OOAK Table Tennis Forum

My Tenergy 05 finally died after 3 months of playing and coaching and while I am waiting for my new Tenergy's to arrive Haggisv kindly offered I try a new rubber he got from Killerspin called Fortissimo. He and I play in the same league but play for competing clubs but we both share the fun and passion of the ever evolving equipment side of table tennis.







Fortissimo comes in a vacuum sealed package very similar to the new DHS NEO rubbers but does not have any special tuning from the factory that i can tell like my BW2. The rubber uses a german made topsheet and assembled in Germany but uses a made in Japan sponge. It says on the back covering "Fortissimo features the best east meets west, incorporating German Torqsion (their new word) technology which is stronger than normal tension standards. Out of the packet the rubber has a large speed glue type dome so I was excited to see how much tension they had incorperated into this rubber.

This is killerspins statistics -
Speed: 10.6
Spin: 9.4
Control: 9.4

1. The reviewer: Intermediate to upper level player, plays as a two wing looper focusing on heavy spin loops. Tested on Butterfly Timo Boll ALC.

2. Physical Properties: Red, 2mm medium soft sponge beautiful quality topsheet. very similer in apperance to a new Bryce sheet as i can see all the pips and is very translucent. What surprised me is the amount of grip the top sheet has. Rubbing my thumb felt much more grippy than Bryce that one of my students uses and also more than Donic Platin and JP Gold that i have used in the past. This rubber has one of the most elastic top sheets i have felt.
3. Speed :
- Speed on slow strokes: Medium, feels very stable no bouncing off my blade like normal German Tensors.
- Speed on power loops: Medium-fast
- Speed on power drives/smashes: Very Fast, just catapults off very quickly

4. Spin:
-Spin on a loop: Here I found the rubber confusing, the very grippy soft top sheet on slow loops should allow me to get massive spin but when i tried my normal brush loop as I would with my Tenergy it just catapulted off my blade before much spin could be generated. It felt like the rubber and sponge were fighting each other if that makes sense. Maybe it could be this new "Torqsion" tension but I did not like the feel at all. Each time I tried looping off a push, balls would just go long of the end of the table. Normally one would just change the bat angle to accomodate a different throw angle of a new rubber but this rubber required me to adopt a whole new stroke technique to get the ball on the table. I had to go from my normal brush loop technique to a much more forward loop drive to get the ball on. Once on the table loop performance was ok but my opponent had little trouble blocking my loops because they had much less kick off the table compared to Tenergy's spin.

-Spin on Serve: About the same as Bryce and all the Donic rubbers I have tried nothing extra special. My opponent had very little difficulty returning my serves not like the spin that can be generated with Tenergy or 90% of tacky chinese rubbers.

5. Control: After my dissapointing experience at looping I was not expecting much more from this rubber but when it comes to blocking this is where Fortissimo rules. No matter what my opponent did, power loops, smash drives all my blocks went back where I wanted them. The rubber hardly reacts to the incoming spin, ball comes in makes contact and bang out it shoots with very little effort. It was a breeze blocking with this rubber compared to my Tenergy which reacts to spin very heavly. This rubber is far superior in the pushing department than the Tensor rubbers I have used. Without regular training the bouncy Tensor is very hard to keep short on return of serve but Fortissimo was closer to Tenergy's control.

6. Other Playing Properties/comments: Fortissimo has a low throw very similer to my old Bryce needing a similar stroke style but having much more control. Tenergy suits my style of brush stroke very well but this rubber would need me to change too many things about my game to be competitive. It does suit a softer wood blade to really come to life. If a student of mine used Bryce with speed glue before or was using Bryce speed now then this rubber would be a good substitute if the price was more in the range of Donic prices. Fortissimo sells on Megaspin.net for $49.95 with Tenergy at $52.95 and Bryce speed at $45.

IMO I think the cost of this rubber is WAY to high for what this rubber can do. I think Killerspin is trying to cash in by charging Tenergy type prices hoping people will think it is a superior rubber because of such a high price. I am sure most people know cost alone does not always equal quality or superior playing performance in table tennis. I pay Butterfly's overly high pricing for Tenergy because right now no other rubber can do what Tenergy does and last for me 3 months with high usage. Why pay half the price of Tenergy for a Tensor and get only maybe 4 weeks of life before it loses its spin and dies.

To sum up it's a nice rubber from Killerspin with great speed on power strokes and high control on blocking but nothing extra special in the spin department which is where i need my rubbers to shine.......
I give a big thanks to Haggisv for letting me be his test mule for this rubber. One important thing I found with this rubber is because of the dome my Xiom water glue had a very hard time sticking the rubber to the different blades that i tried. As soon as i rolled it on the blade it would just dome up before I could put it in my clamp which became very frustrating!! In the end I had to use the DHS water glue which has a much greater sticking power than the Xiom glue.

Hmm, the review actually sounds like how I would place Avalox Sterco, but with quite less tension on the topsheet. I guess most of the playing qualities you mentioned can be attributed to the topsheet tension.

Great review by the way. Great to have you onboard!

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Viscaria. H2 Neo 2.15. Tenergy 05 1.9.

Very nice and comprehensive review SubarashiOnizuka, thanks a lot!

Would you like me to add in those pictures you took as well?

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

You must have a very different stroke to me, since I find the Sterco actually very spinny on loops.... it might be similar in other departments though

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Nice review, it's rare to get feedback on a Killerspin rubber, so this was very interesting to read. Thanks for posting!

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"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

Yes thanks Haggisv could you add the pix I sent you. I hope they will add more depth to this review and thanks a lot for shrinking them from the original size

What you experience, the ball being left before you where able to generate the spin, could be due to the drumskineffect of a stretched topheet on a soft but fast bouncy sponge. If you take the rubber off and give the topsheet a little vegetable oil or booster (but I have only experience with vegetable oil) a day before gluing it on again, the dome should decrease or be gone completely. After that you glue it on with waterglue and the rubber "accepts" the ball much better, the tension of the topsheet on spinstrokes builds up slower resulting in longer dwelltime, higher throw and better spinproperties. If you don't want to boost or or use vegetable oil you could give the rubber some layers of waterbased glue and let dry over night. Thereafter only use glue on the blade or if necessary to stick give the rubber one thin fresh coat. The drying and thus shrinking glue layer also should make the dome disappear and have similar effect as the booster. Another possibility (the most simple) is just wait a week or a few weeks. Rubber is always more or less viscous, the tension in the topsheet should dissappear in a week and the spinproperties should become better with only a little loss of speed.

Thanks for the great review!!

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the re-evolution of war
Bty Gergely Palio Macro Era 42.5 Max DHS H2 Max

Pictures added... nice dome isn't it?

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Wow, that's a serious dome, there must be a ton of tension in that!!!

_________________
"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

Ah, I found Sterco to be plenty spinny. I was just attributing the 'too fast rebound feel' to the amount of tension -- similar to what I experienced with Sterco.

I reckon a couple of coats of speedglue to help equalize the tension would do the trick. Both of them seem to be very fast Almana/Bryce or similar contenders.

I recall Sterco having a similar reverse dome, but really, not as much as that!



I found Sterco to need a constant dig-in-sponge stroke to get sufficient feel and dwell. I'm guessing the Fortissimo is similar, might need even more given the review.

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Viscaria. H2 Neo 2.15. Tenergy 05 1.9.

Fair enough.... The Sterco sponge is quite a bit softer though I think, so that would make it easier to dig the ball in. Sounds like Sterco would have higher throw too.

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

very nice review.

and from your description of the confusing spin in loops... i can relate completely to another rubber which just does that to me .... the widely acclaimed gambler outlaw. flys away flat before i could spin it enough to dip.

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Blade: 729 F1 || FH: Joola Rhyzm max || BH: Tenergy 05 Max updated: 1/2014

sounds like it could be fun.. but low throw... yuk

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my youtube channel
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Main: / secondary / LP
Blade: DHS Hurricane hao/ Blade- Hurricane Hao 2
FH: Skyline 3(Blue Sponge)/ FH- Nittaku H3 pro
BH: Omega Asia/ BH- Calibra Tour H

It is actually made3 in rubber.. Unbelievable..
Thanks for the great review!!

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