I finally had a chance to give this rubber a try. I had tried the cheap chinese version before, but the quality was so poor, and we had so many sheets with some faults, that it was not worth considering. These sheets are the ones specified by Zeropong, and made with a different mould, and are supposed to be much more consistent and better quality.
Well when I took the sheet out of the packet, the quality looked decent, but still not the best I've seen out of China. The plastic protection sheet on top of the rubber had a few folds in it, which can leave a line on the rubber (often only temporary), but this does not affect play so I don't think it's a big issue. I think it happens when rubbers are highly tensioned, and they shrink a little after they're put in the packet. I also noticed the topsheet overhangs the sponge by a few mm on all sides, but this is normal for this rubber.
I tested the rubber on a Dawei Navigator blade, which is a fairly fast blade (OFF to OFF+). The Goldway 968 Stinger was red on a 2.0mm sponge.
Well the rubber is virtually non-tacky, but very grippy. I could get a good amount of spin on my serves, but not as much as tacky chinese rubbers. Looping and driving was quite fast, very fast for a chinese unglued rubber. The tensioning is probably what gives it the speed, and this is very effective.
The throw on loops was quite high, more than what I'm used to, so I had to adjust as to not hit too many over the table. It generated a lot of spin when looped of backspin, and made the ball dip real fast...quite impressive, and it didn't require a lot of effort. Against topspin it did not seem to generate as much spin, but came of fast and the control was quite good. Because the topsheet is virtually non-tacky, it was much less sensitve against incoming spin than my normal tacky rubbers, which made it easier to counter-loop.
Driving hard against fast loops it felt like it might be bottoming out a little, which is not that surprising since the sponge is quite soft, and is only 2.0mm thick. I need to change the bat angle a little and brush more to compensate.
Because I tested this mainly against aggressive loopers in games, I need to have a another go with this rubber to see how it performs in the short game and against choppers.
Not a bad rubber at all, but very euro style which does not suit my personal game...I miss the extra spin I can get on serves with my tacky rubber, but like they way it is less sensitive to incoming spin...
More later....
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