First of all, I’m a recreational player of modest to low table tennis skills and knowledge and I don’t have much experience with various blades/rubbers. My playing style could be summed up in two sentences.
- Typically, I tend to open the game very early in the point with backhand topspin and then, during the backhand exchange, wait for my chance to take over with forehand drives/loops.
- When I step away from the table, I play forehand almost exclusively.
Anyway, last week I changed my complete setup.
My old racket: Avalox BT 555 / Acuda S2 (2 mm) / Butterfly Sriver FX (1.9 mm).
My new racket: Donic Waldner Senso Carbon / Acuda P2 (2 mm) / Xiom Vega Elite (1.8 mm).
I wanted to upgrade my backhand by making a transfer from Sriver to a tensor, and I wanted it to be as painless as possible. So, my choice had to be some soft, forgiving tensor and after some research I chose Xiom VE.
After unpacking, I noticed that VE sponge was colored creamy white and that the rubber curled up, which is in contrast with Omega V series rubbers which all have black sponges and are flat upon unpacking. Immediately after gluing I had my first training (2 hours) with this new setup. The training included 1 hour of simple topspin exercises and 1 hour of sparring with a much better player, a semi-pro who limited his game to pestering me with pushes, chops and blocks with occasional to rare punishing drive/loop in order to let me be aggressive while constantly pushing me to the limits and out of my comfort zone.
Naturally, what changed the most was the new energy booming from my backhand. My loops took less effort and had a lot of additional spin and power, and I had less problem lifting the chopped balls over the net regardless of the amount of underspin or the ball distance from the net. Also, blocking with VE felt great, as if I had an additional control over the ball so I could block more actively and be more dangerous instead of just being clay pigeon for the opponent’s spins.
I did have some problems with the short game, pushing, and passive serve receive, though, but that just means that I need to spend some time to adjust my technique.
One final remark. During my training, especially while blocking, I could often hear/feel the ball sink all the way through the rubber/sponge and hit the top ply of the blade, and the whole bat vibrated and sounded weird after a stronger hit, but I don’t think it affected the quality of my shots. This might be due to the Senso handle and might have nothing to do with the VE per se. Or it could be a combination of those two factors - a soft sponge and a hollow handle.
Anyway, all in all, so far, I’m really satisfied with Xiom VE, I think it’s a good and controllable tensor that could sit well on a backhand side of some spin-oriented all-round attacker’s blade. I also recommend it as a backhand gateway rubber in transition from some classic rubber to a tensor.
