Basalt Wars: A New Hope

[J011yroger]

Man, as nice as this thing feels normally, it is AMAZING with silicone in the handle.

Hit yesternight with a 5.5ish(?) girl, and today with the incomparable VSBabolat.

It is nice, it hits nice. The 5/8 grip makes the world of difference.

I am thinking I will get another one and use them in practice and for some hitting and hope that it will tide me over until the new Wilsons come out, and I will try to stock up on K90s in the meantime.

J

[corbind]

Originally Posted by J011yroger

Man, as nice as this thing feels normally, it is AMAZING with silicone in the handle.

Hit yesternight with a 5.5ish(?) girl, and today with the incomparable VSBabolat.

Did you put the silicone in yourself? If so know how much weight you added in silicone?

[Pickle9]

Originally Posted by J011yroger

Man, as nice as this thing feels normally, it is AMAZING with silicone in the handle.

Hit yesternight with a 5.5ish(?) girl, and today with the incomparable VSBabolat.

It is nice, it hits nice. The 5/8 grip makes the world of difference.

I am thinking I will get another one and use them in practice and for some hitting and hope that it will tide me over until the new Wilsons come out, and I will try to stock up on K90s in the meantime.

J

Don't kid yourself, she's a usta rated 4.5.

[J011yroger]

Originally Posted by corbind

Did you put the silicone in yourself? If so know how much weight you added in silicone?

Not on this particular one, but I have in the past. You can put in as much as you want, if you are looking to add more weight you can put some buckshot in there with it.

J

[J011yroger]

Originally Posted by Pickle9

Don't kid yourself, she's a usta rated 4.5.

Kind of curious to see how long that lasts lol.

J

[J011yroger]

Wish I had radar on one of the forehands I hit with the prestige last night.

I'm starting to try to see what it can do on its own merits instead of trying to make it do what the Wilson does.

Also think I am going to string it looser next time.

J

[klementine79]

It's a no-frills, pick your spot and hit kind-of frame. Great on back-hand slices and up at net.

The only thing it's missing is the variation on serve compared with the t90s. And that's a deal breaker sometimes. You really start to miss the 90 on serve.

4-5/8s with leather feels like a wilson 4-1/2 with leather, which I see you've found out already.

Keep postin'.

[J011yroger]

I miss the weight and kick on my forehand more than anything.

Only hit half a dozen serves with it, and they landed closer to the baseline than the service line. I blame the rectangle grip shape, despite the fact that getting serves in the box was never my strong suit.

J

[Fuji]

Originally Posted by J011yroger

I miss the weight and kick on my forehand more than anything.

Only hit half a dozen serves with it, and they landed closer to the baseline than the service line. I blame the rectangle grip shape, despite the fact that getting serves in the box was never my strong suit.

J

Have you ever thought about getting the Wilson Pallets from RPNY? I've used them and they feel pretty darn similar to the Wilson shape.

-Fuji

[J011yroger]

It is no problem for me to get Wilson grips, the Head one is ok for now though.

J

[nyc]

It's actually surprisingly easy to get used to Head pallets.
I went the rpny/wilson pallet route on one stick but the size was off.

So I stuck with the Head original pallets and love 'em now.

[Fuji]

Originally Posted by nyc

It's actually surprisingly easy to get used to Head pallets.
I went the rpny/wilson pallet route on one stick but the size was off.

So I stuck with the Head original pallets and love 'em now.

See, I've used Head on and off for probably about 2 years of hitting, and I can tolerate the pallet shape, but I don't care for it.

-Fuji

[nyc]

my OHBH is grateful for it.

[Pickle9]

Originally Posted by J011yroger

I miss the weight and kick on my forehand more than anything.

Only hit half a dozen serves with it, and they landed closer to the baseline than the service line. I blame the rectangle grip shape, despite the fact that getting serves in the box was never my strong suit.

J

The huait of da ball make my harm tremble.

[J011yroger]

Taking the Prestige into battle. First time playing a match with it.

I've tapped the 07 Fed clay court polo for the occasion.

J

[J011yroger]

J

[db10s]

Originally Posted by J011yroger

J

ITS SO.... ummm.... EYEGASM inducing... On a side note, they must've just started the match... Look at the court.

[J011yroger]

Ok, played pretty well today. All things considered, probably slightly worse than an average day with the Wilson, but darned good for my first match with the Prestige.

I think with a month of play I would be a better doubles player with the Prestige than I am with the 90s. It is just a phenomenal doubles racquet for me. Doubles hides its weaknesses over the Wilson, and highlights its strengths.

Played 3 sets of dubs, and I returned from the Ad side.

Serve:

Great. I was a bit worried going in since I had never served with the frame before aside from six that I hit after I was done with practice Saturday which landed closer to the baseline than the service line. Wasn't an issue today, I doubled twice in three sets. Serves seemed to have plenty of zip and opposing team said my ball kicked higher than usual.

I hit an assortment of hard topspin, 3/4 kickers, and full kickers for the most part mixed in a few sliders to the deuce court, and tried to belt one flat ball which I missed horribly with.

My wide sliders to the deuce were more to the center of the box than the corner, nevermind up the line where I wanted them, and my wide kickers to the ad side were usually wide into the doubles alley. So it seemed that most of my wide serves were landing further to my right than I wanted them to land.

All in all very promising on the serve, and I felt that I had it nowhere near timed or felt out so if it is this good at first blush, I think I will be very pleased with how it ends up.

Return: I struggled with the return for most of the first two sets, and then towards the end of the second, and for the entire third buckled down and concentrated which helped immensely. Returning I feel is my best strength, and I tend to use the force when I return, or just act off instinct, but I didn't always have the racquet pointed in the right direction because of its newness, and the grip shape. I found that I had to be very conscious of the angle and direction of the racquet face, and give it a bit more of a swing than I normally do with my 90s.

I am sure it will come right around with some more reps as I began hitting quality returns regularly in the third set.

I am going to string it a bit looser next time and I think that will give it just a hair more pop off of the block returns.

Groundstrokes:

I didn't hit terribly many groundstrokes, but it performed admirably. The only thing I struggled a bit with was running forward to get a drop volley, or low dead slice, especially with the two hander. That is totally me though, not the racquet. I will be fine once I figure out the timing a bit better.

Volleys/Net: Exemplary. Awesome. Best volleying racquet I have ever used. Feels great, works great. Sneaky pop for when you are stretched out on a poach and can't get any weight behind the volley, or when you have to stretch all the way up for an overhead. I find that I make an astonishingly high number of half volleys with this frame, and assorted touch or reaction shots.

Overall:

Very promising. I am going to buy another one or two, and play with them some more. String them a bit looser to get a higher launch angle, and let me take a more aggressive vertical cut at the ball which should help it kick a bit more.

I think the more I work on figuring out the timing of this thing the more it will come around to my way of thinking. Just need to figure out how to make it sing. Right now she is just humming a bit.

J

[J011yroger]

Been thinking about this. I need the stringbed to give a bit more, to be a bit hotter.

Thinking of dropping the mains 4# and the crosses 2#.

If that doesn't work I might have to replace the BBO mains with something more elastic.

J

[klementine79]

^I'm guessing string breakage is less frequent with the PresMid. If that's the case, get some 17g poly in there. Provides more of an elastic string bed.