Can Kanak Jha beat former USA National team Member Derek May in a level playing field ?

[Dina Abdul Sheik]

Take a look at 6 time World Champion Angelica Rozeanu's oversized racket in the picture at the bottom

to take a look at the oversized and cybershape racket of Pete May

If I am not mistaken, Derek May seems to be lot more defensive these days compared to his younger days on the USA National team.

So you cannot blame me if I wonder what will happen if Derek May sticks on a high aspect ratio super long pips like Magic 77 on Pete May's racket
and played against some of the loopers he is losing to now because he is probably now using a low aspect ratio long pips like Feint Long 3, which almost totally iseless in the 40+ plastic ball era.

rozeanu large blade.jpg (11.47 KiB) Viewed 1810 times

[Block Slicer]

I saw some recent videos of Derek May and Ii have to totally agree with you. He hardly played any attacking strokes. I would tend to think he may be better off with a super large racket like Pete May. I am not sure what I am missing here. Maybe Pete May is more adventurous and experiments more and maybe Derek got used to playing with rubbers , blades he used to play with as a sponsored player with Butterfly. When he was on USA national team, Derek used Feint Long (Classic) before the 1998 Durban Aspect Ratio reduction Massacre, as did 99.9% top choppers in the world such as Li Gun Sang, Chen Xinhua,Hiroshi Shibutani Matthew Syed, Aliison Holt, Lisa Lomas, BK Arunkumar and of course current Victas president Koji Matsushita.
However Feint Long 3 is a pure piece of crap in the 40+ plastic ball era as are defensive blades by all top manufacturers with second outer ply composite layer design used for all offensive blades. And all two sided blades like Yinhe T9 or Sanwei Two Face are small or compact head size & for a defensive player that is a huge joke. I would tend to think Pete May knows what he is doing.

I would like to see Derek May play a challenge match against Kanak Jha or Nikhil Kumar on a level playing fiend, with Derek May using Pete May''s racket and using a High aspect ratio Super Long Pips like Magic 77 and with Kanak Jha or Nikhil Kumar using a 1.8 mm sponge rubber.

I am not saying Derek May will win but that would be interesting. I would like to see a younger USA male chopper (I don't know of any but I heard there are one or two 2450 choppers like Alto maybe) play Kanak Jha or Nikhil Kumar on a level playing field

[Bogdan]

It is common knowledge that defensive players prefer blades with larger headsize.
There also is no doubt in my mind that the Looper Torture Index (more backspin or spin reversal) is higher with a larger blade even if one uses low aspect ratio long pips,which are useless in the 40+ plastic ball era.

This is why IMO, for a level playing field, a chopper like Derek May needs both a super large blade (like Pete May uses) as well a high aspect ratio super long pips rubber but it puzzles me why Derek May is not using either one.

[Manurewa]

Looks like Pete May's blade is custom made .
But I am curious where he got his super size rubbers unless it was also custom cut for him