I had a little bit different perception about Dr.Neubauer Monster Classic when I have decided to buy it. I have used the Dr.Neubauer Monster table tennis rubber a while ago – few months before the frictionless pips ban. The Dr.Neubauer Monster long pips rubber is frictionless while the Dr.Neubauer Monster Classic has friction. I would say it has very good friction. I thought the Dr.Neubauer Monster Classic may have behavior close to the Dr.Neubauer Monster long pips rubber. It is not.
After the frictionless long pips ban, Dr.Neubauer came up with two long pips (1) Dr.Neubauer Monster Classic and (2) Dr.Neubauer Boomerang Classic. These two rubbers behave exceptionally different. The Dr.Neubauer Boomerage Classic is a close to the table chopping rubber. The Dr.Neubauer Monster Classic is not a chopping rubber. The Dr.Neubauer Monster Classic comes with sponge of thickness 1.0, 1.4 and 1.6 mm. The sponge is very soft and something similar I have seen on XIOM Guillotine.
I can’t still figure out why Dr.Neubauer has a long pips rubber with such sponge thickness in his line of products. The Dr.Neubauer just reminds me of Butterfly Feint Long III in 1.6 mm thickness. The rubber behaves very close to an inverted without friction. I have tried Dr.Neubauer Monster Classic on my custom Borko & Sons blades with Butterfly Tenergy 64 on the other side.
Chopping
The Dr.Neubauer Monster Classic is not a chopping rubber. Unless the ball has good topspin, it is hard to cut the ball. The sponge beneath the rubber makes the cutting hard.
Blocking
The soft sponge makes it an excellent blocking rubber. I don’t say a ball that is blocked with Monster Classic will keep the ball low like a frictionless long pips do. The ball jumps out with same energy most of the time and you can get punished for it. The long pips are more wider each other to take heavy impacts. Surely, to make the blocking effective, the Dr.Neubauer Monster Classic needs to be used on a slower blade.
The Dr.Neubauer Monster Classic on a Dr.Neubauer Barricade blade makes the combination very better. It was a pleasing experience to find all the blocks working very better. The frictionless pips players can go to little slower blade than Dr.Neubauer Barricade and get the effect close to frictionless. Please don’t anticipate spin reversal though.
Serves Taking
The Dr.Neubauer Monster Classic on a Dr.Neubauer Barricade is an excellent weapon for receiving serves. I have not been successful with Monster on my custom blade. There is another contributing factor to this behavior I thought. I have Butterfly Tenergy 64 on the other side of my blade, and it adds weight to the blade, and it can make the long pips little bouncy. To test this behavior, immediately I changed the long pips to TSP Curl P1R 1.3 mm. The TSP Curl P1R 1.3 mm was helping serve returns easy and the returns slow and lower compared to the Monster Classic.
Hitting
There is no doubt. The Dr.Neubauer Monster Classic is an excellent hitting blade. It behaves more like an inverted rubber. I was successful in hitting against a hard bat player. The rubber is forgiving when it comes to hitting. With an open blade, the hitting is easy. Such shots can never be returned by your opponents.
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