Donic Ovtcharov Feat

The blade provides a pleasant touch and feel, along with sufficient speed for winning points (OFF-). Its characteristics resemble those of the Nittaku S-Series S-5 blade, but it is slightly lighter.

The blade’s appearance is visually appealing, showcasing the quality of its craftsmanship. Blocking and ball placement are effortless with this blade. The handle fits comfortably in the hand.

Donic has created another well-constructed, high-quality product. Give it a try and experience its exceptional qualities.

Very controllable, allowing you to make precise shots with ease. Despite its controllability, the blade also allows you to generate significant power when needed, giving you the versatility to adapt to different playing styles and situations.

Very good allwood blade. It has no rivals at all!

I’ve tried many blades before this one: Ultra Senso Carbon, Nexy Calix 2, Senso Carbon (pen), Palio Cat, and Yinhe T11. I tried the Feat because my shakehand grip requires me to change my grip on my backhand, which forces me to use a lighter setup or I’m not able to do it fast enough during counters.

This is the first ALL wood blade I’ve ever played with. I guess when I started playing, I assumed everyone uses carbon. What I like about this blade is the weight works for my transition from backhand to forehand and the return of serve. There’s a player in my club with a short topspin/underspin serve, and with the carbon blades, I couldn’t return the serve when I wasn’t sure which it was. With this blade, the ball doesn’t spring off it, making it much easier to keep those serves on the table even when you guess the spin wrong, and also keep serve returns extra short. I’ve tried slower rubbers on carbon or Chinese rubbers, but nothing did this better than this blade using a Focus Snipe 3 rubber.

I’m a close-to-table player, and I finally gave up using carbon for this. Donic says this blade is an Off, but it’s slower than all those blades mentioned above. It has a decent sweet spot, and the edges play off the blade don’t bottom out.

What I liked most was serves. Aggressive serves land more with wood than carbon, and serve returns are much easier than using carbon. If you touch push every serve back, even topspin, it wouldn’t give the other guy a big pop-up, too slow to pop up long, and if it’s backspin, you’ll get an awesome short touch push close to the net. Over the table play is what this blade is great at, and its blocks are perfect. Where faster blades require perfect blade angles to be returned, this thing is impossible to block long with but fast enough to always go back over the net.

The weaknesses are passive play behind the table. Balls may not get returned back over the net. You must swing hard with this blade. It won’t do the work for you.

Blade Review

Despite its high price, the non-carbon blade may not appear appealing. However, I require something lighter and slightly faster than the Waldner Senso Carbon. According to the Donic website, the specifications are: speed 8+, control 9-, but in the new 2016 catalog, the specifications are: speed 9, control 8.

It offers a crisp feel while maintaining adequate dwell time and vibration. I believe the speed is closer to 9 and the control is closer to 8. (In comparison, my Waldner Senso Carbon is rated 8+, 8+.)

The ST handle has a rounded and comfortable feel, but it is slightly small at 24.3×27.8mm with an oval shape. The weight of my setup with Tenergy05 on both sides is 78g, and the net weight is 171g. This allows me to swing my backhand and forehand strokes faster than before.

One issue I encountered is the need to sand the sharp edges of the blade wings. It caused discomfort to the base knuckle of my index finger during backhand strokes.