Donic Waldner Dicon

I used this blade at the time when Jan-Ove Waldner used it, winning his most important games. A year ago, I started playing regularly again, and the Dicon blade is perfect for me. I am a controlled attacker, and Dicon gives me great control with very good speed and spin. Forehand: Adidas P7; Backhand: Coppa X1 Gold. Today, this blade has a very reasonable price of 30 USD and is highly recommended for intermediate-level players.

It is my first blade after changing to shakehand grip. A coach recommended this. I liked this blade overall, but I moved on to a Stiga blade.

I really liked the control and the feel of the blade. I’m not sure about the technical terms, but I can really feel the blade and rubbers while playing. I tried quite a few rubbers including “Sriver-EL,” “Nittaku Narucross EX soft,” “Hexer Duo,” “Flextra,” “LKT PRO XT,” and “Haifu 2.” Hexer and Narucross worked well. The one that really crashed was LKT. It felt so dead on this blade while it is still pretty good on a Stiga CR WRB blade. Do not expect too much on speed, but it’s quite good enough.

Now comes the negatives. I’m 177 cm tall (Asian), with a normal hand size. While the control and feel are fantastic, the blade is too “small.” I had the FL grip, and the size of the grip, plus the relatively light weight, was the main reason for me to leave this blade. I don’t prefer a super giant grip, but this FL is just way too slim.

To sum things up, it is a good blade with fantastic control and feel. It works well with quite a few rubbers, but never, NEVA! get the FL grip :).

I played with 729 Bomb and then Persson Powerplay Senso V1. This blade feels a lot like the Bomb, but with better feeling and more control. I can’t understand why it only has a 7.3 rating for speed. Especially in the lower gears, it is quite a bit faster than the Persson, using the same rubbers.

One thing I noticed is that both rubbers (Palio Macro ERA and Air Scirocco SF) click a lot less than with the Persson. Overall, the sound is a lot more woody and low.

In my opinion, either the Persson is overrated in speed or this one is underrated. I can really load up the spin with lots of feeling. It’s a great blade.

Elasticity is what comes to mind when I hear of Donic. An excellent blade, it is not very fast but offers tremendous control. You can sense the ball with its sensitive capabilities on every shot. It complements the Donic Gallardo sound or speed well. It is a “must-have” blade in your collection because no matter how advanced you become with OFF+ blades, you will want to play with it from time to time. It is excellent for beginners and intermediates, but not exclusively so.

P.S. It is not a heavy bat. As they say, you won’t feel it at all.