It looks of decent quality, it was expensive for a chinese rubber. Has anyone tried PUROT before? I will try this rubber myself, but I have no way of knowing if it's any different to the standard version. I guess I can compare it to the Globe national, which seems like a similar rubber and I know it well....
Although this rubber is supposed to be a national team version, and the source is very reliable, I have my doubts... There are no special marking on there, except on the back of the sponge it has: TOP- GRADE SPONGE, MADE IN JAPAN, 2.2mm 45deg it does not feel like 45deg to me, probably more like 42deg. The 'Made in Japan' must refer to the sponge, since the topsheet has 'made in China' on it.
Well I just had a brief hit with it (not speed glued). The topsheet is soft and tacky, and very shiny. It's the shiniest topsheet I've seen. Looping against backspin, it has quite a low throw and is not that fast, but very spinny. Pushing/serving is very nice, great spin and control. Against topspin it hits beautifully and it does not seem that sensitive to incoming spin. Driving/counterlooping works very well too, but it's quite fast (obviously the firmer sponge) and I was hitting over the end for a while till I adjusted. It is also very spinny for this as expected... Blocking worked nicely too. So the obvious next step was to glue it up, so I did this with my Tibhar RCD. After a single layer, the dome was quite big, so I decided to stay with a single layer. I will test it out next...
Well I took it out for a test run...interesting rubber... The glue speeded it up a fair bit, but the glue effect was not huge. The topsheet is quite soft and tacky, and very elastic. It was great for serves and pushes, as expected. Brush looping worked very well, producing very spinny loops but not all that fast. Control and accuracy was very good, reminded me of the geospin tacky.
Away from the table looping was not the best, as the firmer sponge made the ball come off too fast and not spinny enough to give control. I could adjust of course, but I prefer something a little softer that could generate more spin. However for hitting and driving this rubber was very nice, producing fast balls and my accuracy was very good. Blocking was similar. Hitting/blocking more aggressive (harder) made it a lot sensitive to incoming spin. I was having a few games just to test it out, and this rubber really encouraged me to hit more, which worked surprisingly well.
So this rubber would work well for those that open up with a slower spinny loop, and hit/drive the ball when the rally starts. If it really is a national version as I was told, it would have been designed for a specific player in mind, which I assume would play this style of game...
