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I felt like sharing this interesting blade with a history...

This is a Stiga Hans Alsër 50th anniversary blade from 1994. There were only 500 of these made to commemorate Stiga's first 50 years from 1944-1994, and this one is #378.

In 1995, I played with this blade actually, and peeled off the Stiga stickers from the handle as they were slippery, though today I wish that I had left them on. I used this back in the era of the powerful, toxic speed glue (tip top, probably) without varnish, but amazingly the surface of the blade has remained in mostly pristine condition...

At least back in the days of speed gluing and the 38mm celluloid ball, this as they say, was a real "player's" blade... Swedish 5-ply construction with soft Limba outer plies and Ayous inner plies. A classic construction copied by other blade makers, such as Butterfly in the original Primorac, Korbel, and the entire Innerforce series, or Donic in the original Allplay, the Appelgren series, and even in Waldner’s signature senso carbon… the Ayous core is dynamic and gives good pop on the ball, and the soft Limba outer balances it out and allows plenty of catch for spinning. Variable and elastic, with good throw. The classic Stiga feeling...

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This is a “best of” compilation that I found on Instagram, showing Waldner’s amazing game play… great points here, many of which I’ve viewed previously. There’s great points by Zoran Primorac and Yoo Nam Kyu in this one also.

I’m such a Swedish fanboy though, and it’s showing here with posts on the all-star Swedes from the 80’s/90’s. I’ll cook something else up soon 😊

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The king, in service. Highly creative, fluid, deceptive. I often tried to emulate some of Waldner’s service technique until I would realize that it was better for me to focus on something more repeatable and executable for my level. It’s tough to copy the king; tough to emulate genius.

I’d like to say that this snippet is from an American tournament called the Gilbert Cup, which was held sometime in the late 90’s. It was 1997-98 perhaps…

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A treat for Jean-Michel Saive fans: here are a couple of my personal blades that I used previously with Saive’s inspiration in mind…

1) Stiga Clipper - my well used version with straight handle, from 2014. As used by Saive at the end of his career.

2) Schildkröt Vmax - Saive’s signature blade made by long defunct German manufacturer Schildkröt. I purchased and used this blade lightly circa 1995 but quickly changed back to Swedish style allround blades which were en vogue at the time. I believe these were manufactured in the mid to late 90’s, and it might be difficult, if not impossible to find one in this like new condition today!

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And a few more inspirational photos of Jean-Michel Saive from Belgium...

To say a bit more about Saive, he was world #1 for a couple of years in the early 90’s, around the time that Jean Phillipe Gatien won the world championships in ‘93. Incidentally Saive went on to win the European championships in ‘94, but never won a world title. He had a relentless attack and was known for producing some of the heaviest topspin on tour. In later years he was considered to be one of the best lobbers in the game.

In the picture of Saive in service, he is using a Stiga Clipper CR with straight handle, and likely Tenergy rubber (best guess). He moved to the CR with the change to the plastic ball before his retirement in 2017, and was using the regular Clipper from the beginning of his Stiga sponsorship until that point.

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Jean-Michel Saive is one of my favorite players. I’ve always found his game inspirational due to his clear tactics, brute force execution and never-give-up fighting spirit.

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The king, hitting medium topspins. I think Waldner had a beautiful, flowing technique, yet it was effective. 🙂

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The king, in his youth… this must’ve been very late 70’s

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Mikael Appelgren, Sweden

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And a couple more of Michael Maze in service… I’m a huge fan obviously

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As a follow up to my last post on Michael Maze, here are a couple of interesting action shots of Michael’s forehand topspin, from seemingly challenging angles.

Dynamic and creative…

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Following up to the post featuring Timo Boll as a (mostly) pure topspin player, Michael Maze is the other European that came to prominence within the last 20 years that really stands out in that category for me.

Michael is a super-talented, dynamic topspin player who plays with loads and loads of feeling. Bruce Lee said "be like water", and Michael has always had that quality in his body. Gobs of feel and flowing like water... yet explosive spin play was the result.

Though he is no longer at the top of the world stage, he is still both entertaining and inspirational to watch.

Waldner once of said of him that he is "the best in topspin"...

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Timo Boll is probably the greatest European 2-sided looper to grace the world's stage in the last 20 years. The only European player to come close in the same time frame and playing style is Michael Maze.

Enjoy.

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Ma Long, arguably the greatest of all time (as seen by many modern fans of the game), displaying step-by-step instruction and commentary on textbook forehand technique. There are many points to consider in this video, and it's worth studying…

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Mikael Appelgren, Sweden

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