Butterfly Defence Alpha

If all of your strokes are pure brushing (looping, chopping, passive block, but no hitting), this blade can help you develop the basis of your game.

However, this is not a blade for winning a match by force; it’s too slow for that, and your opponent would likely say, “Thanks.”

I’ve been playing with this blade for a few weeks now, with Giant Dragon Submarine in 1.0mm on FH and .6mm Doublefish 1615 long pips on the backhand. I finally got some real practice time chopping with it, so I feel able to make a half-decent review.

The blade itself is massive and heavy, probably easily over 95 grams as listed. However, with defensive rubbers, it doesn’t matter as much.

As one might imagine, the attacking capabilities of the blade are pretty limited. It’s slow and sloooow. I’m having to learn the hard way that you HAVE to place your shots, even smashes, in the right place. Otherwise, they will come back harder than you hit them, a lot less putaway power than Defplay senso. With that, I smash it or hit with my pips, and it’s almost a sure winner. At any distance from the table, you HAVE to strike the bottom of the ball like you are looping backspin to get it to go over. Over the table loops are normal, a step back or even off the end, it’s like a backspin. Dig under the ball stroke, away from the table, the only way your going to get it back with topspin is the Hao Yingchao sidespin shot where you drop the racket head straight down and scoop/fish it out with massive curving sidespin. But over the table, you can do tiny short spiny loops which will jump and kick and throw people off with pinpoint accuracy.

Blocking/hitting is ok, not great. The plies are a little too soft to be great with it. However, blocking with any slow defensive inverted rubber is really easy and just takes off pace to it, which can be good or bad, depending on where you place it. Aggressive long pips pushes work well for me with this setup though, gets a lot of popped-up balls with the reversal.

Chopping is great so far. Close to the table, I have to use very small, soft strokes because somehow the blade has enough kick to be able to also chop from yards away while still being dead when attacking. Chopping far off the table was easy once I forced myself to bend my knees as I chopped down, sinking into the shots. Then they started going back lower and a lot more consistently. Part of that is the pips, which aren’t solely made for chopping.

Overall a great defender’s blade, small strokes near the table, big strokes away, plenty of control, though not while attacking, but great for chops.

Heavy and oversized, the Willow blade dampens the speed of the ball and provides significant dwell time for chopping. However, its lack of flex makes it challenging to control topspin effectively, resulting in a flat loop arc. This characteristic renders it unsuitable for players who wish to execute topspin attacks.

If you primarily employ chopping techniques on both sides of the table, the Willow blade may suffice. However, if you seek a blade that excels in both chopping and topspin attacks, it is advisable to consider alternatives. The Defplay Senso offers similar chopping capabilities while providing better topspin performance.