How Often Should You Change Table Tennis Rubbers?

Last Updated on April 24, 2024 by Alex Horscroft

Table tennis rubbers experience wear over time which causes their performance to decline. For this reason, you need to change your table tennis rubbers every so often. Otherwise, you could find your performance on the table take a nose-dove.

Signs Your Rubbers Need Changing

There are a few tell-tale signs when your inverted rubbers need changing. Here are a few I use:

1. Pimples are showing through the rubbers. This is the most telling visual sign of wear. For some players, as soon as they appear it’s time to get a new set of rubbers. You’ll notice the pimples begin to show through first at the center of the bat as this is the main area you hit the ball
2. The center of the rubber feels slippery. Similarly, you can tell the middle of your rubbers are worn if the middle feels slippery relative to the edges.
3. Poor grip on low-impact shots. While fast spiny shots do not experience a lot of spin loss, low-impact spin shots do. You’ll start to notice slower loops go into the net as the top sheet does not adequately grip the ball.
4. Considerable wear around the corners. While this isn’t the best method to indicate a rubber needs swapping out, it’s still useful. Significant wear around the edges of your rubbers is a sign that it might be time to dig into your wallet for a new set.

And for those of you who aren’t about the inverted rubber life, I’m not going to leave you hanging. If you use pimple rubbers, look out for missing pimples or wear in certain areas.

And finally, for anti-spin players, check that your grip and speed feel uniform across the racket face. If they don’t, it might be time to swap.

Methods to Prolong the Life of Your Rubbers

While the degradation of your rubbers is an inevitability, these are some simple steps you can follow to help ensure your rubbers last as long as possible

Avoid Dirty Playing Areas

One of the worst things for table tennis rubbers is dust and dirt. Therefore you should seek to keep it at bay as much as is feasible. This means you should avoid playing in areas that are particularly dirty or clean up the area as best you can.

You might also want to consider avoiding playing outside. The outdoors is proportionally dirtier than an indoor sports hall for example, so regular outdoor play will speed up the decline of your rubbers.

Avoid Direct Sunlight

As with virtually any product you buy, the sun is not your friend. The sun’s harmful UV rays do your rubbers no good, so make sure you don’t leave your racket outdoors.

Limit Your Usage of New balls

While using fresh new balls is always nice, they can actually harm your rubbers somewhat. New balls leave a white residue on your bat which can be a little difficult to remove at times. Repeated use of new balls will ever so slightly shorten the lifespan of your rubbers.

Clean Your Racket Often

One of the best ways to keep your rubbers tip-top is to clean them regularly – at least at the end of every session. This can be in the form of a rubber cleaner, or the water vapor in your breath.

Personally, I use my breath as it’s free and I can do it in between points. Simply lean in close to your bat, shield the breath with your other hand so it can’t escape, and breathe on your rubbers. Afterward, wipe it across the rubber. It’s very effective at removing dirt.

Why You Should Change Your Worn Out Rubbers

Develop Bad Habits

Playing with worn-out rubbers hinders your game, there’s no way around it. And while using a rubber to within an inch of its life can hurt your performance in the short term, it can also have a long-term negative effect.

The reason for this is because you can develop improper techniques.

As the grip of your rubbers begins to decline you are forced to work harder and adjust your technique to account for the grip deficit. After a long duration of this, the adjusted technique becomes your new norm which when you purchase new rubber, can be hard to break

Lose Confidence in Your Ability

Another drawback is that you can lose confidence in your shots which can lead to you playing more passively.

A reduction in grip makes it more difficult to play more challenging brushing strokes such as flicks and loops. Therefore you may reduce the amount you use them.

Factors That Affect Rubber Duration

Tacky vs Non-Tacky Rubbers

Generally speaking, tacky rubbers tend to last longer than non-tacky rubbers. This is because their spin primarily comes from their tackiness, so as long as it holds, so does its spin.

Hurricane 3 is the perfect example of a long-lasting rubber. It’s a popular inexpensive tacky Chinese rubber.

Tibhar Evolution MX-P on the other hand is well known for having a short lifespan. Yet this isn’t because the top sheet dies rather suddenly, but rather, the sponge’s factory boost wears off quickly. Therefore after only a few months, its performance drops dramatically.

How Often You Play

The most influential factor regarding how long your rubbers will last is how often you will use them. Each rubber has a finite lifespan, and the more often you use it, the faster you reach the end of its life.

Your Preference For Your Forehand or Backhand

Although you might not realize it, you probably have favoritism for either your forehand or backhand side. This leads to you using that side more, which in turn leads to that side’s rubbers degrading faster.

I’m currently experiencing this! My forehand rubber needs changing while my backhand rubber probably has around another month or so of use left.

Your Style

Each style has different rubber requirements and the degree to which they punish rubbers. Take blockers, for instance, they don’t hit the ball very hard, or require much spin, so their rubbers last longer for them compared with other styles.

Power loopers, on the other hand, put their rubbers through a lot of punishment, and even a small drop in spin is very noticeable to them. Therefore these players need to change their rubbers more often.

How Long Do Rubbers Last?

The duration of a rubber depends on many factors and there is no set number, even for the exact same rubber. Take Tenergy for instance, many casual players get a year or more out of it, but my experience with Tenergy was pretty poor. Completely dead in 3 months.

That being said, the general rule of thumb regarding renewing your rubbers is to change them the same amount of time per year as sessions you play per week.

This assumes an average play session of a few hours.

So if you play twice per week you should be changing your rubbers around every 6 months or so.

1-2 sessions p/week	~2hrs p/week	52 weeks (1 year)
1-2 sessions p/week	~4hrs p/week	26 weeks (6 months)
3-4 sessions p/week	~8hrs p/week	13 weeks (3 months)
5-6 sessions p/week	~12hrs p/week	8.5 weeks (2 months)

These figures assume you are a club player and using inverted rubbers. If you are playing at a higher level you will need to replace your rubbers more often. Also, if your rubbers are pimples or anti-spin they should last longer

Inverted rubber	~52 hours
Pimple rubber	~100 hours
Anti-spin rubber	~150+ hours

Pimple Rubbers

As pimples do not require anywhere near as much grip as inverted rubbers you can expect them to last twice as long.

Anti-Spin Rubbers

As Antispin rubbers are frictionless the quality of the top sheet degrades very slowly. I would expect to comfortably get at least a few years out of an antispin rubber. You’ll probably want to change it because of how ancient it looks rather than its performance!

How to Replace Your Rubbers

• What You’ll Need
• Your bat
• New rubbers
• Table tennis racket
• Sponge
• Roller
• Scissors or scalpel
• Edge tape (optional)

1. Remove your old rubbers by gently peeling them away from the blade
2. Remove any old glue residue by rubbing it off with your hands
3. Apply a small amount of glue to the middle of one side of the blade, and spread it outwards to the rest of the blade using a sponge (sponges are usually included with the glue)
4. Once you have an even coverage leave it to dry until the glue turns clear (15 minutes or so)
5. Take your new rubber and align it to the blade. Make sure all of the rubber’s bottom marking are in! Start with the bottom and slowly adhere upwards. Use a roller to prevent the formation of air bubbles.
6. Using either scissors or an Exacto knife, cut around the rubber sheets so that it is uniform with the blade’s edge.
7. Flip your racket over and repeat the same process on the other side
8. Apply edge tape around the racket for a professional-looking finish

The Bottom Line

While it’s useful to know how to mitigate harm to your rubbers, and how long they are likely to last, it’s not an exact science.

Ultimately, you should trust your own intuition regarding whether your rubbers need changing. Sometimes rubbers simply don’t last as long as we expect them to — my current set lasted around 3 months of light use. Sure it’s disappointing, but there’s no point dwelling on it.

And there’s certainly little gained from forcing yourself to use worn-out rubbers to get “more for your money”. You’ll play worse and enjoy table tennis less. And at the end of the day, all that really matters is your enjoyment.