Hot take: Aggressive high speed play styles should be embraced

Honestly this may be controversial but i don’t really understand why gen 3 paddles are getting banned. Many people on the courts I play on use gen 3 paddles and the games are fast and people attack balls often. Dinks are used more aggressively to force a pop up they often turn into a hand battle. Everyone is a “banger” and we all hit 3rd shot drives and 5th shot drops often. Many people dislike this playstyle and i honestly don’t understand why. Games are more challenging and engaging this way, and you are rewarded for having good technique and good positioning. And it’s not like the soft game doesn’t exist. A good player needs to have good control over their dinks to be aggressive, but also need to be able to fire off shots when they need to. I don’t think it is unfair at all.

You can argue that with more powerful paddles anyone can just hit the ball as hard as they can whenever and succeed, but I’d argue that any decent player can counter this playstyle with proper blocks, counters and resets. Skilled players still need have to have good shot choice, good positioning and good aim to be successful. On top of that, it is just WAY more interesting to watch/play hands battles over dink battles. I don’t even have to explain how boring it is to watch/play 30-40+ shot rallies that are just dinking the whole point. There is more room for skill expression with powerful paddles, and higher skilled players should have the option to make higher skill plays.

The game is speeding up and I honestly think that should be embraced especially considering how competitive the sport is getting. If you want accessibility, choose courts with likeminded people, but tournaments should be fast and have a high skill ceiling. The hate towards power paddles to me just seems like whining because slower players keep losing. IMO either get good or find a senior group to play with.