Tibhar Balsa Allround 50
Blade description:
This all-wood 9-ply blade utilizes a 5mm balsa core, resulting in a thick profile of over 8mm. The construction features additional wooden plies, including fineline outer layers, which contribute to a stiff playing characteristic. Despite its significant thickness, the blade offers a mid-hard feel and is noted for high-quality craftsmanship and a neutral weight distribution, lacking both head-heavy and handle-heavy bias.
Playing Characteristics
- Speed and Dynamics: While often categorized as an all-round blade, it exhibits high dynamics with a gradual increase in response. It performs like an offensive-level blade in higher gears, providing sufficient top speed for mid-distance play, though it excels most in close-to-the-table blocking and fast, flat hitting.
- Control and Feel: The blade features low catapult at slow impact speeds, which benefits touch-sensitive shots like drop shots and pushes. It provides distinct feedback, characterized by a high-pitched sound and mild vibrations upon impact.
- Spin and Dwell: The dwell time is average to short, which may limit effectiveness for pure loopers relying on high-arc spin, as the ball trajectory tends to be flat and long. It is particularly well-suited for combo playing styles, including those using anti-spin or short pips, where varying pace and precise placement are prioritized over heavy topspin loops.
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Recent Reviews
#1 — October 2024
Playing with this racket is a sheer joy. The handle is slightly slim in the middle, but wider and more squarish towards the end, making it perfect for me. It is probably the most comfortable handle I have ever tried. The blade is thick at 8.3 mm, with a balsa core of 5 mm covered with 4 fairly thick wooden plies. The top ply looks like spruce or pine (possibly spruce/pine-based fineline), while the second ply resembles koto (although I’m not entirely sure). The blade is stiff but has a mid-hard touch. I experimented with different rubbers on the forehand but settled on Ten 64.
The blade was purchased to use with anti on the backhand, and it works well with Nittaku Best Anti 1.3. The short game is excellent, offering a wide range of gears. Passive blocks and active blocks against weaker shots can be easily executed, allowing for varying ball length and speed of return. However, blocking powerful shots requires adjustment and skill, especially when using anti-spin, which I am still trying to master and understand.
Forehand loop drives are excellent and powerful, but for more spin, a more open angle and a softer touch are needed. Overall, this blade is very suitable for a combination playstyle and also works well with two inverted rubbers. However, it may not be the best choice for loopers, as the short dwell time means that brushing with high impact may cause the ball to drop off.
#2 — September 2021
The quality of this blade is outstanding. The weight and balance are very good for a close-to-the-table blocking game.
#3 — May 2021
A balsa core blade with unique playing characteristics. The workmanship is high-quality, and the flared handle is thick and rectangular, providing a comfortable grip.
Physically, the blade has an impressive thickness of over 8mm, of which the balsa core is only 5mm thick. The woods used for the upper plies are fineline (not an actual wood species), which doesn’t seem to be very hard or dense. Its thickness helps provide some feeling and a good touch on slow hits.
The blade is definitely stiff (it produces noticeably high-pitched sound on ball impact with mild vibrations), but the surface is not hard. It may be misleading to rate it as an “allround” blade, as it exhibits high dynamics. For slow ball impacts, there is almost no catapult response from the blade, making it suitable for drop shots and pushes with various lengths. However, the dwell time is at most average.
Adding pace reveals the potential of the thick balsa core, with a steep but gradual increase in response. At higher gears, this blade even enables playing at solid OFF speeds, but a drastic reduction in dwell time is noticeable, meaning that looping ability will depend on the installed rubbers and your wrist technique. Thus, the blade does not really favor looping playing style. When looping with it, expect very flat and long trajectories.
The blade’s top speed is enough for stepping away from the table, but then looping will be even more difficult due to the short dwell time. For players who prefer varying pace suddenly, and win points by fast hits and precise placements (short pips users?), this could be a good blade to try. (My setup only consists of inverted rubbers though, weighing 171g in total out of the box (but three months later, 163g as the balsa core lost water) - I have Victas VJ 07 Stiff max on FH and VJ 07 Limber max on BH. With these rubbers, the blade feels perfectly balanced, and it is easy for my wrists.).
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