OOAK Table Tennis Forum

So far:

new rubber smell = 10/10 excellent vintage, made me eager to try out the racquet.

Will have follow up review once I've actually played with it....

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Blade: TSP Black Balsa 7.0 flared; FH Rubber - Donic Acuda S3 max sponge; BH Rubber - Speed Spectol 1.8mm

Okay, I finally got a chance to have a decent hitout with my new racquet.
This isn't really a review and you have to take whatever I say with a pacific ocean worth of salt because this was not only the first time using this racquet but I haven't been playing table tennis for the past 20 years so it's hard to distinguish between human flaws and racquet characteristics.

These are just my subjective impressions.

Weight was okay. I would prefer a touch lighter but it wasn't much heavier than racquets I've used in the past.

It was a bit weird using pips out for the first time. The noise of the ball off the RITC 802 sounded very woody - as if I wasn't using any sponge.

I liked the control with the RITC 802. I'm not really sure how to use pips out but it was very easy and natural to block with and I could easily chop backspin - but then again I've always been very comfortable playing backspin so I'm not sure whether it was any easier than I remember. Occasionally I would tell myself "hey, this rubber is supposed to rub spin off!" and then I'd try hitting a more attacking shot against backspin when normally my instinct would have been slice it back. And sometimes it worked - often it didn't.

The cream was fine but it didn't knock my socks off. I was able to do some of my loop drives but I didn't feel it was kicking off the table as much as I remembered. It had pretty good speed. Overall, with the blade, it had a high throw - which I like...except when you're just getting back into the game like me it results in a lot of over-hits.

No fault with the racquet, but I caught myself trying loop drives with my backhand - only learning the hard way it doesn't really work with pips out.

Having had a chance to play around with this racquet, I think I'll probably go for inverted rubbers both sides with racquet # 2.

For me the Cream was a bit of jack of all trades. Good spin, good speed, good control - but nothing really knocked my socks off.

Once again, much of this was probably all the rust in my game. I have to admit, the first time I played with this racquet I had a lot more good rallys than I expected. Even with confidence rock bottom, the fact that I could run around and do some good running shots and forehand drives speaks volumes for the racquet I think - in time, as I improve, I think I can exploit this racquet more.

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Blade: TSP Black Balsa 7.0 flared; FH Rubber - Donic Acuda S3 max sponge; BH Rubber - Speed Spectol 1.8mm

Good to see ya in the thick of it. I have changed my primary blade to this one and it is comfy to the hand and inspires confidence. You will like this blade and you have a whole pile of friends to help you with the LP.

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Goof-off chopping bat
Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

Sounds good poor_knight!

It's certainly worth persisting for a while before you start thinking about bat #2... You're right the Cream is good alround... spin is probably it's highest rating property, and control is very good too. I think when you adjust more the speed will come too... takes a while to adjust your strokes and timing...

Keep us up to date!

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