TennisProdigy
04-27-2008, 05:49 PM
Here's the story, played 4 hours of indoor tennis with my dad and cousin at my club. I broke the cross string (gut) hitting with my dad after 15 minutes. I pulled out a freshly strung racquet and after a hour of hitting boom, break a main (poly) on a big backhand return. I just happened to be carrying around a tecnifibre 320 and the volkl.
So I pulled out the volkl which was strung with big ace at 58 pounds about 2 months ago. I checked the string tension and I felt that was still good and that the strings had locked firmly into place. When I first started hitting I was able to generate some incredible racquet head speed which in turn lead to some very heavy shots. Even with the dense string pattern I felt the spin generation was extremely generous.
Off the backhand side I felt that this racquet was much more controllable than my storm and I was able to swing out more with confidence even though I hadn't used this frame in months. My forehand side at first suffered a bit as I was spinning the ball a bit too much but I eventually started to flatten out the stroke and was able to paint the lines.
Volleys were a dream with this stick much more control and maneuverability than my leaded up storms with an almost head heavy balance.
I usually don't use my ohbh slice that often but with this frame I certainly did a bit more as I was able to hit a mean slice that staying low and really skidded off the court.
I felt that the sweetspot was long but not wide which was okay for me as I was able to dial in quickly and rarely framed the ball as the hitting session progressed.
Serving with this racquet was great. I was really able to accelerate the racquet head through on flat serves and generated even more pace than I do with my storms. Slice serves were on an equal level an even the topspin spin I recently learned was hit effectively. Due to the increased racquet head speed, I was able to serve with this stick better than I do with my storm.
The only place where the racquet suffered a bit were returns. While my backhand return was still solid due to my compact stroke, my forehand return was a different story. When I would try to block back returns, they didn't seem to have enough power and were attackable. Therefore, I would take full swings on returns no matter what the serve with mixed results. If I contacted the ball cleanly on the full swing I would be able to both place the ball well and hit it with good pace. However, quite a bit I would mistime the stroke and the ball would either land short for an easy winner or sail long.
All in all I was surprised with the performance of this stick and am even considering making a switch. Oh I also felt this racquet was very stable as unstable racquets bother my wrist and even after 4 hours of hard hitting, I felt no pain but a little stiffness, which is expected since I rarely practice that much in one day. I will be testing out the racquet tomarrow and the day after and compare it to my storms to see if I should make the switch.
So I pulled out the volkl which was strung with big ace at 58 pounds about 2 months ago. I checked the string tension and I felt that was still good and that the strings had locked firmly into place. When I first started hitting I was able to generate some incredible racquet head speed which in turn lead to some very heavy shots. Even with the dense string pattern I felt the spin generation was extremely generous.
Off the backhand side I felt that this racquet was much more controllable than my storm and I was able to swing out more with confidence even though I hadn't used this frame in months. My forehand side at first suffered a bit as I was spinning the ball a bit too much but I eventually started to flatten out the stroke and was able to paint the lines.
Volleys were a dream with this stick much more control and maneuverability than my leaded up storms with an almost head heavy balance.
I usually don't use my ohbh slice that often but with this frame I certainly did a bit more as I was able to hit a mean slice that staying low and really skidded off the court.
I felt that the sweetspot was long but not wide which was okay for me as I was able to dial in quickly and rarely framed the ball as the hitting session progressed.
Serving with this racquet was great. I was really able to accelerate the racquet head through on flat serves and generated even more pace than I do with my storms. Slice serves were on an equal level an even the topspin spin I recently learned was hit effectively. Due to the increased racquet head speed, I was able to serve with this stick better than I do with my storm.
The only place where the racquet suffered a bit were returns. While my backhand return was still solid due to my compact stroke, my forehand return was a different story. When I would try to block back returns, they didn't seem to have enough power and were attackable. Therefore, I would take full swings on returns no matter what the serve with mixed results. If I contacted the ball cleanly on the full swing I would be able to both place the ball well and hit it with good pace. However, quite a bit I would mistime the stroke and the ball would either land short for an easy winner or sail long.
All in all I was surprised with the performance of this stick and am even considering making a switch. Oh I also felt this racquet was very stable as unstable racquets bother my wrist and even after 4 hours of hard hitting, I felt no pain but a little stiffness, which is expected since I rarely practice that much in one day. I will be testing out the racquet tomarrow and the day after and compare it to my storms to see if I should make the switch.