Last updated on 15-Feb-2011 12:06:49 AM
Some bats offer control, some are appropriate for an attacking style, while others for a defensive style. And additionally we have all the range from newbies to professionals.
How do materials in a bat relate to style? For example, what's the characteristic that differentiates a wood that provides control from the rest? What are the main characteristics of different rubbers?
Hi Xavier,
A faster bat is usually suited to someone with sound technique, that has advanced their skills to a level where they are looking for some more speed withtheir sound strokes. This is usually for an attacking player. A slowr blade is better for a defensive player and a player thatis till looking to develop their strokes.
The hardness of the wood can be one factor that determines its speed.
The quality of the rubber depends on a lot of factors that aren't always easy to see. The sponge thickness is easy to see but the quality of the sponge isn't that easy to recognise.
You do have to trust the manufacturers to a certain extent, but also read about the different rubbers from different people.
The complexity of rubbers and blades is one reason PingSkills has decided to put a poduct together that we can safely recommend to our readers and we know will work.
We have the PingSkills Touch blade and recommend, Mark V, Yasaka Pryde and XIOM Vega Pro.
Excellent.
So for example woods that provide control are a little bit softer? Is control a consequence of the blade absorbing some of the impact of the ball against it?
From a beginner's perspective it is interesting that the blade influences the behavior of the bat at all. At first sight you'd say everything is determined by the rubber because that's the contact surface, and being rubber you'd think it would absorb everything with no transmission back and forth to/from the blade. (Of course a posteriori this is not the case, since blades are marketed according to styles.)
Thicker of rubbers are generally faster than thinner rubbers?
