Juan Carlo wrote: ↑December 14th, 2025, 11:31 pm
Yuriifi wrote: ↑December 14th, 2025, 11:27 pm
Most important but also the most neglected design variable is the blade head dimension.
For the larger 40+ mm plastic ball ONLY era , a defensive blade has to be at least 170 mm in both width & length (Ideally 173 mm)
But this would make the blade heavy no ?
This is the common myth.
During the early days of 38 mm ball the blade size dropped from the hardbat era. Why ?
Because the sponge made the racket heavier.
If you look at the rackets of some legends like Fernc Sido , Angelica Ronzeau & scores of others the racket size was at least 170 mm .
The lady GOAT Angelica Rozeanu 's racket looks even larger around 173 mm.
This is because during the hardbat era almost all top champions had great defensive skills & Angelica 's style was defensive all around.
Of course in the current top spin only Olympic fake table tennis the emphasis is pure offence
What players overlook is the fact that though the ball size has increased by 2 mm , all the blades are same size from the 38 mm ball era.
This is because since almost all blades are designed for attackers, the designs have been improved to produce faster & more powerful blades for attackers.
But for chop defenders the blade design requirements are very different. However since the robotNazi controlled ITTF has successfully exterminated choppers at least on the men's side (working on women's side.......keep in mind that I think it took about 8 years for the first functional gas chamber to arrive from 1933 to 1941)
The blade needs to be larger to match the dwell time to the 40_ mm plastic ball.
But since the market is almost non existent for chop defender blades , the manufacturer's really don't care.
They continue to claim semi large blades to be oversized blades . Given that choppers are such ignorant fools, they will believe anything the manufacturers & the ITTF says
So getting back to blade heaviness >
The blades were heavier in the 38 mm ball era but since long pips were quickly banned within years at the Birmingham 1977 BGM, the slim pips were still using rubbers with some sponge & the the fact that block defenders need OX rubbers has not come up till as late as mid 2010s when Manika Batra (and 700 million Indian women who follow her) made OX pips fashionable.
But the fact is that for amateur players OX pips are the best whether they are chop defenders or Slim pips block & loop or slim pips block & flat hit style players (though most are block and loop like Manika Batra but few chop-block and smash players like Zhou Xintong were there).
So in these cases the blade weight is not an issue especially for amateur chop defender because they have time when playing away from the table.
For at the table block and loop players who chop block using OX rubbers, the semi large blade may be required for quick hand and wrist movements close to the table.
As far as pro & semi-pro away from the table choppers , they should be able to adopt to some weight given that they are of course better athletes & can manage with lesser time.
But since the pro & semi-pro choppers have been so thoroughly brainwashed by the manufacturers & of course the ITTF , they continue to use crappy useless defensive blades such as Butterfly Matsushita or Nexy Joo Sae Hyuk etc