Victas

VICTAS table tennis equipment — rubbers, blades, balls, glue and care products, cases, clothing and shoes. VICTAS is a Japanese brand whose European range is produced and distributed from Germany. Manufacture is split by product line: rubbers are made in Germany and Japan, blades in Japan, Hungary and China. It's also one of the few table tennis brands carrying a full clothing and footwear line alongside the playing equipment, so it's worth checking here before you go elsewhere for kit.

Two conventions run through the range, and it's worth knowing both before you compare anything across it:

• The suffix on a rubber name is its sponge hardness grade, so the name tells you the specification before you read anything else. Limber is 40°, Regular 42.5°, Stiff 45°, Extra 47.5° and Double Extra 50–52.5°. The TRIPLE series runs on its own scale, where Regular is 42.5°, Extra 55° and Double Extra 57.5° — so check which series you are looking at before reading a grade across.
• VICTAS rates most of its own products out of 10 and publishes the figures itself, so you can compare within the brand with real numbers rather than marketing language. Rubbers are rated for speed, control, spin, trajectory and sheet strength; blades for speed, control and vibration.