the sides do not have to be the same as the tops! The importance of this fact
will be clearer after reading the next point below.
The softer the pimples,
the more they will tend to bend when the ball is hit, and the more the sides of
the pimples will be able to touch and affect the ball. Stiff pimples will
require more force before they bend, but once they do, they may bend quite a
lot! A player using softer pimples will be able to produce more spin variation
that a player using stiff pimples, provided that the sides of the pimples have
some grip.
The wider the pimples, the less they
will tend to bend, and thus the less the sides of the pimples will touch the
ball. The more dense the pimples, the more contact can be made with the ball
and the more the rubber will be able to affect the spin. The shape of the
pimples is a bit more difficult to figure out. Most pimples are the same width
at the bottom and the top, but not all. The pimples that I used to use were
actually narrow at the bottom and wide at the top, like a funnel or ice cream
cone. I believe that this tends to make the tops of the pimples get more
contact with the ball while the sides of the pimples get less. Whether this is
true, and whether it is even a significant difference is open to debate (I
liked them though!). I assume the reverse would be true for a long pimpled
rubber with a wide base and narrow top.
The thicker and softer
the sponge, the more the pimples will sink into the
sponge when the ball is hit, and the more pimples will be able to touch the
ball to generate spin. The sponge will also help catapult the ball back from
the bat, adding some speed to the ball. Long pimpled
rubbers without sponge will tend not to have this catapult effect, and will be
slower than their sponge counterparts.
The faster the overall
rubber, the less time the ball will stay on the rubber and the less opportunity
to spin the ball. I think that there have been studies done that indicate that
the speed of the rubber does not affect the dwell time, but this is my gut feel about the
effect of rubber speed.
Speed glue softens the sponge, allowing the
pimples to sink into the sponge and allowing more pimples to touch the ball, as
in (5) above. It also increases the catapult effect, increasing the speed of
the return.
The type of stroke used
is very important with long pimpled rubber, much more so than for anti-spin
rubbers. I don't think I can do this factor justice in a short paragraph, so I'll deal with it later in the article on a page of its own.
The effect of the long
pimples on the spin of the ball is not the only problem that you will face.
Compared to a stroke with an ordinary rubber, the amount of speed on the ball
will be less with the same stroke made by an long pimpled rubber. A thicker,
harder sponge will tend to return the ball faster, but it will still not be
anywhere near as fast as a normal rubber. A speed-glued long pimpled rubber
might just about get there, though. In addition, the bounce of the ball off the
table will also be different, due to the
difference in spin and speed applied by the long pimpled rubber.
All of these factors will affect the
amount that your opponent can change your spin. Bear in mind that if you spin
the ball and your opponent does not change your spin, the ball will keep
spinning in the same way but it's overall motion will be in the other
direction, so if you hit a topspin it will come back to you as backspin, and if you hit a backspin it will come
back to you as topspin. This is true regardless of what rubber your opponent is
using, it is just easier to do with long pimples. (Think of a chopper chopping a loop, for example. The spin on the ball is always
in the same direction, but it is coming to the chopper as topspin, and to the
looper as backspin.)
To explain how long pimples work in reality, it is probably
easiest to compare them to how normal rubber works. Imagine this scenario:
You and your opponent are both using
normal rubbers such as Sriver. You topspin loop the ball to your opponent, and he
plays his stroke by moving his bat from near his knee to above his head, in a
fairly typical topspin action. What type of speed and spin will be on the ball
that is coming towards you?
Answer: The type of spin can vary all the way from a slow heavy
topspin if your opponent has spun the ball without much forward motion, to a
medium-fast loop with medium spin if he has spun the ball and hit through the
ball about equally, to a very fast loop or drive with not very much spin if he
has hit through the ball without spinning it much.
In this day and age of smooth grippy
rubbers, most intermediate and advanced players will know what is happening
instinctively when they are playing, and adjust accordingly. This type of topspin
rally is what the many hours of training has prepared you for. It is an
entirely predictable scenario - if you watch your opponent's stroke closely
enough, you will know what spin and speed is on the ball coming towards you.
Now imagine that your opponent is
playing with a long pimpled rubber. Once again, you topspin loop the ball to
his forehand, and he uses the long pimpled side to play a stroke from his knee
to his head, in a fairly typical topspin action. What type of speed and spin
will be on the ball that is coming towards you?
Answer: The ball will be anywhere from a heavy backspin ball to a float ball, depending on the type of long pimples
used and the type of contact made by your opponent. It will not be a topspin
ball. Read on for the reasons why.
As Carl Danner was nice
enough to point out in my article on antispin rubbers, the short version for
both topspin and backspin against antispin is as follows - "Basically,
antispin continues the spin already on the ball, so you get (effectively) back the opposite
of what you have hit -- only slightly less intense, as you noted." This
still holds true for long pimples, but with a couple of important
points to be aware of.
Antispin, long
pimples, whatever! They're both funny rubbers - how different can they be? Very different, young Jedi. Now pay attention and I'll explain why
you can't always treat antispin and long pimples in exactly the same way. Note
that the stiffer the pimples, and the less friction on the pimple tops and
sides, the more the long pimples will tend to act like antispin. But as the
grip of the pimple tops and sides increases, and the more the pimples tend to
bend, the more important the two factors mentioned below become.
These are the main two reasons long
pimples cannot be treated in the same manner as antispin. Ignore them at your peril.
The examples shown below
are assuming that your opponent is using a long pimpled rubber with medium
speed, and reasonably flexible pimples that have some grip. As the pimples get
stiffer and their grip becomes less, the more they will play like anti-spin,
which I have already explained. The grippier and more flexible the pimples are,
the more pronounced their effects mentioned below will be. Again, this will
vary for each type of long pimples, as they all have slightly different
characteristics.
(A) Your Topspin to Your Opponent's
Topspin Style Stroke.
(B) Your Topspin to Your Opponent's
Chop Style Stroke
You probably noticed
that in B1 on the previous page, you were actually lucky enough to pick the
right spin, even though your reasons may have been incorrect. This leads into a
discussion of some of the advanced tactics used by combination bat players. As you improve, you will
learn how the antispin or long pimpled rubbers behave. However, the quality of
your opposition is likely to improve as well, and this means that their tactics
will change too. At the advanced level, players can figure out very quickly how
a particular antispin or long pimpled rubber behaves, and will not lose points
by misjudging the spin from the funny rubber or by not noticing which side of
the bat has been used to strike the ball. So the combination bat player will
try to hide the type of contact from his opponent, so the opponent does
not know whether the ball has been brushed or hit with solid contact.
I'll go into this topic
in more detail when I write about how to use antispin and long pimples, but for
now, here are a couple of sample scenarios:
Ok, so much for returns from your
topspin strokes. But what happens when you backspin the ball to your opponent?
For all the information that matters, go to What Happens when You Backspin?
The examples shown below
are assuming that your opponent is using a long pimpled rubber with medium speed, and
reasonably flexible pimples that have some grip. As the pimples get stiffer and
their grip becomes less, the more they will play like anti-spin, which I have already explained. The
grippier and more flexible the pimples are, the more pronounced their effects
mentioned below will be. Again, this will vary for each type of long pimples,
as they all have slightly different characteristics.
Here are a few example scenarios and an
explanation of what will happen: