Yasaka Trick Anti

My Yasaka Trick Anti Max is good for ball placement after receiving a serve. It eats pendulum and reverse pendulum serves as it is very insensitive to spins. I used it to receive a serve and twiddle my paddle to the Rakza X side for a short heavy underspin chop which forces my opponent to play close to the table, thus limiting their use of their forehand topspin and backhand spin attacks.

Due to knee issues, I knew I needed to slow the game down so I went on a journey to find a rubber that would be suitable for me. I tested at least 15 different antis during this time period, and Trick Anti is the best for me.

Trick Anti allows me to block almost anything back. Many of my blocks land just over the net on the opponent’s side of the table. Of course, it depends a lot on what I am doing as well, but control is huge with Trick Anti.

This rubber also causes problems for the opponents. In my opinion, this anti is right in the middle of friction-less antis and the grippier antis. For example, there is a small amount of grip with this rubber. The amount is so small that it still produces some reversal on passive blocks. It also produces pop-up balls depending on what I am doing, especially when I push with an open blade angle. It also will produce skid or sink balls as well. This happens whenever I stroke through the ball. I can hit through any under-spin without any problem. I can also counter topspin balls in certain situations. I could never do this with totally friction-less antis.

We all know that there is a group of antis that are totally frictionless. The issue with those antis for my game is I could not counter them at all, and these antis are very difficult to control. Then there is the other group of anti rubbers that are a little more spinny, and a little faster. These antis allow for more attacking ability.

Trick Anti is smack dab in the middle of the antis. In my opinion (at least for my game) this anti gives the player the best of both worlds. Also, I landed on the 1.5 version because it allows me to attack with more consistency. The 2.0 version is great too, and it may block a little bit better. However, the blocking differences between the two are minimal.

Definitely slow compared to inverted rubber. Not as deceptive as slick antis. It’s effective for changing speeds and is easy to use. Has some grip. Had a lot of fun with it until my usual opponents got used to it.