TSP Curl P-H Reviews

 

Curl P-H long-pimple rubber was produced with the longest and widest pips that the rules allow. Curl P-H has the ability to produce a unique “knuckle ball” effect on shots, as well as effective speed for offensive shots. CURL P-H allows short backspin push shots over the table, that are not possible with other long-pimple rubbers.

 

  • Interesting long-pimple alternative for all players who are playing close to the table
  • Allows short backspin push shots.

 

 

 

Reviews by:

 

1. Blade/Style/Level
I tested this on a TSP Balsa Plus 4.5. The sheet was OX red. Although I’ve always been more of a chopper, I’ve concentrated a lot on my close to the table blocking game and have tried quite a few LPs for this style, so I’ve got a few things to compare it to.

2. Physical properties

The sheet is top quality. The pips are very stiff and closely spaced together, and feel very grippy. The whole sheet feels quite stiff, and the base-sheet feels quite thick, and comes with an adhesive backing.

3. Speed:

a) The speed of the rubber at low impact, such as return of serves, short pushes is very low… it is one of the slowest, if not THE slowest I’ve tried!
b) The speed when blocking against fast loops is a little hard to define, due to a quite unique property;
Holding the bat perpendicular to the path of the ball makes it come off at medium speed, a little lower than the average LP. However this pip is quite sensitive to spin (although considerable less at higher impact), forcing you to close the bat a little… and when you do this the ball comes off much slower and the pace gets taken right off, creating a very slow no-spin ball. I think most LPs do this to some extent, but the closely spaces and very stiff pips really makes this stand out! I think this property could easily be exploited, making it quite deceptive.

4. Spin and reversal.

Reversal on this rubber is quite low, although it improves at higher impact. However you can generate very significant spin with this rubber, among the best I’ve seen! This property alone seems to draw a lot of errors from my practice partner, partially since he did not expect it…

5. Sensitivity to spin:
The rubber is quite sensitive to incoming spin, but lower at higher impact. Even against backspin you need to be careful as it can grip causing you to land the ball into the net. Hewever when you do adjust, you can return quite a lot of backspin, which is remarkable for a LP.

6. Control:
The slow speed of this rubber gave it very good control, the only think you need to adjust for is some sensitivity to spin. The ability to generate some spin actually gives you more choices of returning the ball, as you can flip or attack the ball as well as block it short.

Chopping against loops gave decent control, but the stiff pips gave it bit bit of a hard feel, whereas I think most people would prefer something softer. However it was quite easy to either chop back heavy or return a float, so perhaps with a bit more practice this could be used quite effectively. Chops came back slow and low, a lot of time my partner could not loop for a second time as it was too short.

7. Other properties
I think one of it’s greatest properties was that it was very easy to attack no-spin or slight topspin balls.. a bit of wrist allows you to really grip the ball and actually generate some topspin… in this respect it felt like OX short pips or hardbat.

8. Reference:
I’ve not come across a pip anything like this… all the really grippy LPs seems to be very soft.

Conclusions:

The slow speed and the grip can be used to great advantage when used right. The amount of spin I could generate with this long pimple is quite impressive. It think this rubber is most effective in close for a blocking and counter-hitting style game, making it very awkward to play against. The higher than usual grip and slow speed gives it extreme control, and the grip also makes it much easier to attack with. Countering loops produces good knuckle balls, making it much harder for the opponent to attack again.