Playing Against Dead Rubber

Romeo Chua Asked 10 years ago

Well... actually I'm not so sure about the dead part. It might have some grip to it.

Whenever I serve a backspin ball, it seems like he's pushing the ball really hard. But when I topspined it, it flew out of the table! Next I tried another backspin ball, and this time I topspined it like I would topspin a no-spin ball. Should have been happy with the results, except it sank to the net. After the match I asked him if I could borrow his bat, and he said that his rubber is dead.

What are the effects of dead rubbers and how do we play against it?

Alois Rosario Answered 10 years ago

Hi Romeo,

It sounds like he is getting some strange reactions off the rubber.

I think it is best to try to play against it as much as possible. There will be reasons for the reaction each time. Sometimes it could also be changes in what you are doing with your strokes but when there is this other factor there, it is difficult to tell what the real cause for each stroke is.

Therefore you need a bigger database of what is actually happening than just a few shots.

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Thoughts on this question (2)

Romeo Chua Posted 10 years ago

I will try to play against him more

D K Posted 10 years ago

Dead rubbers have much less spin than a normal grippy rubber,but they also do not have any useful momentum

In this case,it is something like an antispin-shortpips combination
They have no momentum like antispin,and have nearly no rotation like shortpips.

The stroke you had a problem with-treat it as a weak backspin