How Top Players Think About Rubber Hardness (Part 2)
Kenta Matsudaira: Soft Forehand, Hard Backhand
Setup at the time of the interview: Matsudaira Kenta Carbon, MK forehand, K3 backhand. Later: Matsudaira Kenta Carbon, MK PRO forehand, K3 PRO backhand.
Matsudaira moved from the Zhang Jike ALC to the Tibhar Matsudaira Kenta Carbon. The two blades differ only in fiber — one blue arylate-carbon, one green — with the rest of the blade the same, so the feel stays similar. Late in his Butterfly career he ran Dignics 09C on the backhand and Tenergy 05 on the forehand. I’d actually considered that setup myself, since I serve and rely on spin mostly off the backhand and play penetration off the forehand — but D09C on the backhand ended up too tiring for me, so I dropped it.
That hard-backhand, soft-forehand pairing has stuck with Matsudaira. In his own words: at Butterfly he started on T05 both sides; when D09C launched he found the backhand a bit stiff — not what he usually liked — but tried it and, to his surprise, it worked well, so it became D09C backhand, T05 forehand. This pretty-boy has always had a very solid backhand and a less flashy forehand, so a harder backhand rubber makes sense. After signing with Tibhar last year he naturally tried K3 on the backhand — Tibhar’s K3 is the answer to Butterfly’s D09C. He felt that since the backhand is his strength, a harder rubber there produces more quality. Soft-versus-hard is just personal preference; if your forehand is the strength, going harder there is equally reasonable. On the forehand he chose the softer MK, because his forehand is spin-based rather than power-based — too hard a rubber and he can’t generate speed.
Yu Kayama: A Double-Hurricane Believer
Setup: Hina Hayata H2, NEO blue National Hurricane, NEO orange National Hurricane.
He started on Nittaku G-1 both sides, then switched the forehand to blue-sponge National Hurricane. He likes hard rubber, but the Hurricane is heavy and power-hungry, and it strained his shoulder — though with training he gradually adapted. He values the Hurricane’s small, dense sponge pores, its solidity, and its huge spin variation.
An aside: Kanon Kimura, also a Butterfly player, started on T05 both sides, then — losing to high-level opponents in the Japanese T-League — was forced to switch to D05 both sides. At first she found it didn’t grip like T05, and it took a month or two to adapt. Whether it’s a blade or a rubber, if you’re seriously considering a change, you need an adjustment period — especially for harder rubber, which takes more time and training to get used to.