The Church of Polystringism-- Alidisperanza's PT Thread

[ManuGinobili]

didn't expect the PL II to rip the Tour Bite up that much

[pvaudio]

Good God, that's notched like somethin serious!

[alidisperanza]

Originally Posted by ManuGinobili

didn't expect the PL II to rip the Tour Bite up that much

Originally Posted by pvaudio

Good God, that's notched like somethin serious!

I thought it never was going to go-- hung on with a vengeance.

PS. Posted a casual hitting video up top from tonight from before it broke.

[pvaudio]

Wait a minute, how old are you? I thought you were in your 30s? And tell your hitting partner that standing on his heels doesn't usually work well on the court.

[alidisperanza]

Hahahha 23. Not my usual choice of hitting partner but he is one of the locals at that club. He's got odd strokes and worse footwork than I do (didn't think that was possible) but somehow is a 4.0 Go figure

[pvaudio]

Wow, I had no idea you were exactly the same age as me.

Anyway, what's your playing background? While you might hate on your footwork, the thing I noticed immediately was that you're light on your feet.

[alidisperanza]

Playtesting both the 16x19 and the 18x20 side by side.

String: WeissCannon Black 5 Edge 17
Frame(s): LM Radical MP, FXP Radical Tour
Tension:49 reference

Stringing:
Both frames at 49 reference tension using the "Jet" Method. The 18x20 can be a bit of a pain in the butt to weave with B5E but otherwise no real difficulties. Something in the back of my mind is telling me I should have probably strung the 18x20 a bit looser but we'll see how it plays.

Initial impressions:
I had the chance to hit with both of these frames for about half an hour each tonight with a high level partner (5.0 former D1 athlete). Some really unexpected results here.

16x19
Much softer/ more pocketing than the TB/PL II. I didn't think that was possible but I wasn't particularly happy with the initial feel of the ball-- it just wasn't predictable. Strings were shifting and I was yet again thinking "Cut job, string tighter." Once the strings settled a bit and I stuck a beefier vibration dampener on it, things got better. Disgusting access to spin if you step in and hit the ball properly. My partner hits with a ridiculous ammt. of spin for starters; the type of shots that take off at a high angle, look like they're sailing long, then dive-bomb into the ground and explode up-- it's tough to work with especially in dim lighting on har-tru courts with balls fast approaching the color forest green. Striking the ball properly, though, I saw the same results on my strokes (at a lower launch angle) which was immensely satisfying. Although he was able to handle it, the ball was at shoulder/ head height for him. Again, small errors = rocket launcher. Overall, a very comfortable hit. The downside--the freaking strings are already notched...no bueno

18x20
I was having a tough time returning my partner's balls consistently so I figured I'd try the 18x20. Totally different feel @ the same tension. The frame went from a cradling, soft, spin machine to a much stiffer control freak. In the 16x19 you can feel the strings shifting and snapping back. In the 18x20 it's just solid contact. What I made up for in consistency, I lost in ball depth. Previously I was hitting on or near the baseline but with the tighter string pattern I saw more of my balls landing short @ the service line. In conjunction with ball depth I thought I noticed a decrease in pace and spin overall even though my partner seemed to disagree. He said that when I drove the ball deep into the court, it seemed to have just as much spin. No notching which is good.




UPDATE: 3.3.12

16x19:
HOLY FRIJOLES...I'm having a panic attack here. I'm convinced this must be a fluke. Why am I freaking out? If I would give up now on this review I'd have to admit that WeissCannon has made a crapola product. Had an absolutely terrible hit tonight-- the other kid couldn't keep the ball in past 3 shots (including the feed). Anyways. The B5E didn't really play any better tonight than it did the first time I hit it. In fact, it played 100x better the first time. Strings were moving around, balls were sailing, and the only shot I seemed to be able to hit was flat. If I had to describe the stringbed tonight in one word, I would use "sloppy." Just a terrible, horrible, hit. Furthermore, with less than 2 hours total on the frame, the strings are SHOT. They're not only moving around like crazy but notched more than half way though. If I hit with someone with even mild spin production, they'll pop within 15...

I'm calling a mulligan here. Total.Do.Over but I'll be upping tension. **shakes head solemnly**
Best pic I could get but not even the worst of the notching...


REVIEW POSTPONED
Review postponed for 18x20 as well-- I sold the frame
Groundies:
TBA

Serving:
TBA

Volleys:
TBA

Tension maintenance:
TBA

Durability:
TBA

[alidisperanza]

Originally Posted by pvaudio

Wow, I had no idea you were exactly the same age as me.

Anyway, what's your playing background? While you might hate on your footwork, the thing I noticed immediately was that you're light on your feet.

I've been playing for a long time but never took tennis seriously until college. I suppose you could say my greatest "accomplishment" was getting the opportunity to play for Stony Brook University. I had my shot as a walk on then got into it with the coach. Unfortunately, I was a hot-head back then which = bye bye. Stopped playing for a bunch of years and now I'm back. I currently play USTA 4.0-4.5. Unfortunately, I'm stuck at 4.0 thanks to very poor 8.0 mixed showings and a slew of inconsistent partners for mens (attendance wise). I'm hoping to change that this year. I've tried to cut out all the bs, messing around and have been working on staying consistent and not trying to pull the trigger all of the time.

Oh and I also play professional beach tennis, haha. Definitely has changed the way I volley

[alidisperanza]

String: Boris Becker Bomber 17 (White)
Frame(s): FXP Radical Tour
Tension:49 reference

Stringing:
Fairly soft poly. I would put it somewhere in the middle. A little bit more stretchy than your average poly and it slides through when weaving pretty easy. Nothing crazy with the coil memory. The string stays true to its advertised diameter. 1.23 all the way before tensioning

Groundies:
I'll be updating this further but the feel of these strings is pretty interesting. Even though they're strung at the same 49lbs reference, they feel a bit stiff-- almost like I want to string them even lower. I found my backhand to be much much more effective than my forehand. Particularly backhand return of serve. In the hour of doubles that I played with this frame, I couldn't seem to find a rhythm on my forehand side. I'll have to hit more to make a better analysis. I also got the chance to hit some singles with these strings and I can now comfortably say that I prefer them for flat hitting by a mile. The response on a coiled flat stroke is linear in the sense that the harder you hit, the faster it goes. On the other hand, I didn't find the same results for spin. The more spin I tried to put on the ball, the further out it went, haha.

Serving:
I seem to be able to serve really well with this string. Flat is solid. It's not gut/poly but it definitely has a nice response off the string. Where this string really shined was in my second serve. I was able to hit with confidence and place the ball where I wanted on the line. Felt really great on spin serves. I noticed that the balls didn't necessarily dive bomb like a kick serve but drove forwards and up.

Volleys:
Not a huge fan here. There are other strings out there that volley better. Two adjectives I would use are "snappy" and "stiff." There's not much give in these strings so you get a fairly crisp response.

Tension maintenance:
Over the three-ish hours I played this frame, the string bed didn't change one bit. Still nice and tight response from the string bed.

Durability:
Won't know since I cut them out-- no notching though so I'm guessing favorable.

Final thoughts:
For the special price that TW sold these strings for, they're definitely worth the buy for the extra poly. I mean, common, how often can you get a set of decent string for 3.50? My suspicion, though is that these strings would perform very well in a hybrid of sorts. My next string job might just be a gut/poly combination since the mains should slide beautifully across the bomber.

Groundstrokes: 3.5/5 Good for flat hitting-- not my cup of tea for spin
Serves: 4/5 Nice and tight control.
Volleys: 3.5/5
Spin: 3/5
Power:3.5/5 Snappy but not incredibly powered
Comfort: 3.5/5
Tension: 5/5
Durability:NA

26/35 overall

[alidisperanza]

String: Gaucho Natural 16/ WeissCannon SilverString 17
Frame(s): LM Radical Mid
Tension: 54/ 57

Stringing:
Gaucho may not be the best natural gut out there but at 14.00 a set, one can't complain too much. This particular half set had a particularly even coating, no burrs, kinks, twists etc. Stringing it in the mains is cake provided you set your clamps right. Stringing it in the crosses... now that's a different story. SS, as always, is pretty easy to string. Just to make sure, I waxed the mains to reduce friction.

Note: I've played this setup many times in both this frame and my prestige mids and have always enjoyed it. I took a gamble and strung this 3 lbs lower than my usual. Consequently, my first reaction upon hitting was "Bah, the gut needs to be tighter." 15 minutes later it earned a coveted spot in my bag and sat there for 2 weeks. Recently though, I've been playing with lower tension poly and one night switched to this stick purely because I was tired/ sore from other things and it hit like magic.

Groundies:
With my style of strokes, this setup is NOT for slow hitting. I really have to dial the ball in and work on spin production when dealing with fed balls. Similarly to the low tension poly-- little mistakes in angle/ taking the ball late translate to ball launch. I definitely have noticed, though, that ever since I've been hitting the lower tensioned poly I've found this frame easier and easier to play. Spin is good, flat is great. When you set up correctly and take a big rip, the ball comes off the strings like a missile. Similarly, you'll be surprised sometimes that balls are clipping the baseline when they felt long.

Serving:
Yeaaaah Buddy! This setup is by far my best serving combination. Extra 10-15mph on my flat serve + all the comfort in the world. Great access to topspin serves too. Again, not really a fan of the slow serves. I tend to hit them long

Volleys:
Great feel, great pop, very easy to drive the ball deep. There's a reason gut has been the S+V choice for the ages. It plays fantastic at the net with the extra pocketing. My only issue is that sometimes the pop can be a bit too much. Although I'm getting better, I'm not as comfortable at the net as I am at the baseline and those small errors can cost me when trying to put the ball away.

Tension maintenance:
It's gut. It's awesome. Duh... Racquet has been sitting in my bag for 2 weeks with intermittent hitting and still feels great. Tension hasn't really changed after the first normal dip. SS also happens to be my favorite control/tension poly and holds up well in this frame

Durability:
I've got about 1-1.5 hours of doubles on this frame and so far so good. One small unravel by the 3rd cross from the bottom (no where near ball contact) and one really small strand coming loose in the sweet spot but I suspect it's more from the quality of the gut/ me picking at it than wear and tear. Update: Hit some serves with it last night and I'm starting to see more unravelling. I'll definitely have to try this combination with some tonic @ a higher tension next time.

[spillai]

How long does it take you to string a racket using the jet method?

[pvaudio]

I still have yet to find a better S&V setup than gut/Silverstring.

[alidisperanza]

Originally Posted by spillai

How long does it take you to string a racket using the jet method?

Good question, I'm not quite sure. I can string a typical racquet in 20-25 minutes if I speed along but I rarely do. I enjoy stringing so I take my time with it. I haven't timed myself with this new method yet but I'll make sure to do so next time

[alidisperanza]

Originally Posted by pvaudio

I still have yet to find a better S&V setup than gut/Silverstring.

Yeah. Serves are absolutely killer with that setup and setting up points is a lot easier when the ball comes back with a weak return. I've really enjoyed playing doubles with it.

I've been playing with the Gaucho which works great for me but I might splurge and try using tonic next time I string a frame. Once I get through my string of playtests (and pick up a steady job) I'll come back to it.

[mixedmedia]

And the play tests start rolling in! Keep it up, man. Nice info. I hope to try gut/SS soon, but right now it looks like I'll be doing full gut for a bit for curiosity and arm health's sake.

[alidisperanza]

Initial impressions on B5E up.

[pvaudio]

I, and I'm sure Mikeler will attest to the fact that B5E comes into its own as a main in a hybrid. It's just too low powered on its own.

[alidisperanza]

Yeah, I've read great reviews about it as a main. Eventually I'm going to string up a b5e/ OGSM and try that out.

I used to play a full bed of SS in my prestige mids so I expected the low power. What I didn't expect was how loose the string bed felt in the FXP tour at first. Who knows, it could have been that I haven't hit with my buddy in a while. I'll keep playing with it but I think I'm going to string the 18x20 a touch lower if I go for another full bed. I also get the crazy feeling that B5E would play very nicely with Bomber as a cross. Even though I haven't hit it yet it feels softer, slick, and could supply the extra pop. PL II might be another option.

[mikeler]

Originally Posted by pvaudio

I, and I'm sure Mikeler will attest to the fact that B5E comes into its own as a main in a hybrid. It's just too low powered on its own.

Have not tried it as a full bed, but I'll take your word for it. Was not anything special as a cross either unless you want something to saw through some cheap Unifibre gut.

[alidisperanza]

Added a YT Rad Pro to the mix.