Andre Agassi former equipment

[ace0001a]

Originally Posted by tlimster

Thanks for a great post and review of Agassi's rackets. I still have a pair of his Pro One oversize widebody rackets, the pink and grey ones. I had three but broke one in play. You're right, they are pretty powerful, but I think less so than the Pure Drive or other more modern rackets. Definitely a bigger hitter than the POG, though.

Yeah, the Ultimate Pro was a nice racquet if I recall. At the time, I was trying to mold my game into where I would be generating the power instead of just the racquet. While I did try various widebody racquets back in those days, I never really found one that I truely liked as much as the classic beam designs.

Originally Posted by Dangus

Very nice post ace0001a, welcome to the forum!

Thanks guys...I'm somewhat of an online forum veteran, but didn't stumble upon one about tennis until I found this one recently while browsing for equipment. My buddy just broke the strings on his racquet this week (which were on his racquet for 8 years!) and I decided to dust off my old table top Klipper stringer to restring his racquet. I hadn't strung a racquet in over 10 years and so I decided to go online to read about the latest string technologies. I've got a Head Ti Radical that I bought from Big 5 Sporting goods over 5 years ago for a great deal and it came prestrung. I hadn't played much in the past 9 years, let alone 5. And so lately I've been feeling the itch and I got an old buddy to get back on the courts with me. It's funny to think that I've got 3 of the racquets Andre Agassi won Grandslams with: Donny Pro One LE he won the '92 Wimbledon with; The original Head Tour Series Radical he won the '94 US Open and '95 Australian Open with; And the Ti Radical which he won the '99 French and US Opens with. All great racquets by the way and also shows how much of an Agassi fan I am!

[ace0001a]

I've lately been obsessed again with tennis racquets and more specifically Agassi's racquets as well as their legacy. I did some more digging and found this thread:

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=29055

I also looked up pictures of Agassi's last run to the US Open finals and it appears he last used the Flexpoint Radical, but upon closer inspection of pictures as well as what has been hinted towards, talked about and possibly confirmed in the above thread that Andre may have well been using a custom head racquet all these years based off of the original Radical Trisys 260. I understand it makes sense for head to paint jobs on the racquets of their pros as it helps sell the new technology consumer racquets that they spend money to R&D. I guess what I don't like is the deception involved in going as far as painting in "fake" Liquidmetal Ridges or in the case of the Flexpoint, fake indentations and holes. If the manufacturer's are basing their product sales on what people see their pro are using, one would think that at a glance or from a far that you really can't see the details so much. So I wonder that wouldn't it be more honest to simply paint their pros' older racquets with the new paint scheme of the new models without the need to fake the physical and letter details? The could've just painted the Trisys 260as a Liquidmetal or Flexpoint, have the word "Radical" in the same font as the consumer models without the need to paint in fake ridges and holes. Wilson seems to have had no trouble getting away with painting Federer's custom Pro Staffs like their NCodes or KFactors without the need for fake features (as far as I've seen anyway), so why couldn't Head do the same? Just seems shifty to me and while finding this out doesn't deter me from wanting to try their new technolgy out from time to time and also it doesn't matter now since Agassi is retired, I just wish racquet companies didn't have to resort to painting in fake features on their Pros' racquets. You have to figure only gear geeks like many of us here would care and that most consumers wouldn't really be able to tell and they outnumber us tennis gear geeks, so to me it just seems unecessary. Anyway, I was just sort of venting there...

For the record, I do own a Radical Trisys 260 and do love the classic feel it has. I also own a Ti Radical and that I haven't used that much just simply because I got it on a super good deal around 6 years ago and haven't played very much since. I have used the Ti Radical enough to know that I like it very much too. But I'm roughly a 3.0 level player, so maybe I'm not good enough to know the subtleties. I am on a quest to own as many different Radicals as I can and if I find good deals on the other ones then I will try to get them.

So with all that said, I guess Andre didn't tinker as much as many have thought in here in this thread. I mean we all know he went from a Prince Graphite OS to a Donnay Pro One (Limited Edition), tried a widebody Donnay briefly, back to the Pro One and then to the Head Radical line. He may have had subtle changes to his custom Radicals, but his racquets probably haven't changed much if at all since the first Radical like many have said in the above thread I linked to.

[VGP]

Originally Posted by ace0001a

In the spring of 1990, I watched on TV Agassi play an exhibition tournment called the AT&T Challenge in Atlanta that was played on green clay. He was using this prototype widebody racquet (which some were saying was codenamed the "ghost") that was all black. I remember he kicked butt at the tournament and was hitting the crap out of the tennis balls. After the matches, I remember him saying how he was liking the development of the racquet and how it was adding more power to his game. The AT&T Challenge at the time was considered one of many warm-up tournaments for the French Open since it was being played on clay, albeit green clay. Later that spring I remember watching Agassi playing his first round match of the French Open with that racquet. Apparently he was having a hard time controlling the ball and he broke one or two of them in frustration.

I remember seeing that tournament. I think he beat Jaime Yzaga in the final.

I could have sworn at the time that the widebody in question was the Prince CTS Thunderstick. It totally looks like it. 32mm at the top tapering to the throat.

Back in 1990 Tennis Magazine did a sort of "musical chairs" type or article about Agassi and his transition from Prince to Donnay. They had four or five pictures showing exactly what you described......going from the Prince POG to the blue and yellow Donnay Pro 1, to the blacked out POG with the Donnay stencil, etc.

It was my first real example of the practice of the paintjob.

[Power Player]

I just talked to a tennis pro that knows a ton about Agassi. He said that Agassi used the Donnay Pro One limited even when he switched to Head. Obviously can not be proven, but he said he retired with it painted like a Radical.

[ace0001a]

Originally Posted by Power Player

I just talked to a tennis pro that knows a ton about Agassi. He said that Agassi used the Donnay Pro One limited even when he switched to Head. Obviously can not be proven, but he said he retired with it painted like a Radical.

Ok, didn't want to keep this specific point going...but yeah I have read that too and I honestly would find that hard to believe. You could speculate that perhaps the people at Head somehow got a hold of the molds to the Pro One and basically continued to supply their client what he needed, but again I would find it hard to believe. For one thing, the Pro One OS has an open string pattern of 16/19 and the Radicals (if you look at the pictures of the various ones he used), they all have at least the 18/19 just like the consumer Radicals. If you look at the pictures of the supposed Flexpoint model he is holding in his hands, it does not look like a Pro One but does look like a Radical Trisys 260 painted to look like a Flexpoint. In my opinion, I'd say the most plausible conclusion is that Andre used a custom Radical based off of the original Trisys 260 all these years and simply had it painted to match whatever Radical model that was out each year.

[Power Player]

Well the REISSUED Pro One is 16x19, but the one from 1991 was 18x19.

After playing with one, I would not find it super hard to beleive. It plays incredibly well.

I would love to get a Head Trysis and compare them. I am sure that is a killer stick also.

Anyway, I have no idea one way or the other. But the guy who told me this has been a FL tennis player for years and UTSA teaching pro, so he may know some folks down in Bradenton .

[ace0001a]

Yeah the Pro One was never 18/19, even the actual one Agassi used. I owned the consumer Yellow/Blue Pro One that Donnay tried to get him to use which subsequently he didn't like and went back to using all black painted Prince Original Graphite OS racquets with the Donnay stencil on the strings. My educated guess would be that Donnay had already commited to and manufactured a large stock of them to sell. I specifically remember reading articles in Tennis Magazine that said Donnay went back and studied the Prince Graphite some more and came up with a custom Yellow/Blue Pro One for him. That Pro One later became the Orange-Pink/Gray Pro One Limited Edition (which I also own) model that was sold. Though I'm sure Andre's Pro One LE still had some more customization specific to his needs, but the consumer Pro One LE was still made from the same mold. Since the Prince Graphite was 16/19, it makes no sense to have made the Pro One 18/19. Also, the batch that Tennis Warehouse has now has been stated to be made to Agassi's specifications:

"With both positive feedback from our in-house hitting and our Talk Tennis faithfuls, production of prototype racquets began. Our "made for Agassi" racquets were shipped to the manufacturer to ensure everything was up to spec and that the colors were replicated exactly."

So again, there was never a 18/19 string patterned Pro One. Just look at this picture of Agassi from the '91 French Open and you can clearly that it has a 16/19 string pattern:

[IMG]http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g227/ace0001a/****/agassi1992french1.jpg[/IMG]

Again I'm going with what has been stated in an old thread that discussed Agassi's racquets and I honestly believe that he has used the same Head Radical since he signed with them back in '93. It's simply that he had to have paint jobs on his original Radical Trisys 260 to match whatever model racquet was out in each particular year he was active. If there's another thing you can look at is the shoulders of the racquet he uses and you can see how it contours inside whereas the Pro One is flat.

Here's a pic from what appears to be the 2006 US Open, his last:

[IMG]http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g227/ace0001a/****/Andre_Agassi__US_Op_206364c1.jpg[/IMG]

You can see the shoulders and how they contour inside where they meet up with the throat. Aside from the picture distortion arguement, I've looked at many pictures and the shape of the racquet he uses looks very much like the Radical Trisys 260. Not trying to beat a dead horse here and originally I was just peeved to find out shadyness of paint jobs, but as it has been stated in a previous thread (and quoted from an "unamed Head rep") that Agassi's racquets were indeed manufactured by Head and that he most likely stuck with the same racquet (minor tweaks here and there possibly) that they originally designed for him.

[Power Player]

I would agree. I want to try out that original Head and see how it compares to the Donnay I have. I think that will answer everyone's questions right there.

The Donnay Pro One that was a success was the LE. That model was based on the Prince OG OS except tweaked a little to Agassi's specs. So it is logical to say that Agassi loved that Donnay LE and probably went to Head and let them analyze that frame and add their tweaks to it. That ended up being the 260 and his main stick.

So I truly would love to hit with one and see how it feels compared to the Donnay. I would bet that they are probably pretty similar.

I am probably biased, but I think the Donnay LE is one of the bext racquets ever made. I say this after demoing a ton of new modern sticks and growing up playing with Prince graphites.

[ace0001a]

Having started playing tennis myself in the late '80s, I know how racquets of that decade felt like. To me, the funny thing about racquet technology innovation felt like it got started in the late '80s. Basically when you look at racquets like the Prince Graphite or the Wilson Pro Staff, there were straight beam tradition design pinnacle racquets of their era. Eventhough the Donnay Pro One was a modest improvement on that technology, it was already "old technology" when it came out. In the brief widebody era that lasted from the late '80s to the mid '90s, we saw some innovation that still exists today. Granted that most racquets now are as ridiculously wide as widebody racquets were at the height of that era, they're not the thin boxy 19mm width from the era of the Prince Graphite. I briefly owned a Prince Graphite and I did think it was a great racquet. I only sold it because the grip size was too small and I didn't like the idea of having to build up a grip. Also being an Agassi fan, I ended up getting one of the Yellow/Blue consumer Pro Ones. If I recall correcty, it did feel like the Prince Graphite but not as solid. The first Head Radical to me felt just as solid as a Prince Graphite or Pro One LE, but also lighter. I think that was the case probably because there was a technological idea that the lighter the racquet is, the easier it is to generate faster racquet head speed. If you check ****, you'll find a Head Radical Tour for sale from time to time.

[jimbo333]

Nobody is interested obviously so I've done my own research, just in case anybody else might be interested.

87-88 POG OS with 16x19
89-92 Donnay Pro One OS with 16x19
93 Various
94-98 Head Radical Trysis 690 20x21
99-06 Head Radical Trysis 690 18x19

And there is overlap on some of the years obviously.

The Head Radical Trysis 690 was under 6 other paint jobs as well.

Does all this sound about right?

[star 5 15]

Originally Posted by Puddy

Notice the last mains being different from the others?

I believe it was because the kevlar was not long enough to do all the strings so they used 20ft kevlar and a 25 feet of vs

[Azzurri]

Originally Posted by ollinger

Probably no coincidence that the greatest returner in memory used an OS. I still find that when my game is off a bit, I play better with the forgiveness of an oversize. Maybe this is why an overweight Serena, using a near-OS (104), can devote relatively little time to the tour and just show up and win slams.

I can understand each individual is different, but I doubt the OS racquet Serena uses is the reason she wins what she wins.

[Azzurri]

Originally Posted by ace0001a

Andre Agassi was and still is my favorite tennis player. I too think it's great that he was willing to adjust his equipment through the years and when you think about it, wasn't too different than what Jimmy Connors (another great returner) did through his career...maybe even chalk it up to great minds think alike. I lost count of how many racquets Andre went through, but I do remember most of the early ones.

Back in the late 80s, the Prince Graphite Oversize was a very popular racquet. When I got into tennis while I was in highschool in the late 80s, I remember seeing that racquet around alot. Of course you saw the likes of Andre Agassi, Michael Chang, Gabriella Sabatini and Monica Seles using it as well as many junior players at the time. To me, the Prince Graphite Oversize is one of 2 distictive racquets of that era...with the other being the Wilson Pro Staff [Original 6.0] that was used by the likes of Pete Sampras, Jim Courier and other lesser known pros as well as many junior players at the time. I owned one myself and thought it was a very solid feeling and performing racquet.

By the time the 80's were about to close, Andre's contract with Prince ran out or was outbid by Donnay. Donnay had created a neon-yellow/dark-blue racquet called the Pro One for him and apparently he didn't like it. I recall many reports and seeing pictures of Andre using an all black racquet with a Donnay logo painted on the strings that looked supsiciously like a Prince Graphite OS. Donnay apparently produced a full batch of the original Pro One to sell and apparently were in a bind of sorts with Agassi since he stopped using it. I bought one and thought it felt similar to the Prince Graphite, but obviously I wasn't professional tennis player and I honestly couldn't tell it was any worse of a racquet. I then later read that Donnay went back to the drawing board, studied the Prince Graphite more closely and came to the conclusion that they had to stiffen up the shafts because they couldn't copy Prince's cross bar. So when Andre started using the Pro One again, I always looked closely at it in pictures and noticed it had a different beam profile to my the original Pro One that I owned and realized they had reworked it for him. Eventhough it was the same colors (neon-yellow/dark-blue), it was a different racquet than the consumer version.

In the spring of 1990, I watched on TV Agassi play an exhibition tournment called the AT&T Challenge in Atlanta that was played on green clay. He was using this prototype widebody racquet (which some were saying was codenamed the "ghost") that was all black. I remember he kicked butt at the tournament and was hitting the crap out of the tennis balls. After the matches, I remember him saying how he was liking the development of the racquet and how it was adding more power to his game. The AT&T Challenge at the time was considered one of many warm-up tournaments for the French Open since it was being played on clay, albeit green clay. Later that spring I remember watching Agassi playing his first round match of the French Open with that racquet. Apparently he was having a hard time controlling the ball and he broke one or two of them in frustration. He later had his good old trusty Pro-Ones flown in and he went on to make it all the way to the final of the French Open that year. Donnay later released that racquet as the "Ultimate Pro" that was painted in a neon-pink/medium-gray scheme and I bought one of them too. I remember it feeling very much like a Prince Graphite/Pro One, but in a widebody format and offering much more power. But like anything else I make a hobby of, I sold it after using it for a while.

I remember not long after or around the same time, Donnay finally released the actual Pro One that Agassi was using in the same neon-pink/medium-gray color scheme as the Ultimate Pro. They called that version the "Pro One Limited Edition" and the beam cross section was very rectangular (similar to a Prince Graphite), whereas the original Pro One had a more oval cross section. Agassi won his first grandslam ('92 Wimbledon) with that racquet. I bought one of course and I'd have to say that it felt much more like the Prince Graphite than the first version did. I sold my original Pro One to a friend years ago, but I still do own a Pro One LE (although I can't find it at the moment). I remember seeing Agassi use a 3rd color scheme Pro One that was something like red/blue/silver and I think that was the last Pro One he used before his contract ran out with Donnay. Sometime around 1993, he switched to Head and I recall Donnay pulling out of the US market not too long after.

I recall Andre's first Head racquet was designed from their Tour Series models at the time and they called it the "Radical". It was bright yellow and black, the same oversize format as all of his other racquets and again had that similar feel to the Prince Graphite. I bought one of course and I was describe it as feeling like all of his other racquets before, but lighter. I guess since he like to tweak his equipment, perhaps he was trying to gain more racquet head speed by going with a lighter racquet, or racquets becoming lighter is simply part of the progression of technology, or a little of both. Either way, that yellow and black Head Radical became the 2nd racquet he'd win a Grand Slam with...he went on to win the 94 US Open and 95 Australian Open with it.

Of course his tweaking continued and I believe Andre changed to a different/newer Radical sometime midway through 1995. After that I lost track of which racquet he was using, but I do know he went through several iterations of the Radical and obviously Head is still producing a version of the Radical these days. Still I think it was part of Andre Agassi's style to be dynamic with equipment changes...something I thought was cool and set him apart from the arguably boring ways of other players.

Andre...Andre, is that you?


LOL, great info..thanks!

[acintya]

what tension has he used on the head radical os?

[ericsson]

Originally Posted by acintya

what tension has he used on the head radical os?

According to my database he used 64,66 and 67lbs depending what surface or tournament.
In his younger days it was a little higher and could go up to 72lbs.

[baseline_monster]

For what its worth, I was at RPNY last summer, Agassi had about 6 cubbies full of rackets, 4 full of his Radicals, at that point it was the YT PJ, they let me hold one, heavy! There was also 2 cubbies full of instincts, and they looked like stock LM but obviously modified with his handle pallet and weighted. Seemed weird they still had so many of them. His radicals did look like a 107, I think there are so many who find it hard to believe a player of that standard used OS they want to believe other wise

[Doubles]

Originally Posted by ericsson

According to my database he used 64,66 and 67lbs depending what surface or tournament.
In his younger days it was a little higher and could go up to 72lbs.

Was that still with the Kevlar? That must have hurt...

[Thepunisher]

Originally Posted by Power Player

I just talked to a tennis pro that knows a ton about Agassi. He said that Agassi used the Donnay Pro One limited even when he switched to Head. Obviously can not be proven, but he said he retired with it painted like a Radical.

I have one of Andre's racquets and I can guarantee you it's not a Donnay Pro One. It's very similar to the Radical 260.

[Rockitdog]

Originally Posted by Thepunisher

I have one of Andre's racquets and I can guarantee you it's not a Donnay Pro One. It's very similar to the Radical 260.

Well now, we can't let you make a statement like that without some pics to back it up. So come on now, cough up the proof!

[namartens]

I agree. How can you say that and not post pictures?