Yasaka Masamune

I am a player who has trained for 4 years and enjoys testing some equipment. I like the style in which Satoshi Aida plays. In Ukraine, we have Nikolay Telnoy playing inverted rubber defensive play, but there is much less forehand attack compared to Aida. Telnoy uses an oversized blade, which I don’t like, so I can’t just copy his equipment and train with it.

I was trying to do this with Aida equipment. But my expectations from this Yasake blade were wrong. I expected less vibration from this thickness, but for me, those vibrations are good news; I also expected speed in the range from all to off- but it’s rather off- to off or even the beginning of off+.

I played in the past with a Yinhe Venus V-12 with a hinoki outer layer and it was good with hard rubbers, but this blade is too speedy for me, especially with hard rubber. I still wait for Rakza Z now, but I tested it with Rising Dragon on BH and for me, it’s much harder to use it compared with DHS Hurricane 3 38 with booster, even for chop.

In my opinion, it’s not a good blade for beginners, especially for beginner defenders. My current combination is Tibhar Defense Plus, and it is much more stable and easy to use with hard rubber, as Yinhe Big Dipper spin and gives more control on chop, but also with hard rubber, it allows attacking with almost the same speed as this Yasake Masamune (on a hard strike, it really near the old allwood off+ blade but slower than most carbon blades). BTW, ST handle here is one of the best I tested (it is thick enough for me).

I will test it with a more early combination with Aida used, mb it will fit better for a non-pro player using this style.

Yasaka Blade Review

As a Yasaka collector, I believe this is one of the best blades Yasaka has ever produced. I own an ST Masamune blade with Rakza Z 1.8mm rubber on the forehand and Rakza Soft 2.0mm rubber on the backhand. After a week of testing, I’ve found that this combination performs well for spin, chopping, and blocking. Topspin shots are particularly easy to execute with this blade. I plan to experiment with long pimple rubber on the backhand in the future.