Chinese pen-style table tennis rackets
October 10, 2009
There are lots and lots of shakehand rackets available for table tennis. And, at least in Japan, there are lots of single-sided penhold rackets available, too. But it’s a bit more difficult to get hold of a good Chinese penhold racket, which have rubber on both sides and are typically quite a lot heavier than the Korean/Japanese-style penhold rackets. They also tend to be balanced so that they’re lighter on the handle end and heavier at the playing end.
Two kinds that I have seen around are the Yoshida Kaii racket, and the Ma Lin family of rackets. The Ma Lin family comes in several flavors:
There are some other types of Chinese-style rackets that I haven’t seen in the wild, but have found in catalogues and through net searches:
- the Kan Yo Fiber Special (80g)
- the Butterfly Chinese AL
- Waldner Senso Carbon
Does anyone have any recommendations? I think I’d like to keep the weight of the blade down to around 80g, to allow more flexibility with rubber thicknesses. But I don’t really know what 80g feels like compared to 90g, and it’s possible that weight increases from rubber thickness would dwarf 10g from the blade. Any insights?
