Wilson Hits Homerun with Wilson Steam 99S (mini review)

[The Dark Knight]

Originally Posted by mikeler

Drak touched on string durability. That would be my only concern.

Ya know string durability is not that big of an issue with Poly.....they all just sort of go flat pretty quickly.....many ploys are very durable but they play like sheet after a few matches.

[Hankenstein]

Its a lot of focus on the spin of the 99S, but what is not talked about is that the frame itself is a really good frame! The normal Steam 99 is also a very good frame, but it feels quit a bit stiffer due to more strings in the frame.

The 99S has a really good overall feel and after using it 3 hours it convinced me to order 4 frames of it.

The sample 99S is strung with 4G 1,30 ad it has not snapped yet after 4 hours of play.

It is not possible to play the same type of tennis with the blade 18/20 as with the 99S. The 99S has to much power if you are a flat hitter. You need to be a topspin-player to benefit from the 99S

[Federerkblade]

hank

what will you be stringing your personal bought steam 99s with and what tension.

I string with blackout 1.24mm apart from durability will my usual 49lbs be ok or should i go up to compensate for a more open pattern

[racertempo]

Originally Posted by corners

About the the only thing unconventional about shots from a spaghetti racquet were that it produced twice as much spin as a conventionally strung woody, and launched the ball higher off the strings. Combined, the higher rebound angle and extreme spin produced ball trajectories and bounces that were very surprising to those who hadn't faced it before. But the reports of the racquets producing wild or unpredictable spin are greatly exaggerated; the spin was just much more extreme than anything player's had seen before. Eventually players would have adjusted to the arcing, high-bouncing balls it produced.



Usually, yes, more spin means less speed. (We should probably keep the word "power" out of this, as it just confuses everything. The unit for power is the watt, which obviously doesn't do us much good when talking about shot speed and spin.)

However, Wilson is claiming that these "Spin Effect" frames produce more spin and speed for a given swingpath and swingspeed. The extra spin is produced by the more rapid snapback of the main strings owing to the reduced number of cross strings, and the extra speed is probably a result of the fewer cross strings as well. Fewer cross strings means a more flexible (less stiff) stringbed in the direction parallel to the shot, so less of the ball's energy is lost in ball flattening, which results in a faster shot. (This would be similar to switching from full copoly to copoly mains/gut crosses, in terms of shot speed.)

(Note: The on court results that have been reported, like Drak's in the OP, might show that the 99S produces more spin and about the same speed as some other racquet, but we can't conclude from that the 99S does not, in fact, produce more speed than the other racquet because we don't know precisely the racquet-head speed and swingpath of all of Drak's shots during the playtest.)

If Wilson's claims are true, pros could benefit from this tech, as more spin & more speed would be very useful for any player, no matter how good, as long as they could control it. However, Wilson is claiming that the spin boost from 16x15 is not so dramatic with top-level players, so maybe it won't be interesting to them. My guess, though, is that if Rafa strung one of these up with his RPM Blast about 15 pounds tighter than his usual tension he would have a smile on his face.



Cool. Looking forward to reading how it performs in a match.



Yes, it is the mains sliding and snapping back that provides the extra spin. This was well established by about a dozen papers published by TW University two years before Wilson announced their new "technology". If the mains are "moving", in other words, if they are getting stuck out of position after a shot, they are too loose. Avoiding this will be the key to control with these open patterns, just as it is with copoly strings in general. As the TW Professor showed in this paper, if the mains are not stiff enough they will slide too far to snap back in time to produce additional spin. Instead, they will raise the rebound angle hugely and may actually reduce spin - the result will be a very deep, uncontrollable ball that doesn't drop as expected because it doesn't have much spin on it. (We should probably be on the lookout for this when reading reports about these frames. Based on reports from people like Drak, who have played with them strung up properly by Wilson, we know that they are controllable. If someone posts a report that they were launching balls all over the place, or that the frame was a "rocket launcher" we should probably suspect that their strings weren't tight enough.)

Anyone playing with these frames should study that article closely to help find the right string tensions needed for control. One of the things that the paper suggests is that anyone considering a gut/copoly hybrid in a 16x15 should be prepared to string quite a bit tighter than usual. Otherwise, the extremely flexible gut will slide so far in these patterns that it will never have time to snap back before the ball leaves the strings.

Thanks for the reply and the link to the study, I found it an interesting read and it raises some questions that you might be able to help me with. The 105s frame recommends 57-67lbs and the shop strung it at 62. I am a full poly player and I have worked my tension down (little by little) from 60 to 50 and love the feel of the poly at that tension. You recommend going tighter on the 16x15 pattern which makes sense, but do you think the 10% drop is still important when using a full-poly bed?

Additionally, the demo has multi in the crosses which theoretically should allow the mains to move and snap back more then a poly....correct? When I get mine in January and go with a full poly do you think I'll see a massive difference? Maybe go a little looser on the crosses of Poly? I was thinking maybe 60 on mains and 57 on crosses.....does that logic make sense or am I way off base here? Thanks for the time!

[Hankenstein]

Originally Posted by Federerkblade

hank

what will you be stringing your personal bought steam 99s with and what tension.

I string with blackout 1.24mm apart from durability will my usual 49lbs be ok or should i go up to compensate for a more open pattern

Kevlar in 70 lbs JK

I dont know yet! I like the 4G a lot. I use around 50 lbs in most frames i play, but i think 50 will be to soft in 99S.

Im going to string all 4 frames with different strings to see what is the best match. Will try Lux 4G, Signum Pro Poly Plasma, Plasma Hextreme and Plasma Hextreme Pure. Im also giving RPM Blast a try.

[Pet]

Spin is produced by swingspeed, more speed = more rpm

Nothing to do with dumbs tech.

[Federerkblade]

Originally Posted by Hankenstein

Kevlar in 70 lbs JK

I dont know yet! I like the 4G a lot. I use around 50 lbs in most frames i play, but i think 50 will be to soft in 99S.

Im going to string all 4 frames with different strings to see what is the best match. Will try Lux 4G, Signum Pro Poly Plasma, Plasma Hextreme and Plasma Hextreme Pure. Im also giving RPM Blast a try.

ok let us know when do your raquets arrive

[sundaypunch]

Originally Posted by Pet

Spin is produced by swingspeed, more speed = more rpm

Nothing to do with dumbs tech.

Thanks for the info. I guess they should close this thread now that you have sorted out the mystery of spin for us.

[Hankenstein]

Originally Posted by Federerkblade

ok let us know when do your raquets arrive

They will arrive mid January they told me

[Mongolmike]

Originally Posted by Pet

Spin is produced by swingspeed, more speed = more rpm

Nothing to do with dumbs tech.

Who is "dumbs tech"?

[corners]

Originally Posted by Pet

Spin is produced by swingspeed, more speed = more rpm

Nothing to do with dumbs tech.

Swingspeed and the steepness of ones swingpath are the most important factors to spin generation, no doubt about that. But copoly strings and open patterns have been proven to generate extra spin. Did you read the OP?

[corners]

Originally Posted by racertempo

Thanks for the reply and the link to the study, I found it an interesting read and it raises some questions that you might be able to help me with. The 105s frame recommends 57-67lbs and the shop strung it at 62. I am a full poly player and I have worked my tension down (little by little) from 60 to 50 and love the feel of the poly at that tension. You recommend going tighter on the 16x15 pattern which makes sense, but do you think the 10% drop is still important when using a full-poly bed?

I think that the best starting place would be mid-tension using 4g, which I think is what Wilson is doing with the racquets they provide for these organized playtests. It will be interesting to hear what Wilson recommends for strings and tensions when they launch this line. Hopefully they won't just recommend 4g at mid-tension! But 4g would be a good choice, as TWU's lab tests show that it holds tension better than any copoly on the market. A string that stays closer to its original tension would be less likely to get too loose to snap back quickly and would tend to provide a more consistent rebound angle and spin level over the life of the stringjob. And I think that will be more important with these super-open patterns.

I also like copoly at low tensions but I would be wary of going too low in these patterns, for the reasons mentioned in the earlier posts. But people will just have to experiment. When the strings start getting stuck out of place and the launch angle gets too high you'll know you've strung it too loose.

Additionally, the demo has multi in the crosses which theoretically should allow the mains to move and snap back more then a poly....correct?

I don't think so. Multi would actually be my last choice for a cross string because the many small strands of nylon in a multi break one by one and fray, putting friction drag on the mains as they slide by. If you want to go with a nylon string I would choose a very smooth synthetic gut (which are monofilaments) instead. But in general I think it would be best to stick with full copoly with these patterns, although gut/copoly should be very interesting if the tension is right. In general though, the reduced number of crosses will reduce the stringbed stiffness, so stringing up a 16x15 at 65 might result in total stringbed stiffness equivalent to a 16x19 at 55 pounds. (But that's just a guess). This might account for reports that the 99S is comfortable despite it's apparently high throat stiffness.

When I get mine in January and go with a full poly do you think I'll see a massive difference? Maybe go a little looser on the crosses of Poly? I was thinking maybe 60 on mains and 57 on crosses.....does that logic make sense or am I way off base here? Thanks for the time!

I think full copoly will definitely be better than the copoly/multi you've got now. And another reason for that is that the TW Professor found that, in 16x10 patterns, the cross string stiffness is also very important to timely snapback and spin. Mulitis and synguts are both significantly less stiff than copolys. Take a look at Figure 10 from this study http://twu.tennis-warehouse.com/lear...dstiffness.php

Also take a look at Figure 3, which is very interesting. You can see that with all strings tighter is better in 16x10 patterns, but in 16x19 patterns some strings produce more spin at 30 pounds and others produce more spin at 60 pounds of tension. Since 16x15 is kind of in the middle of those two patterns I think it's very hard to predict what would work best with the 99S and 105S. These are the only frames where I would even think about sticking to the manufacturer's recommended string and tension

[Pet]

Originally Posted by corners

Swingspeed and the steepness of ones swingpath are the most important factors to spin generation, no doubt about that. But copoly strings and open patterns have been proven to generate extra spin. Did you read the OP?

A lot of TT users report the same spin with 18x20 string pattern raquets.

[Broly4]

Originally Posted by Pet

A lot of TT users report the same spin with 18x20 string pattern raquets.

What actually happens, at least in my case, is that with the control provided by an 18x20 string patterned frame, you swing harder, combine this with a western forehand grip, and you get heavy top-spin as a result.

[racertempo]

Originally Posted by corners

I think that the best starting place would be mid-tension using 4g, which I think is what Wilson is doing with the racquets they provide for these organized playtests. It will be interesting to hear what Wilson recommends for strings and tensions when they launch this line. Hopefully they won't just recommend 4g at mid-tension! But 4g would be a good choice, as TWU's lab tests show that it holds tension better than any copoly on the market. A string that stays closer to its original tension would be less likely to get too loose to snap back quickly and would tend to provide a more consistent rebound angle and spin level over the life of the stringjob. And I think that will be more important with these super-open patterns.

I also like copoly at low tensions but I would be wary of going too low in these patterns, for the reasons mentioned in the earlier posts. But people will just have to experiment. When the strings start getting stuck out of place and the launch angle gets too high you'll know you've strung it too loose.



I don't think so. Multi would actually be my last choice for a cross string because the many small strands of nylon in a multi break one by one and fray, putting friction drag on the mains as they slide by. If you want to go with a nylon string I would choose a very smooth synthetic gut (which are monofilaments) instead. But in general I think it would be best to stick with full copoly with these patterns, although gut/copoly should be very interesting if the tension is right. In general though, the reduced number of crosses will reduce the stringbed stiffness, so stringing up a 16x15 at 65 might result in total stringbed stiffness equivalent to a 16x19 at 55 pounds. (But that's just a guess). This might account for reports that the 99S is comfortable despite it's apparently high throat stiffness.



I think full copoly will definitely be better than the copoly/multi you've got now. And another reason for that is that the TW Professor found that, in 16x10 patterns, the cross string stiffness is also very important to timely snapback and spin. Mulitis and synguts are both significantly less stiff than copolys. Take a look at Figure 10 from this study http://twu.tennis-warehouse.com/lear...dstiffness.php

Also take a look at Figure 3, which is very interesting. You can see that with all strings tighter is better in 16x10 patterns, but in 16x19 patterns some strings produce more spin at 30 pounds and others produce more spin at 60 pounds of tension. Since 16x15 is kind of in the middle of those two patterns I think it's very hard to predict what would work best with the 99S and 105S. These are the only frames where I would even think about sticking to the manufacturer's recommended string and tension

I hit the 99s on the machine today, including about 120 volleys from around the services line to gauge feel and I sensed no loss of feel for Steam compared to my Yonex RDIS 200 Lite strung with a full bed of Volkl Cyclone 17 at 50 pounds. Ground strokes were about the same as the Yonex, perhaps a little more spin but not a huge amount in my opinion....but I obviously don't have a Doppler Radar at my disposal. This demo was also strung at 62 with 4g in the mains and NXT in the crosses.

I really felt that the 105s had more power and far more spin, which is probably pretty obvious due to the extra spacing from the size and power from the lighter and thicker frame. I am leaning towards getting 1 of each in January after today. I was initially thinking of getting 2 105s but I think I will do 1 of each and use the 105 for doubles and 99 for singles (I like a heavier racquet for singles compared to doubles).

I will not string mine with 4g even though that is what Wilson recommends, just too expensive IMO. My favorite string right now is Wilson Spin Cycle so I will probably start with a full bed of that, then maybe try some YTEX and other brands that I have like the Volkl Cyclone.

Thanks for the references and links to the report, it is very very interesting to see higher tension creates more spin for full poly beds. I am not a fan of hybrid stringing but that is all they had for the demos...at least they had poly in the mains to give me some-what of the same feel that i would use with my own stringing....at least a closer representation then a demo with full multi when you are a full poly player

I think I am going to return the 99s on Monday and get the 105s for my match Monday night.

Oh.....the other important thing to me is forgiveness on off center hits, which is why I have been sold on Yonex for the last few years. I have tried the 100 Steam, the 96 and 100 Juice, the 100 and 95 Pro Staff frames from last year and I did not like any of them at all, even might say I disliked them.....so I was surprised at these Steam frames. The forgiveness felt equal to my Yonex, so I was very pleased.

BTW.....I am a 35 year old higher end 4.0, probably going to get bumped to 4.5 after next year, just a reference. Thanks for the time!

[corners]

Originally Posted by racertempo

I hit the 99s on the machine today, including about 120 volleys from around the services line to gauge feel and I sensed no loss of feel for Steam compared to my Yonex RDIS 200 Lite strung with a full bed of Volkl Cyclone 17 at 50 pounds. Ground strokes were about the same as the Yonex, perhaps a little more spin but not a huge amount in my opinion....but I obviously don't have a Doppler Radar at my disposal. This demo was also strung at 62 with 4g in the mains and NXT in the crosses.

I really felt that the 105s had more power and far more spin, which is probably pretty obvious due to the extra spacing from the size and power from the lighter and thicker frame. I am leaning towards getting 1 of each in January after today. I was initially thinking of getting 2 105s but I think I will do 1 of each and use the 105 for doubles and 99 for singles (I like a heavier racquet for singles compared to doubles).

I will not string mine with 4g even though that is what Wilson recommends, just too expensive IMO. My favorite string right now is Wilson Spin Cycle so I will probably start with a full bed of that, then maybe try some YTEX and other brands that I have like the Volkl Cyclone.

Thanks for the references and links to the report, it is very very interesting to see higher tension creates more spin for full poly beds. I am not a fan of hybrid stringing but that is all they had for the demos...at least they had poly in the mains to give me some-what of the same feel that i would use with my own stringing....at least a closer representation then a demo with full multi when you are a full poly player

I think I am going to return the 99s on Monday and get the 105s for my match Monday night.

Oh.....the other important thing to me is forgiveness on off center hits, which is why I have been sold on Yonex for the last few years. I have tried the 100 Steam, the 96 and 100 Juice, the 100 and 95 Pro Staff frames from last year and I did not like any of them at all, even might say I disliked them.....so I was surprised at these Steam frames. The forgiveness felt equal to my Yonex, so I was very pleased.

BTW.....I am a 35 year old higher end 4.0, probably going to get bumped to 4.5 after next year, just a reference. Thanks for the time!

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I've got an Rdis 200 as well, so the comparisons you make are pretty interesting to me, especially regarding feel. Poor feel is a deal breaker for me, so it's very nice to hear that these frames aren't all bite and no bark, so to speak. I'll definitely try the 105S too.

[srvnvly]

Originally Posted by drakulie

Sorry, I have left this thread unattended but I have a quick update I want to provide:

Put a Steam S on my Babolat RDC today. Here are the specs:

Srtung with 4G at 57lbs.
Weight: 320 grams
Balance: approx 3.5 pts HL
SW: 325
Flex: 69

enjoy!

Drak - does the Steam 99 (non-S version) have the same specs?

[couch]

Originally Posted by srvnvly

Drak - does the Steam 99 (non-S version) have the same specs?

I'm not Drak but yes, they have the same specs.

[srvnvly]

Originally Posted by couch

I'm not Drak but yes, they have the same specs.

Thanks, Couch- how different is the non-S than the S?

[couch]

Originally Posted by srvnvly

Thanks, Couch- how different is the non-S than the S?

Only difference is the string pattern. Non-S is 16x18.