Xilla Legato CenterForce series [Lab Test Report]

Table of Contents

1. Overview 2. Performance Indices 3. Comparison by Performance Indices ……. 3-1. Elasticity Indices ……. 3-2. Vibration Indices 4. Summary

‘Legato CenterForce’ series launched by Xilla which is a Korean brand introduced very unique 6+3ply outer/inner constructions those have carbon fiber layer at the center of plywoods. (Xilla is not a well-known brand internationally because it mainly sells domestically in Korea, but it has many good products.) The unique 6+3 layer constructions are not common in table tennis blades, and are a new attempt by Xilla to improve responsiveness, speed, and spin in response to the change of table tennis. ‘Legato CenterForce’ series consists of two models – ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ and ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’. We can easily imaging the actual constructions of two versions because the names of the models are very intuitive.

In this article, TTGearLab will analyze two models by Performance Indices, and for further understanding compare those two with some other blades in the market.

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1.  Overview

‘Legato CenterForce’ series consists of an outer version – ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ (left) – and an inner version – ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ (right). Two models share the design concept, and are distinguished from each other by the point colors of handles. Point colors are dark blue and burgundy for outer version and inner version respectively. Each model has two layers of KNC (= Kotron Carbon) and a center layer of Carbon fiber. Because Carbon fiber is located at the center of plywood, it doesn’t contribute much to improving the elasticity of blade. But, it is expected that the center carbon fiber can enlarge sweet spot and enhance the overall feeling.

Left is outer version, and right is inner version. Two versions share the artificial materials – KNC and center Carbon fiber. Both of two versions based on 5+2 ply outer/inner constructions. But, differently from ordinary outer/inner blades, the center layer of the model of this series is divided into two layers, and carbon fiber is inserted between those two layers.

The graphic on the head is shared with many other models of Xilla brand.

1-1. Xilla Legato CenterForce Outer

As its name directly expresses, ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is the outer version of ‘Legato CenterForce’ series.

The construction of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is a 6+3 ply triple fiber construction. Top layer is Koto. The middle layer is Ayous, and the center layer is Kiri. KNC (Kotron Carbon) which is a kind of PBO carbon is inserted between the top layer and the middle layer. Carbon fiber is inserted between two center layers. Overall thickness is around 5.7mm. The center carbon fiber distinguishes ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ from ordinary 5+2 ply outer-type blades.

The width of FL (flared) handle is around 26.5mm (at head side) ~ 28.5mm (at verge point) ~ 26.5mm (at the middle of handle) ~ 34mm (at the end), and the thickness of FL handle is round 22.0mm (at thumb) ~ 24.5mm (at the end). This can be categorized into semi-wide type, and it provides firm and stable grip.

The size of ST (straight) handle which isn’t shown in the picture is around 28.5mm (width) x around 22.5mm (thickness). This handle also provides firm and stable grip.

The head size is around 157mm x 150mm.

1-2. Xilla Legato CenterForce Inner

As its name directly expresses, ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is the inner version of ‘Legato CenterForce’ series.

The construction of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is a 6+3 ply triple fiber construction. Top layer is Limba. The middle layer and the center layer is Ayous. KNC (Kotron Carbon) which is a kind of PBO carbon is inserted between the middle layer and the center layer. Carbon fiber is inserted between two center layers. Overall thickness is around 6.0mm. The center carbon fiber distinguishes ‘Legato CenterForce Inner from ordinary 5+2 ply inner-type blades.

The width of FL (flared) handle is around 26.5mm (at head side) ~ 28.5mm (at verge point) ~ 26.5mm (at the middle of handle) ~ 34mm (at the end), and the thickness of FL handle is round 22.0mm (at thumb) ~ 24.5mm (at the end). This can be categorized into semi-wide type, and it provides firm and stable grip.

The size of ST (straight) handle which isn’t shown in the picture is around 28.5mm (width) x around 23mm (thickness). This handle also provides firm and stable grip.

The head size is around 157mm x 150mm.

Then let’s check the characteristics of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ and ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ by Performance Indices and then compare with some existing blades.

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2.  Performance Indices

Performance Indices are measured objective values to represent the characteristics of table tennis gears. Concerning the detail of four performance indices, please refer to following articles in ‘About TTGearLab’ section :

• Performance indices : the way to evaluate blade by measurement
• The example of comparison by performance indices

2-1. Legato CenterForce Outer

Name	Avg.Wt (g)	Ep	Ec	Ec/Ep	Vp	Vl	Vl/Vp
Xilla Legato CenterForce Outer	85.1	1.91	1.53	0.80	1.20	1.31	1.09

‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ can be considered as a kind of outer-type fiber blade although it has one more fiber layer at the center. Its Ep (= 1.91) is what we can expect from outer-type fiber blades, but it doesn’t exceed 2.0 which is the criteria of ‘very fast’ blade. Its Ec (= 1.53) is quite low value, and as the result the ratio – Ec/Ep is very low (= 0.80). We can think that ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ hugs the ball very deeply when the player hits the ball very strongly. We can notice that the center carbon fiber layer doesn’t increase overall elasticity.

Regarding Vibration Indices, the Vp of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ (= 1.20) is very low value as that of an outer-type fiber blade. The players will feel that this blade is softer than ordinary outer-type blades. And, its Vl (= 1.31) is what is expected from many inner type blades (= around 1.30 ~ 1.35). The ratio – Vl/Vp (= 1.09) – is close to 1.1. The feeling transferred to the player’s index finger is sharper than the primary feeling. Players will clearly feel that it is sharper, although it isn’t extremely sharper.

From the values, we can expect that ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ fits for continuous topspin at close-to-table area which aims at very early timing of bounce. It is expected that ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ will provide sufficient power for topspin from mid-distance area, but continuous topspin will be more proper strategy of using this blade than power topspin.

2-2. Legato CenterForce Inner

Name	Avg.Wt (g)	Ep	Ec	Ec/Ep	Vp	Vl	Vl/Vp
Xilla Legato CenterForce Inner	84.6	1.77	1.70	0.96	1.26	1.38	1.09

‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ can be considered as a kind of inner-type fiber blade although it has one more fiber layer at the center. Its Ep (= 1.77) is what we can expect from inner-type fiber blades. Its Ec (= 1.70) is higher than that of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’. That is because of the thicker construction and stiffer center wood of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’. The Ec/Ep (= 0.96) is close to 1.0. ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ hugs the ball a bit but not deeply when the player hits the ball very strongly. Players may feel that the response characteristic of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is close to linear.

Regarding Vibration Indices, the Vp of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ (= 1.26) is what we can expect from inner-type fiber blade. But, it is higher than that of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ (= 1.20). That is because of the thicker construction and stiffer center wood of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’. The Vl (= 1.38) is also higher than that of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ (= 1.31). The ratio – Vl/Vp (= 1.09) – is close to 1.1. The feeling transferred to the player’s index finger is sharper than the primary feeling. Players will clearly feel that it is sharper, although it isn’t extremely sharper. The players who are sensitive to the relative feeling may feel that ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ gives similar feeling to ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’.

From the values, we can expect that ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ fits for modern all-round style that uses various technics because it is good for precise control.

The effect of center carbon fiber isn’t revealed just by the Performance Indices. However, probably there will be some effects such as the enlargement of sweet spot because the number of layers is increased from 7 (= 5+2) to 9 (= 6+3). The characteristics of the two versions are clearly distinct, with ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ being more suitable for continuous topspin (especially at close-to-table area), and ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ being more suitable for all-round play.

Two blades will be compared with some existing fiber blades and all-wood blades by graphs in next Chapter.

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3.  Comparison by Performance Indices

‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ and ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ are fiber blades of 6+3 ply those are based on 5+2 ply outer construction and 5+2 ply inner construction respectively. So we will compare those two with some well-known outer-type and inner-type blades.

Following is the list of the blades to be compared:

Outer type

Name	Average Weight	Feature
Butterfly Fan Zhendong ZLC	85.1g	Outer PBO Carbon with Koto top layer
Butterfly Viscaria	87.1g	Outer ALC with Koto top layer
Butterfly OuterForce ALC	85.2g	Thick outer ALC with Ayous top layer
Donic Skachikov Carbon	82.5g	Outer Aramid Carbon with Koto top layer
Stiga Dynasty Carbon	93.4g	Outer Carbon fiber (TeXtreme) with Koto top layer

Inner type

Name	Average Weight	Feature
Butterfly InnerForce Layer ZLC	89.8g	Inner ZLC with Limba top layer
Butterfly InnerForce Layer ALC	91.2g	Inner ALC with Limba top layer / Recent version
Butterfly Hurricane Long 5	88.1g	Inner ALC with Limba top layer / Recent version
Donic Original No.1	88.7g	Inner Acryl Carbon with Limba top layer
Victas Fire Fall VC	81.8g	Inner ALC with Limba top layer / Thick construction

All wood blades (including reference blade)

Name	Average Weight	Feature
Butterfy Korbel	88.7g	The representative of 5-ply wood offensive blade.
Stiga Allround Classic (Reference)	84.3g	The representative of 5-ply wood allround blade.

3-1. Elasticity Indices

Fig.17 shows the comparison graph of Elasticity Indices.

Ep (Primary Elasticity Index) is directly concerned with the rebound speed of blade. Ec (Central Elasticity Index) is concerned with additional ‘kick’ when player hits ball very strongly. When we compare the values of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ and ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’, we can observe that the gap between the Ep and the Ec of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is noticeably larger than that of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’.

Then we can compare two models of ‘Legato CenterForce’ series with some existing outer-type and inner-type blades .

[Outer]

The blade construction of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is based on that of this group.

• The Ep of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ looks close to the average or the median of the Ep’s of the blades in this group. However, the Ec of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is lower than the lowest value of the Ec’s of the blades in this group. It makes the graph shape ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ quite different from those of the blades in this group except for ‘Dynasty Carbon’.
• ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ and ‘Dynasty Carbon’ show large gap between Ep and Ec. But, the gaps of other blades are much smaller. We can expect that the behavior of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ will be close to that of ‘Dynasty Carbon’.
• The graph shape of the blades in this group except for ‘Dynasty Carbon’ look similar to that of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’. ‘Skachikov Carbon’ even shows the overall elasticity level which is close to that of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’.

[Inner]

The blade construction of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is based on that of this group.

• The Ep of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ looks close to the average of the Ep’s of the blades in this group. However, the Ec of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is close to the maximum value of the Ec’s of the blades in this group.
• The overall elasticity level of ‘Fire Fall VC’ is quite close to that of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’.
• The graph shape of ‘Original No.1’ looks similar to that of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’.

[All Wood]

All wood blades can be observed as references.

• The graph shape of ‘Korbel’ looks similar to that of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’.
• The graph shape of ‘Allround Classic’ looks similar to that of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’.

Examining Ec/Ep is also an easier way to understand the characteristics of blade concerned with elasticity. Fig.18 shows the relationship between Ec/Ep and Ep.

Ec/Ep expresses the ‘tendency’ of the elasticity of blade. By examining Ec/Ep and Ep at the same time, we can easily understand the behavior of blades.

On the graph, all blades in this comparison are located in ‘Hold’ range (Ec/Ep < 1.0). And, in that range, ‘Outer’ group is located at right side, and ‘Inner’ group is located at left side. ‘Outer’ group and ‘Inner’ group are largely overlapped with each other because of some fast inner-type models and a relatively slow outer-type model. But, none of two models of ‘Legato CenterForce’ series is in the overlapped range. Because the 6+3 ply outer/inner constructions of ‘Legato CenterForce’ series are based on 5+2 ply outer/inner constructions, we will be able to separately observe ‘Outer’ type blades and ‘Inner’ type blades.

‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ can be observed together with ‘Outer’ group. What we can understand from this graph can be summarized as follows :

• ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is located to the bottom left of ‘Outer’ group. It means the the primary elasticity of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is relatively low as an outer-type blade, and it hugs the ball very deeply when the player hits the ball very strongly.
• The level of hug of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is much higher than most of blades in ‘Outer’ group. The only one blade which hugs ball more deeply than ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is ‘Dynasty Carbon’.
• If we also consider the blades outside ‘Outer’ group, ‘Original No.1’ which is an inner-type blade and ‘Korbel’ which is a 5-ply wood blade show similar level of hug as ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’. If a player wants to increase the elasticity of the blade while keeping the hug level of 5-ply wood offensive blade such as ‘Korbel’, ‘Original No.1’ or ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ can be the solution.
• In general, extreme hug level and medium ~ medium high elasticity are good characteristics of blades for aggressive close-to-table topspin. So we can expect that ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ will fit for the playing style that uses aggressive topspin that aims at early timing of bounce. 

‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ can be observed together with ‘Inner’ group. What we can understand from this graph can be summarized as follows :

• ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is located to the top of ‘Inner’ group. It means ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ doesn’t hug the ball deeply when the player hits the ball very strongly. The response to the change of the impact strength is close to linear. Some players who have been accustomed to the blades with ‘Deep Hold’ characteristics may feel that ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ gives additional kick when the impact becomes stronger.
• The inner-type blade whose hug level is close to that of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is ‘Fire Fall VC’ which has thick construction as an inner-type blade.
• The primary elasticity of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ isn’t especially high or especially low. If we compare it with ‘InnerForce ZLC’ and ‘InnerForce ALC’ those are more elastic in primary elasticity, it is expected that ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is more stable in soft hitting but provides same level of elasticity as ‘InnerForce ZLC’ or ‘InnerForce ALC’ in hard hitting.
• In general, low hug level and middle ~ moderately high elasticity are good characteristics for modern all-round play. ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is recommended for the players who use a variety of technics

Both of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ and ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ have strong individuality. But, the values don’t clearly show us the effect of center carbon fiber. And, it seems that ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is close to the faster replacement of 5-ply wood offensive blades, and ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is the faster replacement of 5-ply wood all-round blade. Further, ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ can be considered as the thinner & lighter replacement of classic 7-ply wood offensive blades, although we are not observing classic 7-ply wood blade in this comparison.

Then next, let’s compare Vibration Indices.

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3-2. Vibration Indices

Fig.19 shows the comparison graph of Vibration Indices. Vibration Indices are concerned with feeling. Vp indicates primary feeling which is transferred to player’s palm. And, Vl is the feeling at the edge of the wing – the lower side of blade head. It is felt by player’s index finger or middle finger. We can observe that the values of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ are higher than those of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’. It is interesting that the outer version gives softer feeling than inner version.

Then we can compare two models of ‘Legato CenterForce’ series with some existing outer-type and inner-type blades .

[Outer]

The blade construction of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is based on that of this group.

• The Vp of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is lower than those of most of  blades in ‘Outer’ group (= all models except for ‘Dynasty Carbon’). And, the Vl of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is lower than those of all models in ‘Outer’ group. We can understand that ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is softer than ordinary outer type blades. Further, we can understand that the center carbon layer of ‘Legato CenterForce’ series doesn’t make the feeling stiffer.
• ‘Dynasty Carbon’ is softer in primary feeling and is stiffer in lateral feeling when compared with ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’. Because both of those two have large gap between Vp and Vl, there may be some players who feel the similarity between ‘Dynasty Carbon’ and ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’.
• The values of ‘OuterForce ALC’ and ‘Skachikov Carbon’ are close to those of the inner version – ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’.

[Inner]

The blade construction of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is based on that of this group.

• The Vp and the Vl of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ are higher than those of most of blades in ‘Inner’ group (= all models except for ‘Fire Fall VC’). So ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ will give quite stiff and sharp feeling as an inner-type blade.
• The graph shape of ‘Hurricane Long 5’ looks close to that of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’. And, ‘Fire Fall VC’ also shows similar graph shape as ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’.
• The graph shapes of two Butterfly models (= ‘InnerForce Layer ZLC’ and ‘InnerForce Layer ALC’) are noticeably different from that of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’.

[All Wood]

All wood blades can be observed as references.

• The overall level of the values of ‘Korbel’ are noticeably lower than ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ and ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’. Although ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is very soft as an outer-type blade, it is still stiffer than 5-ply wood blads such as ‘Korbel’.
• The overall level of the values of ‘Allround Classic’ is even smaller than that of ‘Korbel’. So ‘Allround Classic; is much softer than ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ or ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’. Further, the graph shape of ‘Allround Classic’ looks totally different from that of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ or ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’.

Examining Vl/Vp is easier way for the comparison of the tendency of feeling. Fig.20 shows the relationship between Vl/Vp and Vp for easier comparison.

On the graph, most of blades in this comparison (except for three blades) are located in upper part of the graph – ‘Relatively sharper at finger’ range (Vl/Vp > 1.0).  And, in that range, ‘Outer’ group is located at right side, and ‘Inner’ group is located at left side. Two groups are largely overlapped because of some unique models. And, it is interesting that ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is located to right from ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’. In case a blade family has both of outer version and inner version those share the artificial material, in general outer version is located to right from inner version. But, ‘Legato CenterForce’ series is the opposite. The inner version – ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ – is stiffer than the outer version – ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’. That is the uniqueness of ‘Legato CenterForce’ series. And, it is interesting that ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is located close to the center of ‘Inner’ group while ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is located very close to the center of ‘Outer’ group.

‘Legato CenterForce Outer‘ can be observed together with ‘Outer’ group. What we can understand from this graph can be summarized as follows :

• ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is located to the left of ‘Outer’ group. It means the the primary feeling of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is relatively soft as an outer-type blade. Most of players will feel that ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is softer than ordinary outer-type blades.
• The location of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is close to the center of ‘Inner’ group. It means that the feeling of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is as soft as inner-type blades. ‘Hurricane Long 5’ is located near ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’. Some players will be able to feel the similarity between two models in feeling.
• ’Legato CenterForce Outer’ is also located near the horizontal line Vl/Vp = 1.0 which is the border between ‘Near Uniform’ range and ‘Relatively Sharper at Finger’ range. The other blades located near that line are ‘Hurricane Long 5’, ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’, ‘Skachikov Carbon’ and ‘Fire Fall VC’. Those five blades (including ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’) gives sufficiently sharp feeling to index finger, but not as sharp as the feeling that is given by three models at the top of graph – ‘Korbel’, ‘Original No.1’ and ‘Dynasty Carbon’.
• When comared with ‘Viscaria’ or ‘Fan Zhendong ZLC’ in ‘Outer’ group, ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is located to upper left side, and the gap is large. It means that the primary feeling of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is much softer than those two models, but the feeling transmitted to index finger is noticeably sharper.

‘Legato CenterForce Inner‘ can be observed together with ‘Inner’ group. What we can understand from this graph can be summarized as follows :

• ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is located to right side of ‘Inner’ group. Its location is the right side of ‘Inner’ group, and is close to the center of ‘Outer’ group. It means that ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is stiffer than ordinary inner-type blades. Because ‘Skachikov Carbon’ and ‘OuterForce ALC’ are located very close to ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’, we can expect that ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ gives similar feeling as those two outer-type blades.
• Among the models in ‘Inner’ group, the closest one to ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is ‘Fire Fall VC’ which is thicker than ordinary inner-type blades. It is located to upper right of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’. All other models in ‘Inner’ group are located to the left of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’. In the group, only ‘Fire Fall VC’ is stiffer than ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’.
• ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ provides quite stiff provides quite stiff feeling as an inner-type blade, and transmits moderately sharp feeling to index finger. Although that kind of overall feeling is what we can expect from outer-type blades, the actual feeling of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ will be more natural than that of outer-type blades because the artificial material of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ isn’t located directly under the top layer.

As we can see in the observation of elasticity indices, ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ and ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ show strong individuality also in the observation of vibration indices. Outer version – ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ – gives the feeling like an inner-type blade, and inner version – ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ – gives the feeling like an outer-type blade. Considering both of elasticity indices and vibration indices, we can think that ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ and ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ as the faster replacements of standard 5-ply wood offensive blade and classic 7-ply wood blade respectively.

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4.  Summary

Xilla ‘Legato CenterForce’ series is the blade family with very unique 6+3 ply constructions those are modified from common 5+2 ply outer/inner constructions. ‘Legato CenterForce’ series consists of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ which is the outer-type version and ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ which is the inner-type version. The characteristics of two models can be summarized as follows.

4-1. Legato CenterForce Outer

• ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is the outer-type version of ‘Legato CenterForce’ series which is the blade family of unique 6+3 ply construction. The construction of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ is based on 5+2 ply outer-type construction whose artificial material (= KNC) is located directly under the Koto top layer but the center layer of that 5+2 ply construction is divided into two layers and one layer of carbon fiber is inserted between two center layers to make 6+3 ply construction.
• ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ doesn’t provide high elasticity as an outer-type blade, and it hugs the ball extremely deeply when the player hits the ball very strongly. The result is high stability in very aggressive topspin at close-to-table area. Players will be able to easily aim at very early timing after the bounce.
• Regarding feeling, its primary feeling is as soft as that of inner-type blades. And, the feeling transmitted to index finger is moderately sharp.
• The overall characteristics of ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ are similar to those of a classic 5-ply wood offensive blade for aggressive topspin but with increased elasticity. It is also expected that ‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ will give high safety in continuous topspin from mid-distance area.

4-2. Legato CenterForce Inner

• ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is the inner-type version of ‘Legato CenterForce’ series which is the blade family of unique 6+3 ply construction. The construction of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is based on 5+2 ply inner-type construction whose artificial material (= KNC) is located between the middle layer and the center layer but the center layer of that 5+2 ply construction is divided into two layers and one layer of carbon fiber is inserted between two center layers to make 6+3 ply construction.
• The primary elasticity of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ is what we can expect from the ordinary inner-type blades. But, because it doesn’t hug the ball that deeply when the player hits the ball very strongly, the change in impact strength is reflected to the result almost directly. That is good for precise control when player performs a variety of technics.
• Regarding feeling, its primary feeling is as stiff as that of outer-type blades. And, the feeling transmitted to index finger is moderately sharp.
• The overall characteristics of ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ fits for modern all-round play which uses various technics but lay more emphasis on power when compared to classic all-round style. Some player will be able to find the similarity between ‘Legato CenterForce Inner’ and classic 7-ply wood blades of thick ‘Clipper’ type constructions.

‘Legato CenterForce Outer’ and ‘Legato CenterForc Inner’ are very unique blades, both in constructions and in actual characteristics. Those two are different from ordinary outer-type blades or ordinary inner-type blades. Therefore it may be difficult for those two models to become very universal blades. However, the characteristics close to average isn’t the perfect solution for everybody because table tennis is a sport of individuality. For the players who can’t be satisfied with the blades of ordinary characteristics, there are possibilities that one of the two models in ‘Legato CenterForce’ series becomes the optimum solution.

You can buy the blades in this article at ttatoz.com.

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