Adidas Tenzone Reviews

 

Manufacturer description:

Ready for Performance! The Adidas TenZone features a new pore structure of the sponge providing it with additional energy that will make the difference in tight matches. That extra energy transfers your wrist and forearm acceleration into ball speed and turns your topspins into even more dangerous weapons in your game. The compact structure of the top layer is the key to the increased spin capacities of the TenZone. Even on thin contacts the ball cleanly docks onto the surface without friction increasing the control over the ball during offensive topspin play. Technically versatile players with higher training volumes will get the full performance of the new adidas TenZone.

Characteristics:

  • sponge: 1,8 / 2,0 / max
  • speed: 107
  • spin: 104
  • precision: 90
  • tolerance: 75
  • hardness: hard-

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Review by:

I got a sheet of this new Adidas rubber direct from Adidas, thanks to my good friend Yogi_bear (MyTT) who convinced them to send me a sheet for review, after which it’s sent on to a few others to get their opinions as well. I don’t have any ties with Adidas, nor do I sell them.

Visual Inspection:

As with the P7, the packaging was very nice, a cool fold-out carton with more information about the rubber and the technology, which some people like to read.

The topsheet was covered with a standard paper sheet, and the sponge under the sponge was a plastic protection sheet as a bonus, which is often not included with the more recent ESN rubber, which I think is a shame as these do help make your rubber last longer, so kudos to Adidas for including one!

This sheet looked top notch, like most ESN sheets.

 

The surface looked a bit more grainy than the p7 and didn’t quite have the same shine. it certainly wasn’t any lower quality, just a different texture to the topsheet as the p7. From my experience this after means it might be a little more durable and consistent over time, as there is no shine to wear off in the first few sessions. The top-sheet felt fairly soft and very grippy. The logo and lettering were very sharp and shown, which is indicative of a high quality process.

The sponge has medium size pores, not as big as some of the more recent rubbers like Tenergy, bluefire, Rasant, etc, but bigger than the traditional ESN rubbers. The sponge surface was dry with no evidence of any oily residue, so I don’t think this rubber has any sort of factory tuning.

Unlike the P7, this sheet had no dome at all, and was completely flat. Some of the ESN Tensors seem to have a dome, and some don’t, I’m not sure why but I’ve not noticed the dome to affect the performance.

The sponge hardness I measured as 53 on my Sponge Hardness Scale, which is about the same as Bluefire M1 and Tenergy 05.
The uncut sheet weight was 71g, which works out to 0.251 g/cm2 on Rubber Mass Table, which is similar to Tenergy 05 or Vega Pro.

Test Setup:

In my earlier P7 review I compared it to the T05, so in this case I replaced the T05 with the Tenzone so that I could compare it directly with the p7. These types of rubber usually work best on composite blades, so when I looked around I found a Cornilliou Hinotec offensive+ Carbon blade, which sounded like a good option.

This blade is carbon, but the feel is not that hard nor is the blade overly stiff, and I think it may work quite well. So I glued both rubbers onto the blade using Donic Vario glue.

Review:

Serves:
Bouncing a ball on the bat made the Tenzone feel fairly bouncy but less than the P7, and more like T05. On serves I could really feel the topsheet grab the ball and then release, and the resultant spin was very good, no worse than the T05. The less bouncy surface than the p7 made it a little easier to serve short, which I liked.

Pushing / Short Game:
Again since the Tenzone is less bouncy, it’s easier to keep the ball low and short, not as easy as Chinese rubbers but easier than a bouncy Tensor and similar to T05. Spin was very good as the surface seemed to have a little more grip or was softer than the p7.

Blocking/counterhitting:
Blocking and counterhitting is fast but with good control, very similar to P7 in this respect. Although the sponge is not exactly soft, I could feel the ball onto the blade really well, better than the T05. The Tenzone is also less sensitive to spin compared to the T05 and similar to P7, and the balls comes off a little faster.

Looping:
Like with the P7, on slow to medium pace loops the throw is quite high and the ball very spinny, very similar to the T05. When you go into powerloops, the trajectory flattens out (throw goes down), although the spin remains good, not quite as good as T05. Tenzone is even faster than p7, which was a definite step faster than T05. The rubber does shine in this area… looping is a pleasure with little effort and good pace and spin. As you brush more, you get good kick off the table too, so there is good spin there. The Tenzone spin feel a little higher than that of the P7, but both are quite good in this area.

Although the trajectory at high pace flatten out, it does not really feel like it’s bottoming out like you feel with soft sponged rubbers, so good spin is retained.
Looping backspin is great, as it’s quite easy to lift the ball, and the resulting spin is very high.
Counter-loops worked very nicely, as the lower throw at high impact helps keep it down, and the ball comes off fast with good spin.. it seems quite forgiving too. Sidespin loops are like the medium pace loops… very spinny with a good kick off the table.

Glue feel:
The glue feel on the Tenzone is strong, resulting in good catapult and a loud pop, which sounds and feels very nice. The Tenzone glue feel is even stronger than that of the P7, and very strong for a sponge that’s not all that soft.

Hitting:
Probably not it’s best feature as it’s still a little sensitive to spin, but it’s certainly less sensitive than T05 where the ball can really grip. The ball comes off very fast with a loud pop.

Conclusions:

This is a fast rubber with better touch than your typical Tensor as it’s not as bouncy. On the fast blade that I tested it on, it does flatten out at high speed, but then then speed is very high so it may not come back anyway! I expect this to be less of an issue on a slower blade where the spin is likely to be retained at when putting near maximum power into the stroke.
I think this rubber would work best on the stiff or composite blade around OFF- to OFF to compensate for the high speed. It is certainly of no worse performance than many of the other brand Tensors out there even though Adidas is fairly new to table tennis, and it’s certainly among the spinniest. If the durability of this rubber is good, then I think it can be quite a popular rubber.

I prefer the Tenzone over the P7 as the topsheet feels a little softer and it’s not quite as bouncy, so it’s easier to control in the short game, yet it has even more potential power when attacking. It still feels different in behaviour compared to T05, but it’s a top performing rubber in it’s own right.