How Top Players Think About Rubber Hardness (Part 1)
Something stuck with me. Years ago I teamed up with the older brother of a player named Kaiqin for a tournament. He normally ran Tenergy 05 on both sides, but couldn’t get Butterfly rubbers in time, so he put Bluefire M2 on both wings. That’s interesting, because normally you’d pick M1 to match T05 in hardness and performance. But he said that, being out of match practice, he chose M2 even on the forehand just to play more steadily and execute every technique. He turned out to be right — he played well.
Shohei Onodera: Forced Into a Harder Rubber
Setup: Super Viscaria, Dignics 09C on both sides.
He isn’t an elite player — a round-of-16 men’s singles finish at the All Japan Championships — but his interview was interesting. He started on Dignics 05 both sides, switched the forehand to D09C three years ago, and this spring moved the backhand to D09C too. He admits softer rubber is easier to control (and in his hands D09C feels harder than D05), but in the Japanese league, against stronger opponents, he feels D09C produces higher quality.
My aside: “higher quality” here partly means he finds D09C harder, and partly that D09C spins better. Other players might rate D05 as higher quality — everyone has different needs. He also feels a setup with one harder side and one softer side gives a better striking feel. Players who are very balanced on both wings can run the same hardness on both sides — think Samsonov, Felix and Hugo. Forehand-dominant players like me usually keep the forehand harder and the backhand softer.
Onodera adds that when his form is good he picks harder rubber, and when it’s off he goes softer for stability. It reminds me how our national team, prepping for big events, sometimes starts at 40° and only bumps to 41° once they hit their stride. Finally, rubber hardness correlates with weight, so you can weigh a sheet (packaging included) to judge it — heavier usually means harder. When I picked Hurricane 8-80 for both wings, beyond choosing 37 or 38°, I also weighed them: the lighter sheet went on the backhand, the heavier on the forehand.
Jun Mizutani on Hardness
Setup: Mizutani Jun ZLC, Dignics 80 on both sides.
He believes softer rubber offers better control, and attacking players lean toward harder rubber. How to read that? Strengthen control, go softer; boost attack, go harder — but it all depends on whether you can handle it, which is the key. Soft rubber holds the ball longer with a “pause” feel; hard rubber releases faster and is relatively harder to control. The general trend now is toward harder rubber, because soft rubber tends to slip when canceling the opponent’s incoming spin.
Temperature affects feel too: when it’s hot the rubber feels softer, when it’s very cold it stiffens — which is why you see players breathing on their rubber in deep winter. Mizutani also notes that a rubber’s weight reflects its hardness — heavier means harder. He generally picks sheets of similar weight, but still presses with his fingers to gauge elasticity, saving the best-feeling sheets for the later, decisive matches and using the next-best in the first day or two. So why doesn’t Onodera press with his fingers to judge? That’s a skill in itself — but the key may be that Butterfly hasn’t signed him, so he pays out of pocket and can only weigh sheets sealed, without opening them.