greenbeanmachine , did you even know there are national associations & many world events dedicated to hardbat ?greenbeanmachine wrote:Dec 9, 2025 #1
Hey all, I've been messing around with pips for a while and had a lot of fun with OX short pips. I even made a hardbat with OX short pips on both sides and beat several of my teammates with it. It's a really fun style so I'm wondering why it's so uncommon to play with them.
It feels like OX short pips can be very disruptive, they have a good amount of spin reversal, and you can play very offensively with them, so why are they so hard to find and why don't people play with them? I encounter OX long pips all the time at my club, but I've never seen OX short pips. I had to look for a long time to find OX short pips in a store, and there are only like 2 options. Why is this?
I see why long pips (with sponge) are preferable for chopping, but in close-to-table play I feel much more confident with OX short pips compared to OX long pips.
Did you even know hardbat was the only racket in table tennis before it was first used at the 1951 WTTC but Satoh of Japan won the 1952 WTTC in Bombay to launch the spronge era
Tons of dealers sell ox wide pips rubbers. Hardbat associations also keep a list of approved hardbat rubbers
It is not surprising because most TableTennisDAily forum posters have zero clue about the history of the sport
for the first 26 years of the 100 years(1926-1952)