Friendship/729 729

It is a forgiving rubber, making it suitable for beginners. While it doesn’t offer insane spin or speed, its controllability and affordability make it an ideal choice for those just starting out in table tennis.

42-degree Blue Sponge
Medium tack, lowest profile of pips seen, quite wide. Played on FH of a Sanwei Fextra (6mm 7ply).

Controllable and dead in the short game, lively rebound at medium speed, excellent grip on flicks and serves. Hitting hard yields a low-throw shot that is also spinny.

Preferable to faster forehand rubbers. Can hit at max speed, sponge stores energy and loads more spin, resulting in faster shots with only marginally longer trajectories. This may not apply on a slower blade.

It was my first rubber on a preassembled racket. For beginners who are learning PP, this is a good conventional rubber. It has average speed and control, good spin, and it’s durable. It works better on stiff blades.

729 Classic is an older technology Chinese rubber. I paired it with a harder sponge to make it considerably faster. I have to attack to utilize its looping capabilities. However, it has lost some of its touch and control.

When new, it looped well due to its tackiness. But once it lost its tackiness, I had to hit it hard to make it loop effectively. It’s a very durable rubber. I maintained its tackiness by using a grip spray.

I haven’t tried this one with a thick sponge yet, as I played it for fun with a 1mm sponge. Of course, I played some defense with it, and it was awesome. Well, I’m far away from being a defender; however, I could chop on loops so that the ball almost touched the edge of the net. And yeah, it had tons of spin thanks to the tacky topsheet. I just had problems chopping slow and spinny loops because they were hard to keep low.

Anyway, I guess I will try this one tuned with a 2mm sponge or so and redo my rating.

By the way, getting this much quality for such a low price is absolutely amazing.

This rubber was too tacky and hard for me. It was very good when I was a beginner, but it held me back once I improved. The price is great for what you get.