David Daus is relieved. „We have been convinced that our products are very good“, reports andro's man of the export and product development department. However he was slightly nervous before the big test meeting that andro initiated after the Olympic Games.
„We wanted to convey our active players why the 'clean sport' is so important in table tennis. Furthermore we wanted to convince them that our products are the best.“
In order to achieve that andro chose a risky way: A blind test was carried out. Besides andro rubbers the test was run with several top rubbers of other companies.
Jean-Michael Saive, Christian Süß, Slobodan Grujic, Wu Jiaduo and Elke Wosik tested fixed rubbers without knowing which rubber they actually played.
The andro rubbers were provided with the same surface, but different levels of the sponge's hardness – always facing to deliver an ideal solution after the ban of fresh gluing.
„We wanted to find out what is objectively good.“ says Daus. Because of the fact that four andro stars (Saive, Süß, Wu Jiaduo and Schall) participated in the Olympic Games, none of them had the time to test and choose the equipment best for each player before the season starts.
„We tried to organize everything well because we wanted to provide our athletes best preparations.“
The results were extremely good. The highly sensitive stars declared the andro ROXON 500pro as a good rubber without exception. Few days later Christian Süß and the other andro-stars successfully started into the new season with this rubber – of course without using any Booster or Tuner.
The 23 year old lost against Jan-Ove Waldner, what was more likely the consequence of an infection, that he carries along since Beijing, than a problem with the new material.
In the second game of the season Süß was the matchwinner:
Düsseldorf winning 3:2 in Plüderhausen Süß won 3:0 against the Honkong-Chinese Leung Chu Yan. In addition to that he won the double with Marco Freitas against Aleksandar Karakasevic/Jacub Kosowski: game, set, match for the andro ROXON 500pro!
David Daus concludingly says: „Now you need good equipment more than ever. In earlier days it was possible to eke out worse rubbers, but nowadays you can not.“
The next weeks and months will show in how far the new rubbers will change table tennis. Many facts allude to the concusion that the decisive step does not lie in the change of movements or techniques.
„The players have to change their mind “ says Daus. „I think the players who are more open minded will easier adapt to the situation.“ Daus moreover sees problems for those who will blame the new material for their own mistakes.
Those will unlikely be andro players...
