dhs – 360TT Blog

Double Happiness: the story of DHS, the brand intertwined with Chinese table tennis

Thu, 22 Oct 2026 14:12:00 -0300

If you play table tennis, you have seen those three letters a thousand times: on your training ball, on your forehand rubber, on the colorful table in the World Championships broadcast. Few people know that DHS stands for Double Happiness, and that the name was born from two celebrations in 1959, one of them a world title. By the way, many players call a ball that clips the net and then the edge a double happiness: double luck for the hitter, none for the receiver.

Telling the story of DHS means telling the story of Chinese table tennis. Since the first title, the two have walked together, in a cycle that has repeated itself for more than 60 years: the team tests, the factory adjusts. When the rules change, both adapt together, and they almost always come out ahead.

This post is based on the DHS Service Guide, the brand’s technical handbook (4th edition, 2022, in Chinese), which DHS made available to 360TT as its official distributor in Brazil. It includes a timeline of the sport and of the factory. Since it is the brand’s own version of its history, I checked what I could against other sources and I point out when a figure comes only from DHS.

TL;DR: the ball reached China before the national team did: the sport landed in Shanghai in 1904 and the first Chinese ball came out in 1927 (before the national team, the ball). In 1959, China’s first world title gave the brand its name, and it debuted at the 1961 World Championships in Beijing, the same event where a 15-year-old Brazilian knocked out the champion. Then came ping-pong diplomacy, the 40 mm ball and the Hurricane (the world against China), the Ma Long era and Paris 2024. At the end, what this story teaches players.

The story in one picture: from the English dinner table to the tables of Paris (text in Portuguese). Infographic: 360TT

Before the national team, the ball

Table tennis was born in England at the end of the 19th century as a dinner-table game: rackets made of stretched skin, rubber or cork balls wrapped in wool so as not to damage the furniture, a net strung between two chairs. Around 1890, the Englishman James Gibb adapted a hollow celluloid toy ball, and the game got the ball we know. From there the sport went to Japan, where it became takkyu.

In 1904, Wang Daowu, the owner of a stationery shop in Shanghai, brought ten complete sets back from Japan and gave the sport the name that stuck: pingpang, after the sound of the ball. Curiously, in the West that name had an owner: the English company Jaques registered “Ping-Pong” as a trademark in 1901, and in the United States the rights went to Parker Brothers (today they belong to Escalade). That is why the federations adopted the name table tennis. In China, pingpang simply became the name of the sport. In 1926 the ITTF was founded and held the first World Championships in London that December. And Shanghai started manufacturing: the first ball made in China came out in 1927; in 1928 and 1929 the first racket workshops appeared (one of them made 2,000 to 3,000 a year); in 1937, the Lianhuan ball (“linked rings”) was the first Chinese ball good enough for competition. In English, DHS itself calls that ball Double Circle, and the two interlocked rings survive to this day as the mark of DHS’s training ball line, such as the Double Circle D40+. In 1946 the Hualian ball factory was founded.

Old Double Circle balls, made in Shanghai: the two rings of the 1937 Lianhuan still on the stamp. Photo: reproduction

An old Chinese racket, from the days of the first Shanghai workshops. Image: DHS Handbook

Meanwhile, world table tennis already had an owner. The handbook tells this story in five eras, and in each one the game and the equipment change together. From 1926 to 1951, Europe ruled: 109 of the 117 world titles, with the shakehand grip, defensive play and pips rubber with no sponge, which gave little speed and very little spin; the idea was to miss less than the opponent. From 1952 to 1959, Japan changed the game twice: it swapped the shakehand grip for the penhold, to attack from a distance with the forehand, and brought the novelty that changed everything, the sponge, which gave rise to sandwich rubber (rubber with sponge), still used today, and multiplied speed and spin.

China only joined the ITTF in March 1953, and that same year it played its first World Championships, in Bucharest: it beat Austria and Sweden and lost to England and Hungary. Between 1956 and 1958, Hualian and three other Shanghai factories became joint ventures with the state and formed the basis of what would become DHS. In 1957, Hualian made the first Chinese ball with a sealed seam. All that was missing was the name.

Packing balls in a Shanghai factory, in DHS's early years. Image: DHS Handbook

1959: two joys and a name

In 1959, in Dortmund, Germany, Rong Guotuan won the men’s singles at the 25th World Championships and became China’s first world champion in any sport. That same year, the People’s Republic turned ten. Two joys. According to DHS and the Chinese press, Premier Zhou Enlai named the ball made in Shanghai Hong Shuang Xi, “red double happiness”, the same name as the 囍 symbol the Chinese use at weddings. In English, Double Happiness. As an acronym, DHS.

The ball with the “double happiness” stamp. Image: DHS Handbook

The name came with a deadline. China was going to host the 1961 World Championships and wanted to play with its own equipment, so the country set up a joint technical effort with factories and research institutes. In September 1959, the new ball and table were tested by national team players, among them Xu Yinsheng, and approved. The same effort produced the first Chinese racket with inverted rubber and sponge. In 1960, the ball was approved by the ITTF, the first Chinese sports product to get that approval. It was the first turn of the cycle: the team tested, the factory adjusted.

An old table from the DHS collection. Image: DHS Handbook

1961: Beijing, the home debut

At the 26th World Championships, in Beijing, the ball, the table and the scoreboard were DHS: it was the first time sports equipment made in China appeared at a world championship. And at home, China won the men’s team event, the men’s singles and the women’s singles. For the handbook, this is when the center of table tennis moves from Japan to China, with fast close-to-the-table attack, and the game becomes China’s “national sport”.

The 26th World Championships, Beijing, 1961: the debut of DHS equipment. Image: DHS Handbook

🇧🇷 Biriba, 15, against the world champion

At that same World Championships, in April 1961, a boy from São Paulo wrote his name into history. Ubiraci Rodrigues da Costa, known as Biriba, aged 15, beat Rong Guotuan, the 1959 champion whose title had given DHS its name. It was in the third round of the men’s singles, in front of some 15,000 Chinese fans, and he reached the last 16. He received a telegram from Brazilian President Jânio Quadros, and his run was only matched by Claudio Kano in 1987 and surpassed by Hugo Calderano in 2021.

It was no bolt from the blue. At 11, Biriba was already South American champion among adults; at 13, he beat two Japanese world champions, Ichiro Ogimura and Toshiaki Tanaka, in exhibition matches at the Ibirapuera arena in São Paulo, the school that dominated the sport at the time. On November 18, 1958, the sports newspaper A Gazeta Esportiva put him on its front page alongside Pelé and tennis player Maria Esther Bueno: “the golden triangle of Brazilian sport”.

Biriba, aged 13, with Pelé and Maria Esther Bueno at the A Gazeta Esportiva offices, on November 18, 1958, each holding the other's tool. Photo: A Gazeta Esportiva

Biriba died in São Paulo on September 25, 2025, aged 80. This is 360TT’s tribute to the first great name in Brazilian table tennis.

The rest of the decade strengthened the partnership. In 1963, in an ITTF test, the DHS ball tied for first place with England’s Halex. In 1965, at the World Championships in Ljubljana, every Chinese player used DHS rackets (the “65” series), China took 5 of the 7 titles and the Chinese women beat Japan, which had dominated the women’s game for eight years.

The small ball moved the big ball

China stayed away from the World Championships for six years and returned in 1971, in Nagoya, Japan. That is where the most famous episode in the sport’s history took place. The American Glenn Cowan, 19, got on the Chinese team’s bus (by mistake, according to the best-known version). Zhuang Zedong, three-time world champion, went to talk to him and gave him a silk painting of the Huangshan mountains; Cowan returned the favor with a T-shirt bearing the peace symbol. The photos went around the world, and days later the American team was invited to play in China, one of the first groups of Americans to enter the country since 1949. This was “ping-pong diplomacy”, which brought China and the United States back together after 22 years of closed doors and paved the way for Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in February 1972. “The small ball moved the big ball”, as the Chinese say.

If you want the behind-the-scenes story, there is a great book: Ping-Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game That Changed the World, by American journalist Nicholas Griffin (Scribner, 2014). He tells how table tennis was used as a political tool from the 1950s on, and he even doubts the “chance” encounter in Nagoya: in his view, the Chinese were expecting Cowan.

Ping-Pong Diplomacy, by Nicholas Griffin (Scribner, 2014). Image: book cover reproduction

With the sport back to life in the country, DHS production grew again, and in 1972 its ball got the highest overall score in an ITTF test.

The 1970s, however, belonged to Europe’s comeback. The Europeans combined Chinese fast attack with Japanese topspin and caught up with the Asians. China’s answer came in 1981: after two years of rebuilding, the team won all 7 titles at the World Championships in Novi Sad, the first time a single country took everything in 55 years of the event.

In the early 1980s, DHS also went out into the world with the PF4 line (ball, racket and rubber), the first Chinese brand to open markets abroad. The PF4 still exists, today as a family of tacky-topsheet rubbers.

The old PF4 package. Image: DHS Handbook

DHS PF4The legendary rubber that took DHS to the world, updated for the 40+ ball: the same spin as always, with more speed in attack. Visit the store →

In 1988, in Seoul, table tennis became an Olympic sport. In 1995, DHS unified its brand into a single company, and its ball was the official ball of the World Championships in Tianjin, where China, once again, took all 7 titles. That is the birth of what the Chinese call “the world against China”.

The PF4 ball presented as the official ball of the 43rd World Championships, Tianjin, 1995. Image: DHS Handbook

The world against China

With China winning everything, the ITTF began changing the rules to make the game more competitive and easier to watch on TV. DHS was involved in those changes. In 1996, according to the handbook, the ITTF commissioned it to develop the bigger ball. The Sydney Olympics, in 2000, were the last major competition with the 38 mm ball, and a DHS ball: the first time Chinese equipment was official at an Olympic Games. That same year, the World Cup in Yangzhou debuted the 40 mm ball, also DHS. I covered that change in detail in the ball guide, from 38 mm to 40+. Next came 11-point games (2001) and the serve without hiding the ball (2002).

The Sydney 2000 ball, the last major competition with the 38 mm ball. Image: DHS Handbook

In rubbers, the turning point had come in 1998, when DHS launched the rubber already glued to its sponge at the factory. Until then, Chinese players bought the topsheet and the sponge separately. That is how the G888 (used by Wang Liqin and Yan Sen while the ball was still small) and the Kuangbiao family, known worldwide as Hurricane, were born. With the 40 mm ball, speed became the priority, and the Hurricane 2 and the Hurricane 3 were designed for it.

The G888, from 1998: DHS's first rubber already glued to its sponge. Image: DHS Handbook

DHS G888DHS's first rubber already glued to its sponge is still in production: a very tacky topsheet for maximum spin in mid-distance attack. Visit the store →

In blades, it is a comeback story. Since the 1980s, the Chinese team had used almost only foreign blades. In 2003, DHS studied the game of eight national team players and launched Hurricane blades named after each of them. In 2005, at the World Championships in Shanghai, the Hurricane Wang helped Wang Liqin win the singles and the mixed doubles. In 2006, the Skyline 2 and Skyline 3, made for Ma Lin and Wang Hao, completed the lineup, and 70% of the team’s forehands were already on DHS rubber.

Wang Liqin at the 2005 World Championships in Shanghai. Image: DHS Handbook

In 2008, DHS supplied the Beijing Olympics, and China won the team events and the top three places in both singles.

The table of the Beijing 2008 Games. Image: DHS Handbook

Shortly afterwards, on September 1, 2008, the ban on solvent-based speed glue came into force (I told that story in Why Is Your Glue Water-Based Today?). It is the best example of the cycle: DHS tested less tacky rubbers and thicker pimples with the national team, and the players’ answer was to keep the rubber tacky. So the factory worked on the sponge instead. That is how the NEO line was born, with a sponge treated at the factory to be “stretched”, imitating the effect the glue used to give.

DHS Hurricane 3 NEOThe rubber that has followed the Chinese team from the 40 mm ball to the present day, with a factory-treated NEO sponge. Visit the store →

The Ma Long era

Ma Long signed with DHS in 2008, and the history of his blades shows the cycle in detail. According to the handbook:

2008: the first Hurricane Long, built on the blade he was already using;
2011: he switches to a seven-ply, all-wood blade and puts together 51 straight wins starting at the Suzhou Open. DHS launches the Hurricane Long 2;
2012: the Hurricane Long 3, with improved internal glue at his request, and the blue handle with the yellow crescent that became his trademark;
2013: the Hurricane Long 5, with inner carbon and aramid layers, with which he wins the National Games;
2016: after the gold in Rio, the Long 5 gets a smaller blade face;
2021: the Golden Slam edition, to celebrate his Tokyo feat.

The evolution of Ma Long's blades (labels in Portuguese). Images: DHS Handbook; layout: 360TT

Ma Long and the Hurricane Long 5 Golden Slam. Image: DHS Handbook

I covered that evolution, and what it teaches about changing blades, in the post Ma Long’s Lesson. In 2015, with the Long 5 and Hurricane 3 on both sides, he won the World Championships, the World Cup and the Grand Finals. In 2021, in Tokyo, with the same setup, he completed the Olympic, World Championship and World Cup singles titles for the second time, the “golden grand slam”, and was the first player ever to do it.

Meanwhile, the ball changed again. In 2011 DHS announced a ball made of a new material, and the ITTF decided to retire celluloid, which had been used for more than a hundred years. The change took effect on July 1, 2014. Besides changing the game, it solved a practical problem: celluloid catches fire easily and was shipped as dangerous goods; the plastic ball travels by air without restrictions. DHS’s first new ball was the official ball of the World Championships and the Rio Olympics; in 2017 came the ABS plastic ball that led to the DJ40+, the Tokyo ball.

The figures DHS publishes about the Chinese team and the market show how big this is. They are the brand’s own data, from 2022, but they are impressive:

97%of the Chinese team's forehands on DHS rubber

46%of the team's blades are DHS

50%+of the world's table tennis balls are made by DHS

70%of major competitions use the DHS 3-star ball

The handbook also shows a lesser-known side. In 2010, the top four in the men’s singles at the World Championships all played with DHS equipment. In 2017, the brand launched the Gold Arc 5 and Gold Arc 8, non-tacky, European-style rubbers, made in Germany by ESN and tested by Wang Liqin and Ma Long. And, in 2022, the colored Hurricane 9, after the ITTF allowed colored rubbers. On the backhand, DHS rubber also gained ground with the 40+ ball: 32% of the team’s backhands in 2022.

From Paris 2024 to today

The handbook dates from 2022, so from here on the sources are the ITTF and the specialized press. At Paris 2024, DHS was the official supplier of the tables and nets for the Olympic and Paralympic tournaments, with a table made for the Games based on the Rainbow II. It was the seventh Olympic Games in a row with DHS equipment, from Sydney to Paris.

In April 2025, the ITTF renewed DHS as the official table supplier for the World Championships Finals from 2025 to 2028, starting in Doha, with the Rainbow table. It was on that table that Hugo Calderano reached the World Championships final, the best result ever by a Brazilian.

The Rainbow table at the 2025 World Championships in Doha, before play began. Photo: ITTF

🏓 Curiosities from the handbook

The 44 mm ball: in 2003, DHS launched a bigger ball, slower and with less spin, for recreation and beginners. Today it is used in physical education classes in Chinese schools.
The racket gauge: the device that measures rubber thickness at racket control in international competitions is supplied by DHS.
A museum table: the Rainbow table from the London 2012 Games, with arches shaped like the Olympic rings, was kept permanently by the International Olympic Committee at its headquarters in Switzerland.
The Beijing table: the table for the 2008 Olympics was designed from the Chinese character for Beijing, 京.
The two-color ball: in 2014, DHS and the Chinese federation tested a two-color ball, which makes spin more visible on TV and for the receiver.
The World Championships trophies: each of the 7 titles has a trophy with its own name, such as the Swaythling Cup (men’s team) and the Corbillon Cup (women’s team). They are made of silver and pass from champion to champion: the winner only gets to engrave their name.

The London 2012 Games table, now in the IOC collection. Image: DHS Handbook

The two-color ball, from 2014. Image: DHS Handbook

DHS D40+ ABS Bi Colour ball (box of 10)The two-color version of the D40+: you can see the spin as it rotates, great for training how to read spin. Visit the store →

Leaf through the handbook

For those who want to see the original, here are some pages from the DHS handbook: the cover, the nine timeline pages this post is based on, the page on Ma Long’s blades and the one on the history of the balls. Click any of them to enlarge it.

Cover

1890–1937

1946–1963

1965–1989

1995–2000

2000–2005

2007–2009

2010–2014

2014–2020

2021–2022

Ma Long's blades

History of the balls

Pages from the DHS Handbook (Service Guide, 4th edition, 2022, in Chinese). Images: DHS Handbook

What this story teaches players

🤓 360TT technical view

Reading the whole timeline, one thing stands out: equipment changes because the rules change. The 40 mm ball, the end of speed glue, the plastic ball: every ITTF change forced manufacturers to rework rubber, sponge and blade. DHS had the advantage of being inside those decisions and of testing everything with the strongest team in the world before it reached the shop.

That is why Chinese rubber is the way it is. The Hurricane, tacky and hard, was born for the Chinese style, which generates speed and spin through technique: technique is what puts real energy into the hard sponge. With little energy, the rubber feels slow; with technique, it becomes practically two rubbers in one, with control on passive balls from the tacky topsheet and power from the hard sponge. I explained this in detail in So, which rubber should you use? The null hypothesis method, where I also tell how the rest of the world adopted tacky and hybrid rubbers, driven by the German company ESN, the same one that makes the DHS Gold Arc.

The other lesson is simpler: what the Chinese team uses is available in the shop, with differences in quality control between versions (I explained this in the Hurricane 3 guide). Since 2023, 360TT has been the official DHS distributor in Brazil, and it was as a distributor that we received from DHS the handbook this post is based on.

Now I want to hear from you: what was your first piece of DHS equipment? A PF4, a Hurricane, a box of balls at the club? Did you know this story? Tell me in the comments.

See DHS rubbers in the shop

So, which rubber should you use? The null hypothesis method

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 23:05:00 -0300

I wrote the first version of this article a few years ago. I sent it to a few WhatsApp groups, told anyone who wanted to share it to go ahead, and it traveled all over Brazil. One day I was asked to publish it on an official Brazilian table tennis website, as long as I first made an infographic summarizing everything, because “it’s too long, nobody will read it”. I didn’t make the infographic. If nobody was going to read it, there was no point in publishing it.

Since then, something I argued for in 2022, when almost nobody was talking about it — that tacky and hybrid rubbers would change the game — has become what you see on any broadcast from the world circuit. That was the push I needed to rewrite the text, now with numbers and with a real case of a hypothesis tested on a worldwide scale. It’s still long. But it’s the first post on this new blog, and I think it’s fair to start with the subject that causes the most confusion, wasted money and regret in table tennis: so, which rubber should you use?

The short answer: probably not the one you’re thinking of buying. The long one is coming.

TL;DR: “tried it and liked it” is a clinical trial without a control: the novelty effect fools you, and the right starting point is the null hypothesis — the new rubber is not better than yours until proven otherwise. In Butterfly’s own catalog, spin and arc follow sponge hardness in an almost straight line (correlations of 0.97 and 0.98). So choose by method: throw angle, hardness, thickness, cost per month of use and your current technical level. Tacky and hybrid rubbers are the real case of a hypothesis tested by the whole world. And, once you’ve chosen your rubber, stop switching: it takes 60 to 90 days of training for it to pay off.

Note

I don’t mean to judge anyone who likes testing equipment. Back when I played, I made my rubbers last until they were worn out, and then used them a few more days. Today, now that I can afford it, I also buy things just because I like them or out of curiosity. But the scope here is different: what does or doesn’t help you win more points and more matches. And that doesn’t depend on our curiosity.

For years I’ve followed opinions and recommendations about equipment with a certain unease. Many come from smart, honest people, some of whom I know well. What bothers me isn’t the opinion itself: it’s how easily rationality collapses in the face of a shallow argument, with no technical or logical basis, bordering on mysticism. Without a minimum of method, we become hostages to “tried it and liked it”, to fashion, to the recommendation of the influencer of the moment or to the rubber that so-and-so from the national team uses.

The clinical trial of your racket

Start with a hypothesis: “rubber X, regardless of brand, price, weight or hardness, is the best for athlete Y to win more matches”. Note: it’s not about landing more drives in training. It’s about winning more matches.

That hypothesis is born with a very low probability of being right. The obvious combinations, like “famous rubber used by a famous player”, were picked long ago: they’re the low-hanging fruit. What’s left is high up in the tree, more expensive and more laborious to reach.

And the tree is huge. In October 2019, the ITTF celebrated a record: more than 1,600 rubbers on the list of authorized racket coverings (LARC). On September 21, 2026, I checked the official list: there are 1,716 approved rubbers from 150 brands. In the meantime, many dropped off (approvals expire, manufacturers discontinue models), but even more came in. The funnel keeps growing.

On top of that, each rubber behaves differently on each blade. Simplifying a lot, with just three blades from the same brand (defensive, allround and offensive), you already have 5,148 combinations: a 0.02% chance of getting it right at random. And that math is generous, because it assumes a single rubber per racket, when the forehand and backhand usually carry different rubbers.

Keep that number in mind, 0.02%. It will show up again somewhere very different.

🔎 The cover challenge

In fact, it has already shown up once: this post’s cover image has 5,148 rackets, one for each combination, and only one is orange. Missed it? Scroll back up and take a good look. Found it? That’s your chance of getting it right by luck.

I went digging in a field that isn’t mine, to draw a parallel. Before a drug reaches the pharmacy, it goes through a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Patients are randomly split into two groups: one gets the drug, the other gets a pill with no active ingredient at all (the placebo). “Double-blind” means that neither the patient nor the doctor doing the assessment knows who is in which group until the end of the study.

All that care exists because of a real, well-documented phenomenon: the placebo effect. A significant share of the people who take the sugar pill, thinking it’s medicine, report improvement, out of expectation, extra attention, the ritual of “being treated”. It’s an effect strong enough to contaminate any assessment done without a control.

That’s why the starting hypothesis of every clinical trial, the null hypothesis, isn’t “the drug works”. It’s the opposite: “this treatment is no better than the placebo”. You run the study, compare the groups and ask: if the drug did nothing, what would be the chance of seeing a difference this size or larger just by chance? If that chance falls below 5% — the famous “p < 0.05” that shows up in any serious study — the null hypothesis is rejected. And even then, regulatory agencies usually require more than one study before approving anything.

The funnel is relentless. The most quoted estimate in the pharmaceutical industry is 1 drug approved for every 5,000 to 10,000 compounds examined in the discovery phase. In the best case, 1 in 5,000: 0.02%. And of those that make it to human trials, fewer than 1 in 10 is approved (7.9%, according to the most recent survey by BIO, the US biotechnology industry association, covering 2011 to 2020).

Did you notice? 0.02% is practically the same as the chance of picking the right rubber-and-blade combination at random. A numerical coincidence, of course. But the logic is the same: when the search space is huge, a guess almost always misses.

Now, your reality. You buy a new rubber, train two or three sessions, like it and conclude: “this is the one”. Statistically, you’ve just run a clinical trial with a single patient, no control group, no blinding and an enormous expectation bias. You knew it was new, you paid more attention to your fundamentals, you trained with more motivation, you’d already paid a lot for it (and nobody likes admitting they wasted their money), and you were still riding the manufacturer’s marketing or the social media hype. It’s the placebo effect, applied to the racket.

And there’s one more ingredient, maybe the most treacherous: almost nobody switches rubbers during a good spell. We switch after a bad run, and bad runs pass on their own, with or without a new rubber. In statistics, that’s called regression to the mean. At the table, it becomes “the new rubber fixed it”.

“Tried it and liked it” is not evidence that the rubber is better. It’s exactly what a clinical trial exists to filter out.

That’s why the right stance is to keep the null hypothesis by default: the new rubber is not better than yours until proven otherwise, with enough time to separate the real effect from the novelty effect. In practice, that time is around 60 to 90 days of training. Not out of pessimism. Out of method.

One detail makes all the difference: in statistics, the null hypothesis is never “proven”. At most, a study fails to reject it. Nobody proves that “rubber X doesn’t work”; what exists is an absence of evidence that it works, which is quite different. That’s why the burden of proof always lies with whoever claims it works, never the other way around.

Now you start to understand why there are so many rubber models and so much marketing around them. And why it’s so tempting to use your favorite player’s rubber.

The next Waldner and the silent graveyard

Your 10-year-old cousin plays far above his training partners and is always praised by the coach. Could he be the next Waldner? He could. Is it likely? No: there are thousands of kids like him around the world, and most will never turn pro. When one of them finally reaches the top 20, the coach says he “always knew”. That’s hindsight bias: once the result shows up, memory rewrites the past and everything seems to have been predictable, while hundreds of other coaches thought the same about their own pupils. For a neutral observer, back at the start, the logical thing was the null hypothesis: that boy will probably become a driver, a lawyer, a dentist, and most promising talents stay just that, promising. Whoever sells or manufactures something shouldn’t fall in love with their own creation, which is exactly what a mother does when she swears her son is the next Waldner.

The same happens with the champion’s rubber: you only see the ones who made it. In the business world they say the graveyard is silent: companies that went bust don’t give keynote talks. Nassim Taleb calls this silent evidence. There’s no list of the thousands who used the same rubber and got nowhere, and nobody sees the years of training that made that rubber work in the champion’s hand.

And there’s the opposite path. Everyone knows the athlete who, when he loses, finds the culprit: the equipment, the lighting, the ball, the floor, the air conditioning. The philosopher Karl Popper had a name for this: ad hoc hypothesis, an explanation invented after the fact, just to save a belief that reality was knocking down. With rubbers, it sounds like this: “the rubber is great, I just wasn’t having a good day”, “it only works when boosted”, “it didn’t match my blade”. Each of those sentences protects a belief instead of testing it.

The antidote has existed since the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, which pulled us out of magical explanations and the authority of tradition. Your smartphone exists because of chemistry, not alchemy: nobody got to the lithium battery by mixing substances at random and making up excuses for every mix that went wrong. But when it comes to equipment, we’re still very medieval. The method is clear: assume it doesn’t work, leave the burden of proof with whoever claims it does, and don’t make up excuses when the null hypothesis wins.

The Enlightenment gathered in one salon: in this 1812 painting, Anicet-Charles-Gabriel Lemonnier imagined the leading names of the era in Paris, in 1755, listening to a reading of a play by Voltaire (the bust in the background). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

What the catalog itself reveals

Among rubbers in the same hardness range, most of the differences that marketing advertises are just sales pitch. Unfortunately. Or fortunately! And the proof comes from the most unlikely place: the manufacturer’s own numbers.

Before going on, a clarification: what follows is not a criticism of Butterfly. Quite the opposite: they’re incredible products, and I always say the Dignics 09C is the best Butterfly rubber of all time. I use their numbers precisely because the catalog gives indexes for an entire line, all measured the same way, and that makes the math possible.

And a technical caveat. Butterfly doesn’t publish “control” as a metric. It publishes Speed, Spin and Arc, all relative indexes, measured in its own tests (the numbers here are from the 2026 catalog). Arc, by Butterfly’s own definition, measures how easily the rubber produces a high trajectory on the topspin. In other words, it mixes the ball’s throw angle with the effect of spin on the curve. I’ll say more about that later; here, I keep the name from the table.

Source: Butterfly 2026 catalog. Analysis: 360TT.

I cross-referenced the three indexes of 16 rubbers from Butterfly’s High Tension generation: Tenergy, Dignics, Zyre, Glayzer and Rozena. I left out the ones that predate that technology (Sriver, Sriver EL, Flextra and Tackiness Chop), the Roundell, well below the Tenergy line in performance and in use, and the Tenergy 25 family, which barely circulates in Brazil.

The result: spin and arc follow sponge hardness with correlations of 0.97 and 0.98, respectively. Almost a straight line. Speed, on the other hand, tracks nothing: it sits between 75 and 90 for all of them.

And the catalog throws in a lab test for free. The Tenergy 05 Hard is, by Butterfly’s own text, the Tenergy 05 with a harder sponge (from 36° to 43°). Spin goes up 26%, arc goes up 16%, and speed doesn’t budge (83 and 82). Only the hardness changed, and performance jumped the way that, in theory, it should only jump with a whole new line. The Tenergy 05 Hard ties on spin with the Dignics 09C, which costs a third more, and even comes close to the Zyre 03, the most expensive of all, launched years later. The name changes, the price changes, the sponge gets harder, and the result follows the hardness, not the name of the technology.

How much of the “generational leap” is repackaged hardness?

There’s one exception that confirms the rule instead of breaking it: the two slowest rubbers in the group aren’t the softest. They’re the only hybrids in the catalog, Glayzer 09C (speed 75) and Dignics 09C (79), both with a tacky topsheet. And the catalog gives you a second test that looks free but has a catch: the Dignics 09C and the Zyre 03 use the same sponge, the 44° Spring Sponge X. The tacky one comes out at speed 79; the non-tacky one, at 88. But the topsheet isn’t the only difference: the Zyre 03 has a thinner topsheet and, to make up for it, a thicker sponge (2.5 or 2.7 mm, versus 1.9 or 2.1 mm on the Dignics 09C). Part of that speed is less tackiness; part is more sponge. There, hardness doesn’t act alone: the tackiness holds the ball longer on contact, steals speed and gives back trajectory. It’s no coincidence that the two hybrids are among the highest-arc rubbers in the group (95 and 96). Butterfly doesn’t say how it measures speed, but the number is what you’d expect from a low-energy test, in which the hard sponge doesn’t even get activated. It’s the same “slowness” many people feel when they try a Chinese or a hybrid rubber, and that disappears when technique puts real energy into the stroke.

And here comes a variable almost no manufacturer explains: sponge thickness. When the catalog says rubber X has speed Y, it doesn’t say which thickness it measured, and most likely it’s the thickest in the line. With regular sponges, the rule is simple: the thicker, the faster. The Zyre 03 illustrates this: it isn’t faster than the Dignics because its sponge uses a different technology, but because it has more of the same sponge. The relationship only flips with absorbing sponges, made to deaden the ball, like those of the Sauer & Tröger Blackout and the Dr. Neubauer A-B-S 3 Pro anti-spin rubbers: with them, the thicker the sponge, the more it absorbs, and the slower the rubber.

And with hybrids, the story gets more interesting than a catalog number: the throw angle changes with the stroke. Contact dominated by the topsheet (more tack, more dwell time on the rubber) produces a high throw angle. Contact dominated by the sponge (a drier touch, with less tack coming into play) produces a much flatter trajectory. It’s the same rubber with two behaviors, depending on execution: the “2 in 1” I talk about further on, now applied to the trajectory.

Sponge hardness, by the way, is the most glaring example of how each manufacturer creates its own ruler. Rubber hardness is measured with a durometer, on the Shore scales: within the same scale, the higher the number, the harder. But there are different Shore scales, with no simple conversion between them, and many manufacturers don’t really use a standardized scale at all. The “degrees” on the package are usually the brand’s internal ruler. A “40° DHS” and a “40° ESN” don’t necessarily represent the same physical hardness. The chart above only works because it compares rubbers from a single brand, on the same ruler.

Another subject that has become a fad is the so-called arc of the ball, poorly understood and “sold” in a strange way. The arc is the curve the ball draws in the air, and what draws that curve is physics: the angle and speed at which the ball leaves the racket, gravity pulling down, and spin. On a topspin, the Magnus effect pushes the ball down and closes the curve. The rubber plays a part in two ways: in the throw angle (which depends on sponge hardness, topsheet grip and pimple design) and in how much spin it lets you generate. But what generates the spin is your technique. Without enough spin, the ball comes out high, makes a long, open parabola and goes past the table. Throw Angle is not arc: it’s just its starting point.

About control, which I consider subjective: if rubber speed were always linear, control would just be a function of speed. It isn’t. Soft rubbers react more with little energy applied and give the false sensation of being fast. Hard rubbers (like Chinese ones or the Tenergy 05 Hard itself) are more direct, and if you can’t apply enough energy to activate the sponge, you’ll get the false sensation that they’re slower than soft ones. Tacky-topsheet rubbers with a hard sponge, by the way, give a much greater sense of control on passive balls (serve, receive, push, block) and are very fast on high-power attacks, when your technique activates the sponge. Keep that in mind for a little later.

Some conclusions:

Choosing by catalog speed is almost useless: the manufacturer doesn’t say which thickness it measured, and the difference between models is small and doesn’t even track hardness. What would help is an index per thickness, something like 1.7 mm: speed 7; 1.9 mm: 8.5; 2.1 mm: 10 (numbers just for illustration). Then it would make sense.
So is choosing by catalog spin: it practically repeats the sponge hardness. Look at the hardness and you already know almost everything that number tells you.
Choosing by the stated control is useless: control isn’t just a function of speed, and it’s subjective.
The catalog “arc” says little about your game: it depends on your ability to generate spin, and even the blade contributes. What’s worth looking at is the throw angle; I’ll get there.
Choosing the famous player’s rubber is completely useless: what he does with it is the fruit of a technique you probably haven’t developed yet, built over years of training with that equipment. It’s correlation mistaken for causation.
Choosing because a friend “tried it and liked it” is just as useless. Most people test by hitting drives in a controlled setting, when they should test in real matches, and only after adjusting their muscle memory to the rubber. Then the opinion would have some method behind it.

How to choose by method

With the null hypothesis as a premise, how do you choose a rubber?

Method 1 — Middle Ages precepts: catalog arc, spin, speed and control, marketing descriptions, fashion, “tried it and liked it”, “my favorite player uses…”.

Method 2 — Enlightenment precepts: throw angle, sponge hardness, overall perceived hardness, sponge thickness, cost per month of use and, above all, your current technical level.

A good drug doesn’t come from testing a thousand substances at random hoping one will reveal itself. It comes from criteria for choosing the compound and fine-tuning the dose. With rubber it’s the same: choose by Method 2 and, once you’ve chosen, adjust your technique to it.

Throw angle: rubbers that lift the ball a lot on topspin push low and, if the sponge is soft, tend to be more sensitive to the opponent’s spin (they “eat” more spin): it gets harder to receive a heavy backspin serve, but easier to open up against backspin. Examples: Butterfly Tenergy 05 and Donic Bluefire, M line. Rubbers that lift the ball less push higher, are less sensitive to the opponent’s spin, and their topspins arrive faster and deeper, making the counterattack harder. Examples: Butterfly Tenergy 64, Donic Acuda Blue, P line, and hard Chinese rubbers like the DHS Hurricane 3 National Blue Sponge (the line Ma Long uses on his forehand).

Wang Chuqin in the semifinal of the 2025 World Championships in Doha (May 24, 2025), a tournament he won: on the left, backspin; on the right, topspin. Photos: WTT/Eng Chin An

Sponge hardness: there’s no reliable general table; each manufacturer uses its own ruler, as we saw. If you don’t have refined technique or an athlete’s fitness, and don’t train every day, avoid very hard rubbers, like Butterfly’s 44° ones, those at 52.5° or more on the ESN scale or a DHS Hurricane 3 above 39°. You’ll probably find these “cannons” heavy and slow.

This also explains a phenomenon that confuses a lot of people: a rubber considered “medium hardness” two decades ago may feel soft today, without the sponge having changed one millimeter. The ball has become bigger and more demanding. In 2000, it went from 38 mm and 2.5 g to 40 mm and 2.7 g. In 2014, it switched from celluloid to plastic (the 40+ ball), which is stiffer; and, from 2017 on, came the ABS generations that dominate today (I tell that story here). A bigger, heavier, harder ball engages the sponge more and demands more from it to return the same response. Add to that the end of speed glue, in 2008 (the full story is here), and the market pushed the ruler upward: so-called “dynamic” sponges appeared, firmer and more reactive. The middle of the scale shifted. What used to be “medium”, compared with today’s catalog, falls into the range we call soft. It’s not that the rubber got weaker; it’s that the ruler moved.

A good starting point is an intermediate hardness: 45° to 47.5° on the ESN scale, 37° to 38° on DHS (except Gold Arc 5 and 8) and 36° to 38° on Butterfly.

Overall perceived hardness: what you feel in your hand is the combination of sponge and topsheet, and it can be quite different from the sponge’s nominal hardness, besides being tremendously influenced by the blade. Donic’s Bluestorm line has a good example: the Z1 and the Z2 have the same 47.5° sponge, but the Z1 feels harder because of the topsheet. The DHS Gold Arc, even with a sponge considered medium (42.5° or 47.5°), is reported by many players as “harder than it looks on paper”, an effect of its firm, non-tacky topsheet.

Sponge thickness: when you buy, the manufacturer usually offers three choices: color (one side black and the other colored, as the rules require), hardness (not every brand offers more than one) and thickness. That last one matters a lot, and hardly anyone thinks about it. The physics is simple: the sponge works like a spring. The thicker it is, the more room the ball has to sink in and the more energy it gives back, so the rubber gets faster. The thinner it is, the sooner the ball reaches the wood: the feel gets firmer and more direct, speed drops, but spin doesn’t drop with it. Relative to speed, you get even more spin, and the ball dips more onto the table. The thick one only wins on a very hard stroke, where the thin sponge bottoms out. In Brazil, it became the rule to always buy the thickest, as if thickness meant quality. It doesn’t. When I trained seriously, I used Max on the forehand and 2.0 mm on the backhand. And thick sponges are nothing new: in the ’90s I played with Yasaka Mark V 2.5 mm and speed glue, which swelled the sponge even more; it was surely already at the Zyre 03’s 2.7 mm. This habit costs everyone: since the Brazilian market rejects thin sponges, importers avoid bringing them in, and the players who need them are left without options.

Cost per month of use: the most expensive rubber on the market won’t make you win more matches, believe me! (Yes, I’m a terrible salesman…) As we saw in the numbers, the price follows the name of the technology, not the result. And there’s a calculation almost nobody does: durability. Traditional Chinese rubbers, like the DHS Hurricane 3 National Blue Sponge, are among the most durable on the market: a dense sponge and a tough topsheet lose tack and response much more slowly than most of the latest-generation European and Japanese rubbers. A cheaper rubber that also lasts more months of hard training comes out much cheaper per month of use than an expensive “technology” rubber with a short lifespan. Before comparing list prices, ask: how many months of training does each option really deliver?

Current technical level: perhaps the most applicable suggestion of all. I don’t like the idea that an athlete’s performance is something fixed: saying “so-and-so is better than such-and-such” ignores that both are constantly evolving. At 360TT we use a dynamic assessment report, filled in by the athlete and the coach, that compares how each of them sees the athlete’s current technical level. And that reference changes as the athlete evolves: a topspin rated 8 against state-level players may be worth a 3 at a Pro Tour, because the reference changed. It’s the same logic as the hardness ruler that moved. In general, with more technique and better fitness, harder rubbers start being put to better use.

The world changed its mind about tacky rubbers

I’ve been championing Chinese and hybrid rubbers for years, because of the huge advantage they give. They’re practically two rubbers in one: power from the hard sponge, a sense of control on passive balls from the tacky topsheet, and more spin generation. China has always used hard, tacky rubber on the forehand, and later on the backhand too (why the Chinese elite carries the Hurricane 8 on the backhand). When hybrids started to appear, it was clear that Western manufacturers were trying to combine the power of European and Japanese rubbers with the advantage of the Chinese tacky topsheet.

I even posted about it on 360TT’s Instagram, in January 2022, when we were still reselling other brands, before becoming the official DHS distributor. The 5 reasons I pointed out still hold, now with an extra layer of evidence, mass adoption by professionals:

a hybrid makes it easier to keep the ball short (the topsheet’s grip “holds” the ball);
it gives more spin on the serve, without the ball shooting off, making the opponent’s receive harder;
it gives a greater sense of control on passive balls (push, block, serve receive), making it easier to put the ball where you want;
it allows attacks with more spin, making up for the loss of spin with plastic balls without losing speed, thanks to dynamic sponges;
it helps refine technique: with a greater sense of control, you hit relaxed, not tense, and still gain speed.

360TT's Instagram post from January 21, 2022 (in Portuguese: \"The 5 reasons to use a hybrid rubber\").

Back then, though, hybrids still fell well short of pure Chinese rubbers, like the Hurricane 3 National Blue Sponge itself. And the market, at first, didn’t really understand how they worked: it labeled hybrids as “slow”, the same way it had always labeled traditional Chinese rubbers. In reality, they were less slow than pure Chinese rubbers, but they felt slow for the reason I explained above: the false sensation of slowness for those who can’t apply enough energy to a hard sponge and overcome the tack of the topsheet.

Want to check it? Put a rubber protector film on your “slow” Chinese rubber (it isolates the tack) and bounce the ball. Then tell me whether it died (as it does without the protector) or bounced high.

With players’ gradual adaptation and the evolution of tacky topsheets, driven mainly by the German company ESN, which manufactures for practically everyone (Donic, Tibhar, Stiga, Andro, Joola, Gewo, Xiom, among others, including DHS’s Gold Arc 5 and 8 line), the advantage that was almost exclusive to the Chinese started to shrink. Never have so many Chinese and hybrid rubbers been used around the world as today.

A good “home-grown” example for us Brazilians is Hugo Calderano. He had already switched to hybrid rubbers some time before: I noticed it in his game before the market talked about it, I even brought it up in the WhatsApp groups I’m part of, and Xiom itself confirmed it the same week I mentioned it. The trajectory of passive balls on a tacky rubber is very distinctive, and his passive game improved a lot: serve, receive and so on. The power of his counterattack also increased. 2025 brought the biggest results of his career. On April 20, he won the World Cup in Macao, beating Tomokazu Harimoto in the quarterfinals, Wang Chuqin in the semifinal and Lin Shidong in the final, and became the first World Cup champion from outside Asia and Europe. A month later, at the World Championships in Doha, he beat Liang Jingkun in the semifinal and only lost in the final, against the same Wang Chuqin. Far be it from me to reduce any player to the equipment he uses (I know very well how much training it takes to get the most out of any tool), but the tools are, without a doubt, more capable.

Calderano and Thiago Monteiro, then head coach of Brazil's men's team, seconds after the historic title in Macao (April 20, 2025). Photo: ITTF

China, for its part, is going through a strange moment. In the men’s world ranking at the start of October 2026, number 1 is a 19-year-old Japanese player, Sora Matsushima, and only two Chinese players appear in the top ten: Wang Chuqin, in 4th, and Lin Shidong, in 9th. Days later, at China Smash, in Beijing, the men’s final was between Matsushima and Lin Yun-ju, from Chinese Taipei, without a single player from the Chinese national team. On the women’s side, the dominance continues: six Chinese players in the top 10, and the title at that same China Smash went to Wang Manyu. The signs had been there for a while. Three days after Calderano’s title, on April 23, 2025, Liu Guoliang stepped down as president of the Chinese Table Tennis Association, which he had led since 2018 (officially, to ease the transition to Los Angeles 2028). Months earlier, Fan Zhendong, Chen Meng and Ma Long had dropped out of the world ranking, at odds with the WTT rule that fines players who skip mandatory tournaments. And at the 2026 World Team Championships in London, the men’s team lost twice in the group stage, to South Korea and to Sweden. It still recovered and won the title (I told the story of that turnaround here), but with a struggle that didn’t exist before. None of this is explained by a single factor. My hypothesis, and it is a hypothesis, subject to the same method as this article, is that the worldwide adoption of tacky and hybrid rubbers narrowed a gap that China enjoyed almost on its own.

Since the world truly adopted Chinese and hybrid rubbers, the balance of forces in table tennis seems to have shifted, including on the women’s side, and we’re all relearning how to play. In the end, it’s a real case, on a worldwide scale, of the mechanism I’ve been defending throughout this article: a hypothesis (“Chinese and hybrid rubbers are slow”) was held for years, until the accumulated evidence knocked it down. And notice the difference: it’s not “the champion uses it, so it works for you”. It’s an entire population of players, of every level, migrating over years. That’s evidence that the equipment works for those who learn to use it, not that it will work on its own in your hand. And, of course, among Chinese and hybrid rubbers there are friendlier, more forgiving ones and hard-to-handle, very hard ones. Choose according to your current technical level.

Transparency: 360TT is the official DHS distributor in Brazil. What I say about it is worth what any seller’s claim is worth, and the burden of proof is mine.

If you want to feel this in your own hand, DHS, a traditional maker of tacky rubbers, today has a lineup too complete to ignore: from the old-school tacky of the DHS Hurricane 3 National Blue Sponge, through the hybrids DHS Hurricane 3-50, DHS Skyline 3-60, DHS PF4-50 and DHS Hurricane 8-80, the latter at a much more demanding level, all the way to the non-tacky, European side, made by ESN itself: the DHS Gold Arc line.

And here’s a personal claim, almost a new hypothesis under test: the DHS PF4-50 would comfortably serve a huge share of Brazilian table tennis players, from beginners up to Brazil’s national “Absolute B” division, maybe even “A”. But look closely: it’s exactly the same kind of claim I made about hybrids back in 2022, still without any statistical proof. Hypothesis launched, not yet refuted. Time (and your own hand) will tell.

DHS PF4-50Hybrid rubber with a tacky topsheet and an elastic, soft #50 sponge: spin on the serve and the drive, with control. Visit the store →

Made your choice? Now stop switching

I usually tell athletes that technique and muscle memory adapt to new equipment in 60 to 90 days of training. It varies a little from player to player, but in general that’s it. If the change in equipment isn’t radical, the adjustment takes much less time, as when you replace 6-month-old rubbers with new ones of the same model. The same goes if you switch your forehand rubber for one with a different throw angle: it may bother you today, but in 60 to 90 days you’ll be adapted, beating the people you used to beat and losing to the people you used to lose to. Once the equipment is chosen by logic, winning matches won’t depend on brand or model. It will depend on you being properly adapted to it.

“Don’t switch” doesn’t mean never switch. Replacing a worn rubber with the same model is maintenance. Moving up to a harder sponge when your technical and physical development starts to call for it (and allow it) is a dose adjustment, made on sound criteria; it’s exactly what “current technical level” is about. What doesn’t make sense is switching because of a new release, a fad or because a friend liked it.

Want to test anyway? Run a single-patient trial

Medicine has a name for this: an “N-of-1” trial, with just one patient, but with a control.

Define beforehand what “better” means: tournament results, ranking points, percentage of receives that land on the table. “The ball felt livelier” doesn’t count.
Write down where you stand today, with your current rubber: it’s your control group.
Change one thing only. New rubber and new blade at the same time = impossible to know what did what.
Give it time: 60 to 90 days of training before judging.
Compare with what you defined in step 1 and, if you can, ask your coach for an assessment before and after.

If the difference doesn’t show up, the null hypothesis won: stick with the one you had and invest the money in training.

Once the compound has been chosen by criteria, and not at random, switching medicine every week isn’t treatment, it’s anxiety.

Adjust the protocol: train, refine your technique and get the most out of the equipment you already have. Happy training, everyone!

Now I want to hear from you: what was the last rubber you switched to, and why? Can you say, with any data, that you won more matches with it? And, if you play with the PF4-50, tell me down below: does my hypothesis pass your test? On the old blog I couldn’t reply to comments; here I can. So feel free to disagree, preferably with evidence. The burden of proof applies to me too.

From the 38mm Ball to 40+: A Complete Guide to Choosing Yours

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:18:00 -0300

Equipment guide

The ball is the smallest piece of equipment in table tennis, yet it is the one that has changed the game the most over the last 25 years. Changing your racket is a personal choice. Changing the ball was imposed by the ITTF itself — and every change reshaped the way the game is played at a high level.

If you have been training for a few years, you have probably heard “40mm ball” and “40+ ball” spoken of as if they were the same thing. They are not. Understanding the difference explains why that “impossible to receive” serve from the old era is easier to handle today — and why choosing the right ball changes your training in practice.

TL;DR: the ball changed three times in 25 years: from 38mm to 40mm in 2000 and from celluloid to 40+ plastic in 2014, with less spin and longer rallies. The stars measure manufacturing precision, not quality, and the color is chosen for contrast with the table and the background. The buying guide shows the right ball for each level, from training to competition.

The era of the 38mm celluloid ball (1900–2000)

The first official table tennis ball, made of celluloid and 38mm in diameter, was introduced in 1900 and barely changed for 100 years. It was light and extremely responsive to spin — the friction between rubber and celluloid allowed extreme rotation, and by the late 90s professionals were already generating spin at the physical limit of what the ball could take.

Add another detail of the time: the serve could be made while hiding the contact between racket and ball. Combined with extreme spin, this made the serve almost unbeatable — in practice, most points ended within the first 3 balls of the rally. The result: a game that was too fast, hard to follow even from the stands — and the ITTF itself recognized this as a problem for the sport on TV.

The switch to 40mm (2000–2014)

In 2000, after the Sydney Games, the ITTF increased the ball diameter from 38mm to 40mm — still celluloid — to slow the game down and lengthen rallies. A bigger ball meets more air resistance, loses speed faster and is less receptive to extreme spin.

But that was not the only change of the period — and together, they reshaped the sport:

2001: the end of the 21-point system, turning games into the 11-point sets we know today, making matches more dynamic.

2002: a serve rule requiring a minimum vertical toss of 16cm and a clear view of the contact, ending the “hidden” serve of the previous era.

2008: the ITTF banned speed glue because it contains volatile organic compounds (VOCs) harmful to health.

Each of these changes, on its own, seems small. Together, they took away much of the advantage that came only from “supercharged” equipment and gave weight back to technique. And, as a bonus, the athlete’s physique had to evolve — a lot.

The plastic era: the 40+ ball is born (2014–today)

The celluloid ball is highly flammable — the same material used in the earliest cinema — and that was always a real problem: warehouse fires, ever-tighter air transport restrictions and rising insurance costs. The ITTF decided to replace the material.

From July 2014, every official ITTF event started using plastic (poly/ABS) balls. Since they can be up to 0.5mm bigger than the old 40mm celluloid balls, they got the “40+” marking to tell them apart. In 2023, celluloid was officially removed from the rules — today every table tennis ball is made of plastic.

The effect on the game was real: the friction between rubber and plastic is lower than between rubber and celluloid, and professionals initially reported a 10 to 15% drop in their ability to generate spin — a significant number at the elite level. The sport reacted in a chain:

Tacky and hybrid rubbers, like those in the DHS Hurricane line, practically became the standard to recover part of the lost spin.

Blades with carbon fiber and a thicker core, like the DHS Fang Bo Carbon B2X and the DHS Hurricane Long 5X, gained ground to compensate for the ball’s lower response with more structural power in the racket.

Players had to become more athletic. Without the “help” of the ball and speed glue, generating the same power now demands more real physical preparation — legs, trunk and hip explosiveness became part of the technical equation for good.

What the stars mean (1★, 2★, 3★)

The star rating indicates the ball’s level of precision and consistency — it is not about “good or bad quality”, it is about manufacturing tolerance:

1 star: a training ball, with greater tolerance in weight, roundness and hardness. Ideal for multiball, robots and heavy everyday use.

2 stars: intermediate, a balance between durability and consistency — good for more serious training or recreational play.

3 stars: competition standard, approved by the ITTF for official tournaments, with maximum consistency in weight, roundness and hardness.

The DHS DJ40+ is a good example of how strict this selection can be: even though it is already within the margin the ITTF allows (weight between 2.67g and 2.77g, roundness with a tolerance below 0.25mm, hardness between 0.68 and 0.81mm), the most carefully selected batches of the ball use only a much smaller fraction of that range — the smaller the percentage of the total margin used, the higher the precision of the ball.

White or orange? Color is not aesthetics, it’s a rule

The ITTF rule is straightforward: the ball can only be white or orange, always matte — and the main color of the player’s clothing must be clearly different from the color of the ball chosen for the match. It makes sense: if the ball and your opponent’s shirt look alike, you literally lose sight of the ball against their body.

This matters more today than it did a decade ago. For a long time, the standard at major competitions was a blue or green table — today green has practically disappeared, and black has established itself as blue’s partner at the main WTT events (the DHS W1000 table, for example, is black and has been used since 2023 at stages such as the WTT Grand Smash and the Cup Finals). In other words: the choice between a white and an orange ball is not about “which one looks nicer” — it is about which one contrasts best with the table and the background where you play or compete.

Buying guide: the DHS balls we have at 360TT

As an official DHS distributor — the world’s largest ball manufacturer and official WTT sponsor — we bring the complete line, from training to competition:

Ball	Stars	Recommended for	Notes
Double Circle (white/orange)	Training	Beginners, clubs, multiball and robots	The most economical of all, with surprising quality and durability — best value for training and multiball
D40+ 1★ (white/orange)	1★	Recreational training and daily use	Great value for everyday play
D40+ 2★ (white)	2★	More serious training and recreational games	A balance between price and consistency
D40+ 3★ (white/orange)	3★	Club and regional competitions	Competition standard with good value
DJ40+ 3★ (white)	3★	Competition and advanced players	Official ball of the Tokyo 2020 Games and the WTT circuit — renewed as the official WTT ball for the 2021-2028 cycle, the benchmark for feel and spin in the DHS line
RS40+ 3★ (white)	3★	Competition and advanced players	Also official WTT, made with recycled plastic (PCR), slightly stiffer and faster feel
D40+ Dual Color	—	Technical training, seeing spin	Helps you see the ball’s rotation during practice

Choose the right ball for your game

Choosing the right ball is not about spending more — it is about matching your level of play to the ball’s tolerance, and also about using each model wisely for its specific purpose. If you train every day, the Double Circle or the D40+ 1★ do the heavy lifting without wasting your budget. If you are moving up a level or already compete, the D40+ 3★ is the natural next step. And if your game already asks for the best there is — in a real match, not in multiball — DJ40+ and RS40+ are the balls the best players in the world use.

Tip

If the back wall where you train is white, buy orange balls!

Now I want to hear from you: do you already know which ball fits your game? Tell me in the comments.

See the full line of DHS balls

DHS Hurricane 3 NEO: The Guide to the World's Most Famous and Most Used Rubber

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 15:25:00 -0300

Historically, rubbers like the Butterfly Sriver and the Yasaka Mark V dominated the 80s and 90s. In the modern era, the Tenergy 05 carries enormous weight. But when we talk about absolute volume of users (driven by the gigantic base of players in China) and undisputed dominance on the world pro circuit, the DHS Hurricane 3 (and its NEO version) is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most iconic, famous and winning rubber in contemporary table tennis.

With the arrival of the era without speed glue (VOC-free), DHS introduced the NEO version, which comes with a factory semi-activated sponge to make up for the loss of speed, while keeping the famous “tackiness” and the aggressive ball trajectory.

But when a table tennis player decides to buy this rubber, they run into the market’s biggest question: what is the real difference between the DHS versions? Is there a secret ingredient?

TL;DR: the Commercial, Provincial and National versions use the same recipe; what changes is the precision of quality control, and you can tell each one apart by its corner cuts. The tackiness of the more expensive versions is more extreme, which is not an advantage for most players. Choose the hardness for your level (37° to 39° for most), count on booster and buy from someone with a proven source so you don’t fall for a counterfeit.

The big secret: same recipe, different precision

Let’s get straight to the point that surprises people the most: according to DHS’s own technical manuals, the Commercial, Provincial and National versions use exactly the same formula and manufacturing recipe. The real difference is not in the material itself, but in the precision of the technical tolerance (quality control).

The version X-ray and the “corner rule”

To stop counterfeiters from selling commercial rubbers at elite-version prices, DHS established a strict geometric rule. In practice, when you look at the rubber outside the packaging, identifying the cuts visually is very simple (as you can see in the cover image):

Commercial level (4 corners cut): the rubber comes with all four corners of the square cut off. It is the mass-produced version, with a wider tolerance margin at the factory, which makes it much more affordable. It offers excellent value for anyone who wants to step into the world of Chinese rubbers.
Provincial level (2 bottom corners cut): only the two bottom corners are cut. Aimed at professional teams from the Chinese provinces, the quality control is much stricter, ensuring consistent performance from one batch to the next. This is where you start to get frequent access to the famous blue sponge.
National level (no cuts, square): the rubber comes whole, perfectly square and with no cuts. It is DHS’s standard “cream of the crop”. The tolerance is absurdly tight: sponge hardness is accurate to within 0.5 degree and thickness to within 0.05mm. Restricted supply and a very high price.
Player Edition: like the National, it also comes perfectly square and with no cuts. It is a step above the National! These are rubbers made to measure, with the exact specifications required by the elite athlete whose name is on the packaging. For example: Ma Long and Liang Jingkun use 42°, while Wang Chuqin is the best example of an extremely specific setup, demanding exactly 41.5°. On the women’s circuit, where the vast majority use 40°, the star Sun Yingsha stands out using 41°. Your “Player Edition” will come with exactly the personal setup of the athlete you choose.

The truth about the “stickiness” (tackiness)

A common question is whether the more expensive versions “stick” to the ball more.

Thanks to the millimeter-level tolerance, the National version reaches the absolute peak of tackiness on its top layer (topsheet). However, “stickiness” that extreme demands monumental physical effort, flawless technique and perfect footwork to get the ball moving. If you don’t have the explosiveness of an Olympic athlete, the ball will end up in the net.

That is why the Commercial and Provincial versions have a slightly more moderate tackiness. This is not a flaw or a shortcoming, but rather an enormous technical advantage for the general public. They deliver the famous, devastating “Chinese spin”, but with a more friendly response, allowing smoother play without requiring you to be a professional at the table.

Understanding hardness: the Chinese scale vs. the rest of the world

In the DHS universe, sponge hardness changes everything. Since the Chinese scale is different from European (ESN) and Japanese (Butterfly) rubbers, we created this approximate reference table to guide you:

37° (approx. ESN 45~~47° / BTY 35~~36°): the big ace up your sleeve. Extremely efficient for the backhand, but also the ideal starting point for the forehand of beginners and intermediates, since it lets you activate the rubber’s sponge without brute force.
38° and 39° (approx. ESN 48~~50° / BTY 37~~40°): the gold standard for most amateur and advanced competitors on the forehand. Interestingly, professional Chinese players often use up to 38° on their backhand for extra reactivity.
40° (approx. ESN 51~~52° / BTY 41~~42°): high hardness, it requires excellent weight-transfer technique to be used, usually on the forehand.
41° and 42° (approx. ESN 53°+ / BTY 43°+): rubber “bricks”. Reserved for players with massive strength and impeccable technique, usually the Player Edition setups and, in that case, practically exclusive to the forehand.

Blue sponge, orange sponge and the reality of booster

Make no mistake: the Hurricane 3 NEO was made to be used with booster. The reality of high-performance sport is undeniable: virtually 100% of the world-class athletes who use the Hurricane 3 NEO apply booster to activate the sponge’s tension and maximize the catapult effect.

The coveted blue sponge has a structure that makes it absurdly more responsive to booster than the orange sponge. To activate this rubber the right way, a high-tech enhancer such as our SpeedUp boosters is the key to unlocking the Hurricane’s “turbo mode” without damaging the material.

Global dominance: far beyond China

The Hurricane 3 NEO is not exclusively Chinese. The table tennis world has realized that spin (hard Chinese rubbers are bad for smashing) dictates the modern game, and non-Chinese stars from many national teams have built their careers trusting DHS material.

Current players

South Korea women’s team: the absolute domination of DHS. Stars such as Shin Yu-bin, Jeon Ji-hee, Joo Cheonhui and Kim Na-yeong use the tacky rubber to guarantee heavy attacks and set the pace with spin variations.
Hina Hayata (Japan): the current big star and ace of the Japanese team built her top-level game using the Hurricane 3 on the forehand to generate huge arcs and absurd spin.
Jang Woo-jin and An Jae-hyun (South Korea): very strong names on the South Korean men’s side who adopted the Hurricane 3 Blue Sponge on the forehand, dramatically increasing the weight of their first attacking balls.
Nicholas Lum (Australia): a young talent (currently top 34 in the world) who has been shocking the world circuit, recently beating big names such as Darko Jorgic, using the power of the Chinese rubber.
Doo Hoi Kem (Hong Kong): one of the rare athletes in the world elite who used tacky rubber on both sides (forehand and backhand). She recently switched.
Zeng Jian (Singapore): a strong name on the Singapore team who trusts the Hurricane’s precision for her offensive game.
Fu Yu (Portugal): the experienced penholder who represents Portugal shows that the Hurricane 3 is lethal even for an adapted traditional European style.
Andreas Levenko (Austria): an excellent example from the current European circuit who trusts the power and massive spin of the Chinese material.

Retired legends

Kasumi Ishikawa (Japan): one of the most beloved players in the world, Kasumi was one of the main people responsible for popularizing the Hurricane 3 on the forehand outside China. She proved that the classic Japanese speed-based playing style benefited enormously from the arc and the “weight” generated by the Chinese rubber.

Counterfeits and the 360TT verdict

As we saw, the geometric rule (the sponge corners) helps, but the “parallel market” improves its replicas every day, forging holographic seals with a frightening resemblance.

The only way to be sure you are playing with the real material is its source. We at 360TT are official DHS distributors in Brazil. When you buy from us, you can be absolutely certain of getting a 100% original rubber, free from the Russian roulette of counterfeits on the internet.

Which version should you choose?

Beginners and intermediates: start with the Commercial (38° to 39° on the forehand; 37° at most on the backhand).
Advanced players and competitors: go with the Provincial (with sensible use of booster).
Professionals and collectors: National or Player Edition for the peak of precision.

The millimeter precision and technology of the Chinese National Team are at your disposal, but it is your sweat in training that will make the ball land on the other side of the table.

Don’t stop at curiosity! Get your Hurricane 3 NEO with the security of 360TT, glue it onto your blade and test it at your next training session.

DHS Hurricane 3 NEOThe most iconic rubber in table tennis, with a factory semi-activated sponge and DHS's classic tackiness. Commercial version 39°; other versions and hardnesses in the store. Visit the store →

The table is the only place where the truth shows up!

Now I want to hear from you: are you already on Team Hurricane, or do you still play with traditional tensioned rubbers? Tell me in the comments!

Discover the DHS rubbers in the store

Ma Long's Lesson!

Sun, 12 Oct 2025 21:01:00 -0300

In table tennis, the greatest hero of all time, Ma Long, did not use the same “weapon” his whole life. The story of his blades is the story of his evolution as an athlete. Many players, especially beginners and intermediates, look for the “perfect blade”, believing they will find one model that will serve them forever. Ma Long’s career teaches exactly the opposite: choosing a blade should be a journey, a process that follows and boosts the player’s technical development.

Chapter 1: the start with a pure wood blade (2011-2013)

The story: At the beginning of his domination on the world stage, Ma Long played with pure wood rackets, with no synthetic fibers. Models like the Hurricane Long 2 and, above all, the Hurricane Long 3 (7 plies of pure wood) were his choices. It was with a pure wood racket that he played the 2013 World Championships in Paris, a period marked by sublime control, extreme spin and unmatched ball feel.

🤓 360TT technical view

Ma Long, the master, started with the foundation. And that is the lesson for everyone: starting with a pure wood racket (no fiber) is essential. This is the stage where you develop correct technique, ball touch and reading of the game. A blade without carbon fibers “forgives” mistakes less and therefore forces the athlete to refine the fundamentals. It is the foundation of a great player.

Chapter 2: the great turn to carbon (2013-2014)

The story: In 2014, the sport went through a drastic change: the introduction of the 40+ plastic ball. Slower and with less spin, the new ball required athletes to generate more power on their own. Ma Long, always a strategist, realized he needed a new tool. That is when he made the transition to the legendary Hurricane Long 5 (HL5). This blade represented a technological leap, with a structure of 5 plies of wood and 2 inner plies of Arylate-Carbon (5+2 AC). He started using it back in 2013, when he won the Chinese National Championship, and from 2014 on it became his inseparable partner.

🤓 360TT technical view

This is the crucial moment in a player’s journey. When technique is solid and strokes are consistent, but speed is missing to close out points, it is time to consider a blade with fiber. Ma Long’s HL5 is the perfect example of an intelligent transition: the carbon is placed internally, next to the core. This adds speed and power but keeps a high degree of control and feel, making it the ideal step for anyone coming from a pure wood racket.

Chapter 3: the golden era of the Grand Slam (2015-2021)

The story: With the Hurricane Long 5 in his hands, Ma Long became a force of nature. It became his “champion blade”. In 2015, using the HL5 and Hurricane 3 rubbers on both sides, he won the World Championships, the World Cup and the World Tour Finals. The peak came at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, when he used the same setup to become the only man in history to win the Double Grand Slam (two-time Olympic, World and World Cup champion). The feat was so monumental that DHS released a commemorative edition, the Gold Slam Hurricane Long 5.

🤓 360TT technical view

Reaching your maximum potential is not about having the fastest blade from day one. It is about having the right blade at the right moment of your development. Ma Long’s most victorious phase came after he made a strategic equipment change, aligning his new blade with the maturity of his game and the new demands of the sport. That proves that proper equipment progression is a key to unlocking your best table tennis.

The 360TT expert analysis

The story does not stop. Even at the top, Ma Long and DHS kept innovating, with versions like the Hurricane Long 5X, which uses a thicker-core technology to adapt even better to the 40+ ball.

The lesson from Ma Long’s journey is clear. Don’t look for the “best blade in the world”; look for the “best blade for you, right now”. Think of your career as chapters. Start with a pure wood racket to build your fundamentals. When your game evolves and asks for more speed, make a controlled transition to a blade with inner carbon. Your blade is not a static piece; it is your partner in evolution.

Ready to find the next step in your evolution? At 360TT you will find everything from classic 5-ply blades to modern ones with Arylate-Carbon. Start writing your own story.

Now I want to hear from you: which blade do you play with today, and which chapter of your evolution do you think you are in? Tell me in the comments.

Explore our selection of blades

Hurricane 8 on the Backhand: The Secret Weapon of Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha!

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 02:12:00 -0300

It’s not a trend anymore, it’s a reality. Chen Meng, Wang Chuqin and the world number 1, Sun Yingsha. The names at the top of the world rankings share a secret on the backhand: the DHS Hurricane 8. In a move that breaks decades of paradigms, the Chinese elite is rewriting the rules of the backhand game, and here at 360TT we took a deep look at this news.

The change forced by the 40+ ball

Historically, the backhand has always been the territory of European and Japanese tensor rubbers: fast, elastic and less demanding physically. However, the introduction of the 40+ plastic ball changed the game. The ball became slower and heavier, requiring athletes to generate much more power and spin on their own, even on the backhand. It was this new reality that opened the door to a Chinese solution.

What makes the H8 special for the backhand

Many people think of the H8 as a “softer Hurricane 3”, but the truth is more complex. It was designed from the start to be a weapon in the 40+ era, with unique characteristics.

A unique balance: the Hurricane 8 is a high-tack, high-elasticity rubber, keeping a perfect balance between flexibility and elastic strength.
The #25 sponge: its high-elasticity, micro-porous sponge is more elastic than the classic #20 sponge of the H3, which contributes to better support and superior “ball depth” (power on long strokes).
Activation with moderate force: this is the secret. The H8 is better suited to players with moderate strength. That doesn’t mean weak players, but rather that it doesn’t demand the full, explosive biomechanics of a forehand to “activate” its properties, making it ideal for the more compact, faster movements of the modern backhand.

The protagonists of the revolution

The final proof of the Hurricane 8’s effectiveness is in the rackets of the best players in the world. Each of them uses it to maximize their own playing style.

Chen Meng (陈梦)

The Olympic champion uses the NEO Hurricane 8 with 2.1mm sponge thickness and 37 degrees hardness. This setup lets her execute an overpowering backhand, with a heavy ball trajectory, loaded with spin and continuous power.

Wang Chuqin (王楚钦)

One of the biggest stars of today, Wang Chuqin opts for the NEO Hurricane 8 with 2.1mm sponge thickness and 38 degrees hardness. The extra hardness in his rubber is the mark of an ultra-aggressive backhand game, looking to finish points with maximum speed and impact.

Sun Yingsha (孙颖莎)

The definitive confirmation of this revolution comes from the racket of the world number 1. Sun Yingsha’s adoption of the Hurricane 8 on the backhand validates this rubber as the top choice for a modern, aggressive and versatile game, tested and approved at the very top of the sport.

The expert’s conclusion

The rise of the Hurricane 8 on the Chinese elite’s backhand is no accident. It is a smart tactical response to the demands of modern table tennis. For the advanced player who wants to generate their own power, attack with heavy spin and dictate the pace of the point with the backhand, the H8 has stopped being an alternative and become the new standard of champions.

Now I want to hear from you: have you ever tried a Chinese rubber on the backhand? Tell us in the comments how it went.

Ready to use the same weapon as Sun Yingsha, Chen Meng and Wang Chuqin? The DHS Hurricane 8 is waiting for you at 360TT.

DHS Hurricane 8The high-tack, high-elasticity Chinese rubber that the elite uses on the backhand. Visit the store →