Sanwei Target National Review: A Budget Unboosted Hurricane 3 (Neo) Alternative I Enjoyed Less Than Battle 2

I keep on analysing new brands and their rubbers every month and this time I'm going to take a closer look at the new Sanwei Target National (the second generation, the one with the silver and grey metallic package), a cheaper Chinese hybrid that some players use as an unboosted alternative to the DHS Hurricane 3 Neo, also in China by the way (more on that later), so get ready for another rubber deep dive!

I had never tried any Sanwei products before so I was excited to see how that would be. So this will be the first of two Sanwei reviews, since the Sanwei Gear Hyper will follow at the end of this year or early next year, and as you will see, the only things those two have in common will be the cool metallic package and the low throw, but nothing else aside from that.

Finishing the introduction section, I always like giving you a small sneak peek of the wall of text that is about to follow, so for this review I'd like to mention that the New Target National is not a bad rubber, it is certainly impressive that you almost get the same power as a boosted Hurricane 3 Neo blue sponge without the booster, but unfortunately, and this is a personal preference, it is not the unboosted Hurricane 3 Neo alternative I will be recommending to people. I will explain the reasons for this in depth but the short version of it is that the tackiness doesn't last too long and the throw angle is very demanding in combination with the speed and low dwell, especially when heavy backspin comes your way and you have very little safety margin to deal with it. I do think however, that it can be a good alternative to the classic Hurricane 3 feeling for those who like it (and I know there are plenty of fans!), but for me personally, the Hurricane 3 Neo is my preferred option, with a higher throw, and a better balance and feeling overall. Especially in the new meta where long forehand strokes are not as rewarded as they were before.

So as I will also tell you later, I still prefer the Friendship 729 Battle 2 Provincial blue sponge as an unboosted alternative to the Hurricane 3 Neo blue sponge, as it's a bit less demanding (also the Neo version of it) and for me it has more tools and possibilities, but if you are into extra speed and power with medium tackiness, the Target National is a good Chinese hybrid. Just know that it sits in that category of high risk and high reward, where the reward can be like a boosted Hurricane 3 Neo but it's definitely more demanding for your technique and for your body (kind of ironic but it's true, my muscles don't lie the day after haha). So in any case, I will use this comparison with the Battle 2 and the Hurricane 3 Neo quite a lot along the review, because all 3 rubbers are pretty similar in their philosophy.

Right so that was the intro, grab a drink and a snack (I had a radler and some chippies while writing this), and let's get into the review!

Sanwei

Target National (New)

View ratings in the Rubber Database

The TL;DR: Sanwei Target National

The technicalities

I got the New Target National from AliExpress, and it came in a modern cool-looking silver and grey metallic package. My sheet was black and in the only thickness they have (2.1mm). The hardness is 40 degrees (39-40 on the Chinese scale), but it feels harder than that, and I think that's mostly because of the topsheet which does not feel too elastic (more on that in the Sponge & Topsheet section).

The topsheet came with a thin protector and weighed 67 grams uncut with that protector on, and 50 grams once cut for my DHS Fang Bo B2X. Out of the package there was no stinky smell (a nice detail for a Chinese rubber, the Battle 2 is really smelly), the pores are clearly visible in the sponge and there was a fair amount of inwards built-in tension once you removed the protector, like it has been boosted quite a lot in the factory.

The tackiness from the box is around 5 out of 10, so not too sticky, medium tacky I'd say, and that changed quite quickly during the test, but I'll go deeper into that in the Price & Durability section.

So overall, I'd classify the new Sanwei Target National as a Chinese hybrid with a hard topsheet on a cake-ish sponge rather than a tacky sponge, which already tells you that it's a different thing from a Hurricane 3 Neo blue sponge and Battle 2, even if the three get compared a lot.

How I tested the New Sanwei Target National

I tested the Target National exclusively on the DHS Fang Bo B2X, mostly on the forehand, where I normally play with boosted Chinese rubbers, so please keep that in mind, as my main reference for this review is a boosted Hurricane forehand on a blade that is fast and lower-throwing by nature. Oh and, on the backhand I mostly had the Xiom Vega China and a bit of the Sanwei Gear Hyper, more to come on those soon.

I also tried it a bit on the backhand, and there is a little funny story behind that. A friend from my club who has family in China went there for 3 weeks in the summer, and a good player from a club over there told him that many people at that Chinese club used the Target National on the backhand, as a sort of unboosted Hurricane 3 Neo 37/38 OS alternative. The Chinese player also mentioned that most people at that club changed it after 1-2 months, as the tackiness was gone by then and the rubber did not perform the same anymore, plus that in very intensive usage, you get about 1 month of tackiness (keep that in mind for the durability section). By the way, my club friend plays the Lin Gaoyuan rubber from YuanJian (ZhanTian) on his backhand, so he is used to that kind of low throw hard rubber there, and he has a nasty backhand for a regional player.

So when he told me this, I called him crazy first, but then I had to test it, and 'surprise!', the Target National also worked nicely on the backhand thanks to the extra catapult, but it was as hard to use due to the low throw. But yeah, surprisingly, the feeling was maybe even better on the backhand, I definitely did not expect that.

Oh and, I played the Target National only unboosted, as that's the whole point of this rubber, so I didn't want to boost it at all. I also think that if you boost it, the speed would be too much for my blade and I don't need that, the throw angle would get better though, so on all wood or slower blades it may well be worth boosting (more on that in the Boosting section).

But anyways, to wrap up this section, the testing period was about 4 weeks, always on the B2X and always unboosted, mostly on the forehand and a bit on the backhand.

The Sanwei Target National in depth

Sponge & Topsheet Feeling

The philosophy of the New Sanwei Target National is to give you the power of a boosted blue sponge Hurricane without you having to boost it, but the first thing I noticed is that this rubber is not that similar to a boosted Hurricane 3 Neo. Sure, the sponge is hard and dark blue, but that's where it stops when it comes to physical resemblance.

First of all, the sponge has a cake-ish sponge with visible pores, so not like a hard and dense Hurricane sponge, and following that, the topsheet is only medium tacky from the box, but that tackiness fades away quickly to much lower levels (I think this is intended somehow, but I don't like it).

There is also quite some inward tension when you take it out of the package and remove the protector, and you do get the 'click feeling' of a boosted sponge, that's for sure there, which I liked.

Another difference is that for me, the topsheet felt less elastic and alive than with a Hurricane rubber, and in my experience, it also grips less well than the Battle 2 or the Hurricane 3 Neo on soft thin brushes, as the topsheet deforms less, so the sponge doesn't get activated. I had to adjust to this, and I didn't enjoy losing that part of the game compared to the Hurricane 3 Neo, because sometimes you just need a thin brush, i.e. when you are out of position on the wide forehand or when you need to defend, so that was a bit of a pity. The sponge is 39-40 on the Chinese scale, but because the topsheet is not too elastic, it feels harder than that.

So from the sponge and topsheet, the New Target National is clearly a factory boosted rubber where they have made a clear tradeoff between speed and spin, speed being the winner of that tradeoff. I personally don't like how they have balanced this, although I know there are plenty of players out there (I suspect especially on all wood or control soft blades) that will like it.

Speed & Control

Starting with the gears, my experience says that the New Target National has fewer gears than the Hurricane 3 Neo blue sponge or the Battle 2 Provincial blue sponge: there is a medium low gear initially where the speed and the click feeling can already be felt a bit, then a clear medium one and then the higher gear in full motion, so it still has high gears, but not as many as the other 2.

On the lowest gear and with thin brushes (pushes is a different and much better story) I had some trouble especially when humidity was higher, as the sponge was not activated, so many balls landed on the net. Dwell time is not the highest either, more like medium low, so take that into account as it is an important factor of a linear tacky rubber that you are losing here.

The medium and especially the high gear are fast, and due to this, you really need a proper hit-brush, with a proper emphasis on brushing (ideally from the index finger), to make sure that the ball lands on the other side of the table. If you go too much on the hit ratio, the low throw and the flat and long ball trajectory will not land the ball on the table, and this was much more present than with the Hurricane 3 Neo blue sponge and a bit more present than with the Battle 2 Provincial blue sponge.

Power wise, it is similar to a boosted Hurricane 3 Neo blue sponge, so Sanwei did a good job in that regard. I still feel that my Hurricane 3 Neo blue sponge shots are more dangerous overall, but not by a huge margin, it's just the control of the New Target National where the difference is clear for me. And this is because I expected a bit more linearity for a Chinese hybrid rubber. Other reviewers say it's very linear, but for me very linear means the Hurricane 3 Neo or the Battle 2 Provincial blue sponge or even the DHS Hurricane 8-80 37. The Target National is clearly less linear than those, more towards the linearity of pure hybrids, without being one.

So it definitely isn't as forgiving as the other 2, you always need to be in place, with the right technique and full commitment to the shot, so it's for sure a demanding rubber, please take this into account. Some reviews say this is a beginner rubber, but I would never give this to a beginner. For me it's intermediate+, and I'd rather recommend it from high intermediate onwards (that is used to Chinese rubbers and understands the technique), otherwise you will not get the potential out of the rubber and then it's better to play with other easier Chinese rubbers or Chinese hybrids.

And it's not only demanding for your technique, it's also very demanding for your body and legs. Since you always need the right position, the right stroke and plenty of hit and brush, I was honestly much more tired than usual after 2 hours on it, so if you have long training sessions, you will feel it in your legs the day after (I definitely did haha it's a good thing, but I'm not 20 anymore!).

So to summarise this section, a lot of speed if you do things right, similar to a boosted Hurricane 3 Neo, but clearly less control, less dwell and a lower throw, so the shots are very dangerous, yes, but it's not easy to land them, certainly against heavy low backspin (more on that in Drives & Loops).

Spin & Grip

Grip is good for a normal Chinese hybrid rubber provided that you engage the sponge and that it is not too humid out there, as it has more trouble with humidity than other tacky rubbers. In my opinion, the DHS Hurricane 8-80 or the other normal Hurricanes in general have a better grip overall, because as I said before, on thin brushes it sometimes slips.

There is in any case a lot of spin, but less than with the Hurricane 3 Neo and the Battle 2, as it trades spin for speed (the new trend in table tennis) and that is both a good and a bad thing depending on your blade and level, I personally prefer more spin than speed, but that's my own choice. But yeah, it is very hard to have spin and speed at the same time without boosting (not even the Hurricane 3 Neo achieves that without boosting), and only the Butterfly Dignics 09c can do this at almost max levels on both, so it's definitely not easy.

Throw Angle

This is the main problem of the New Target National, similar by the way to the good old Battle 2 Provincial blue sponge and also to the new Battle 2 Neo (better on the Battle 2 orange sponge), and it would be so much better if the throw got a bit closer to a mildly boosted Hurricane 3 Neo, but it's clearly lower. So in my opinion, this is a rubber that is going to work better on a soft and dwelly blade, but remember that your technique will need to create a bigger arc, using your whole body to make up for that, just like the old Chinese tacky rubbers were.

That is why I said before that it reminded me in a way of the classic Hurricane 3, but clearly faster. On my B2X, which is fast and lower-throwing by nature, this was even more noticeable, so I'd say that the two are not really the best match.

The flight distance is mostly long and similar to some other fast hybrid rubbers I've tested, which makes it more demanding and difficult against heavy backspin as I will mention below.

Drives & Loops

Driving first, you will already notice the low throw a little bit, but not that much, and the feeling is good and similar to a boosted Hurricane, that nice 'click feeling' you get after boosting is there, and that's cool.

Normal topspin loops is where the rubber shows its true nature, the low throw and fast speed kick in, and it's more difficult to handle, especially if your blade has a natural low throw and lower dwell. What you feel is that the rubber wants you to go all in with the right hit-brush technique, so half loops, or holding back power (or you doubting) get punished, and not being in the right position gets punished too. If all is correct though, you get lots of power and spin and a lot of danger for the opponent. Boosted Hurricane 3 Neo loops are safer to execute, with a better feeling and more margin for errors and wrong technique (ironic, I know, for a very demanding rubber like H3N BS), and depending on the amount of booster and the sponge hardness/version, the Target National will be a bit faster or slower than the Hurricane 3 Neo.

Then talking about opening backspin balls, it's the same as with the loops but even more difficult, and here you see another of the main disadvantages of this rubber, as loops against heavy backspin are not easy and it's often all or nothing. You need hit-brush (with the emphasis on brush), the safety margin is not very big, and even though you get a good feeling, it demands correct technique even more than normal loops, and you need to stay low, otherwise the ball doesn't land on the table. That's a big difference with the boosted Hurricane 3 Neo, where loops are easier if correct technique is used. My legs, overall body and consistency suffered more executing this type of shot against better players, so I think that says enough.

Finally when counterlooping, this is one of the biggest strengths of the rubber in my opinion, if not the biggest one. Counterlooping like I'm used to with the Hurricanes is very easy and carries a lot of danger for the opponent, it's one of the main things of this rubber and it gives you the confidence to just go for it more often (cool!). The throw, the tackiness and the whole rubber and topsheet work together to bring a lot of balls back on the table with a lot of danger. It's pretty similar to the Hurricane 3 Neo blue sponge here, perhaps a bit worse as the Hurricane 3 Neo is a bit safer and consistent, but it's also twice as expensive, so hey, not bad at all for the New Target National!

Serves

Serves are not as easy overall as with the Hurricane 3 Neo or the Battle 2. Short serves demand a bit more acceleration and brushing to get the same spin, and longer serves have the tendency to go a bit longer, so they are more error prone, especially once the tackiness has decreased, as the hard topsheet also doesn't hold the ball as well. So the Target National is spinnier at the beginning and you get better serves then, and later on they get worse, it is what it is.

To put it in perspective with another hybrid, the Xiom Vega China has much more serve spin than the Target National (I tested both on the same racket at some point), but the Vega China also has much more catapult, so it's not a free win either. However I could get many more direct points on heavy backspin serves and long topspin serves with the Vega China after one month, so that lets you compare. By the way, the Vega China is the newer generation, so more similar to Dignics 09c than to the tacky Chinese classic rubber as it was before.

So for those coming from tacky Hurricanes, it will be a decrease in serving performance, especially after the first month, so keep that in mind.

Flicks

As other reviewers have said, forehand flicks are quite difficult with the Target National, and I found it easier on backhand flicks. Forehand flicks need a lot of precise acceleration and a good angle at impact. If you do that, it's powerful, but I didn't have enough confidence to always execute this kind of shot (my forehand flick is not the best, so maybe other players don't have an issue here), so I ended up pushing short and long much more, and the rubber is very good at that, as I'll explain in the next section.

Pushes

Even though the New Target National is sensitive to spin like pretty much any other tacky Chinese rubber, it is not as sensitive as the Hurricane 3 Neo or the Battle 2 (probably due to less tack and hard topsheet), and in fact, I really enjoyed super loaded pushes with it.

It was very good to push short and spinny and dead, all went on the table and with danger, but it was (to my surprise) even better when aggressively pushing long, and it felt easy and natural if you are used to Chinese rubbers. Some long pushes initially went a bit too long, so I needed to find the right wrist force, but once I got it, it was a pleasure to have some push rallies, and in fact, I ended up pushing much more often than usual, as it gave me direct points when backspin was very loaded, and since I had consistency issues opening those, oh well, then you end up pushing on long balls if that gives you the ROI ;)

Overall, I don't want to push any long balls on the forehand, so it is not a rubber that will stay on my forehand, but I wanted to mention the anecdote as it can be relevant to others.

Blocks

Blocks are easier on the New Target National than with a tensor hybrid, but not as easy as with the Hurricane 3 Neo or the Battle 2, as the catapult kicks in quite a lot with incoming power loops, so it's less easy to place them on the table.

At middle and low speed the blocking is good, and so for higher speed loops I ended up defaulting to a mini counterloop and that worked the best. This is in fact a similar situation that I have described with other fast rubbers in the higher gears (Dignics 09c, Trinity, BlueGrip,, etc) so that is why I will give it a medium rating on the defensive side of things, not a full high value.

So yeah, when the power loops come, do go for active blocks (mini flat-ish counters usually also work fine) instead of passive ones, as that's where the Target National works best.

Flat hits & counterhits

The New Target National is not as bad as some other Chinese rubbers when flat hitting as the sponge is quite lively so that helps with those kinds of shots. In any case, I wouldn't play with this rubber for that purpose and I much prefer other hybrids for it, like the Tibhar Hybrid MK. Just make sure to close the bat angle when you flat hit as that will increase the success chances.

But yes, it is better than the Hurricane 3 Neo and Battle 2 at this.

Boosting

I didn't boost the Target National because that was the whole point of it, but sure, you could boost it to get more power and a better throw.

However, please be aware that it may be too fast depending on how much booster you use and on your blade, some people have hinted at one thin layer which is probably right, especially if you use any of the Haifu National boosters. I don't need more speed on the B2X so for me there was no point aside from the low throw, but if you are thinking about boosting, I'd do it on an all wood or slower inner blade, where the better throw angle and liveliness may be worth it.

Price & Durability

My sheet of the New Target National cost around 25 euros which is a very competitive and good price, so zero complaints there, especially because all other Chinese budget rubbers in this category are nowadays more or less the same, even the commercial Hurricane 3 Neo has this price on AliExpress without discounts, so yeah, unless you buy a Yinhe Mercury 2 or similar, the price is very good.

The durability though, that's where it gets a bit bittersweet, even though with a price like this it was kind of expected. As many other reviewers say, and I agree with them, the tackiness was much less after 1 month and I'm pretty sure that after 2 months it will be almost gone. That also matches the same experience that the Chinese player told my friend, as most people at that club changed it after 1-2 months, so do take that into account.

The sponge I think is going to be fine for longer, maybe 3-4 months, but the topsheet tackiness is what decides here. So for that reason I'll label its durability as average, 2-3 months max I'd say, and even though the sponge will hold longer, you won't get peak performance after that.

But yeah the price is good, so if you spend 50 euros for 4 months, you can spend 25 euros for 2 months as well, easy math ;). So it's not necessarily a deal breaker as long as you know what you are buying.

So who is this rubber for?

Personally, I'd always recommend the boosted Hurricane 3 Neo if people want the best tacky rubber experience, but if boosting is a hassle, then I think the New Target National can have a place next to the Friendship 729 Battle 2. The Target National would not be my personal pick, but for those of you who prefer speed over spin, and have a slower softer blade, the Target National could be the winner.

So you will enjoy the Sanwei Target National if you are at least an intermediate player who is used to the Chinese technique/equipment provided that:

Obviously, the reasons not to enjoy the Target National are the opposite of what I mentioned above, and since it's a hard Chinese hybrid, they are the same as for the typical hard Chinese hybrids. So if you are a tensor player, stay away. If you are a beginner, there are much better options like the Mercury 2, and if you want a more hybrid experience (easier catapult, higher throw, softer feel), this is not for you either.

Final thoughts

The Target National is not the best unboosted Hurricane 3 Neo alternative in my opinion, but it's a good challenger to the Battle 2 on the alternatives podium, just like the Joola Trinity Charged was a challenger in this category (see my review of the Joola Trinity Charged & Dynamic). I'd rather have the Joola Trinity Charged (durability, feeling, higher throw and overall better quality), but my first pick as an unboosted Hurricane 3 Neo alternative is still the 729 Battle 2 after all these years, which I will review very soon as well.

In my mind, the New Sanwei Target National will have a place in the market for those who enjoy a traditional Hurricane 3 experience, and for those who want a no-boost fast Chinese rubber, probably combined with a soft inner carbon blade or a 5/7-ply all wood blade. Or as a low throw fast backhand rubber, not a bad choice either.

Overall it is not a bad rubber for the price it has, and it offers quite a lot of positive points (and a bunch of bad ones as always), but it will not be my first choice for an unboosted Hurricane 3 Neo experience as I explained above.

That was my review of the Sanwei Target National, thanks for reading, until my next review, and see you at the table!