So, last night I had the opportunity to test out this blade and rubbers, the Kotutaku rubber wore out quickly during practice, I had maybe 5 hours use before last night, it was quite good at the beginning, it was soft and tacky at the start, even had blue foam rubbers underneath, the springiness felt like a hurricane 3 provincial (that cost 3.5 x more), the blade I was using had 1 carbon on the forehand side, and soft wood on the backhand side, the donic spike P1 long pimple rubber was rather hard, as I am used to playing soft OX's in my past, last night I made several errors of returning / blocking the backhand balls out, the hardness had too much power, it requires a different style of play, perhaps using it to attack instead of defending, the OX was a bad combination to put on this particular blade, it is more suited for under rating of 1000 players, the 1200 points players I faced last night had more top spin and more speed / smashes, the donic spike just had too much rebound.
so in conclusion.
I would rate the following
Air hybrid blade, not it's fault, mainly due to the combination of rubbers and matching stronger players it had failed me.
When practicing, it was very crisp, the controls were good, one minor detail is the handle was a bit smaller than other bats, I had to wrap grip tape to fit my hand. 6.5/10 in performance.
Donic spike long pimple OX (no sponge), the donic spike was very good at close table play, it did not fail me there, however when I allowed the opponents to smash me, return long, my long pimple backhand showed weakness, it did not suit returning fast/spiny shots. 6/10 in performance.
Kotutaku alpha, the stickiness wore out faster than I had expected, alot of forehand attack errors were made due to the rubber's poor performance, if I was using a hurricane 3, I would have made those top spin returns alot easier, However, during practice, it felt pretty good, only when matched with 1200 points players it lacked performance, when receiving slice serves it did not have the characteristics needed to return a fast and hard top spin back. So, it is a good rubber for beginners as you would not face any opponent that could back spin that hard, once you get to 1200ish level, this is not suitable. 5/10 performance when matching higher level players.
This setup would be suitable for a beginner player, at around 600-800 rating level.
