An honest self-assessment
The five previous sections have broken the diagnosis down into separate variables: physical condition, real technical level, dominant side, characteristic stroke and playing distance. Separately they are easy to grasp; together is where players tend to get lost, because they rarely sit down to cross-reference them before opening the online shop. This section gathers them into a short questionnaire worth answering — in writing, not in the head — before any decision to buy. It is not a scored test or an algorithm that spits out a bat at the end: it is an exercise in honesty that forces a look at one's own game without the usual filters.
What can my body sustain through a full match? Not during the warm-up, nor during the first set, but in the fifth, with the score level and the arm heavy. If the honest answer is that from the third set onwards the stroke shortens, unforced errors multiply and the shoulder protests, the equipment has to respect that limit. A 190-gram bat assembled with hard rubber on both sides does not become lighter because the blade's spec sheet says “allround”. The real weight, measured on a scale with both rubbers glued on, is the figure that matters. Section 15.1 developed the physical variables that equipment amplifies or punishes; the task here is to confront them with the reality of one's own body.
What is my demonstrated technical level, not the one I think I have? Section 15.2 proposed a simple test: compare the rate of clean execution under favourable conditions with the rate in a match. If the forehand loop works at eighty per cent against a passive ball and at thirty-five in competition, the operating level is thirty-five. Equipment is chosen for that number. A rubber that demands full activation to perform — hard sponge, pronounced catapult — does not forgive the incomplete stroke that appears when the pressure rises. The temptation to buy for the player one will be in six months is understandable; the result, almost always, is a bat that punishes throughout those six months and that, when they have passed, has stopped appealing anyway.
Which side closes my points? Not which side I prefer or which I train more, but which one wins when the point matters. The answer decides how the investment is divided between forehand and backhand. If the forehand is the weapon and the backhand supports, the more demanding rubber goes on the forehand and the more forgiving one on the backhand, as set out in 15.3. If the game is symmetrical, two rubbers of equivalent demand. If the backhand is the strong side — less common but real — invert the classic division without guilt. What makes no sense is mounting the same rubber on both sides out of convenience when the game is clearly asymmetrical: that means one side is carrying equipment that does not belong to it.
What is my main stroke and what does it ask of the equipment? Section 15.4 distinguished five families. A spin-heavy loop calls for grip and dwell time; a loop drive, a balance between spin and speed; flat hitting, quick restitution and stiffness; a defensive chop, absorption and control; a block, little amplification and plenty of tactile information. Identifying the dominant stroke is not enough: it has to be accepted that this is the stroke that rules the choice, and that the secondary strokes adapt to the equipment of the first, not the other way round. A player whose main stroke is the loop drive but who dreams of the clubmate's flat hitting does not need a bat for flat hitting: they need a bat for the loop drive that tolerates the occasional flat hit.
At what distance do I actually play? Not the distance I would like to play at, nor the one I played at five years ago, but where I stand today, point after point. Section 15.5 explained how distance conditions the reaction time available and the type of equipment that is viable. A player who has drifted back half a metre over the years — through reflexes, through habit, through a change of style never acknowledged — and who still uses a bat designed for play right at the table carries a disconnection that equipment cannot resolve on its own, though it can stop making it worse.
Five questions, five written answers. Nothing more is needed. The player who answers them honestly arrives at the shop — physical or online — with a clear profile: they know what weight they tolerate, what level of demand they can sustain, how they divide between the two sides, which stroke rules and where they play from. That profile does not point to a specific bat, but it rules out the ones that do not fit, which are usually most of the ones that catch the eye in a catalogue. Chapters 7, 11 and 12 translate that profile into specific combinations of rubber and blade; chapter 18 confronts it with the real market. The diagnosis ends here. What follows, in 15.7, are the signs that current equipment no longer matches the player just portrayed.