That makes sense. I came to the came conclusion about 7-8 years ago and switched from eastern to semiwestern... something Id always considered since it would let me use the same grip for backhand and forehand. By going to the Angell TC95 it helped me regain my flatter just skimming the net forehand killshots both crosscourt and DTL while being able to hit hard kicking modern poly driven topspin.
I think I agree with parts of your rationale in terms of polys and the spin effect made sense for many to move semi western or even full western. I find eastern quite forgiving in all honesty and easily switch between heavy spin and a flatter hit. If I am hitting against a player with very loopy strokes then I tend to move into semi western. The A pallet on the TC100 does give a more pronounced leverage on serves so very interesting given the frame is just a monster on serves already. It is also a bit easier for me to quickly go into my grip for my 1hbh. On the forehand, I am not sensing any big difference in all honesty. Far more difference based on string then grip. I have the TC100 in both A and B grips.
With an open pattern 100'' you get into a territory of unpredictability, where you essentially want to close racquet's face more, lift the swing path a bit, and thus generate as much topspin as you can to regain the control and predictability from the topspin itself and by playing with bit higher net clearance to increase the margin of error. But it's a different playing style as well. Different tools for different masters.
I had my share of experience with 100'' 16x19 racquets (even with 16x18 100'') and it was enough for me, conclusion was that my playing style and grip don't get along that well with such, so I stay in 95-98'' territory. I'd be willing to try 100'' but only 16x20 or 18x20 interest me for my playing style.
Perhaps one day Paul decides to create an 18x20 TC100, now I'm willing to bet this racquet done by Paul's mastery and layup quality might be a particularly interesting tool. Because it might bridge the precision issues of open pattern 100'' racquets and marry them with some interesting features of 100'' racquets, such as bigger sweet spot, defensive forgiveness and increased stability.
@Racketdesign have you given a thought about bringing 18x20 TC100 to life ?
There are some demos look up angell Tour 97
Shouldn’t effect weight/balance and easy enough to swap
its an incredibly minor shift... comes more down to comfort
Tough to describe but I'll try my best. I played the ai98 for about a year, three times a week and played the tc97 16x19 for two weeks. Both have roughly the same specs. First of all, I liked the ai98 very much. It's so forgiving en let's you rip the ball whenever you want it to. The only two concerns I experienced was that the stringbed was fairly dense for a 16x19 so I felt I really needed to rip the ball with good head speed in order to get decent spin. The second thing was that somehow, despite it having a low swingweight and balancepoint, my vollies didn't work at all because a. the racket feels a bit unstable and b. it's somehow hard to manoeuvre.
No.
I prefer playing with low powered straight thin beam players type racquets. Ken
Thx very much. Ken
Finally, a chance to play singles with my TC100 63RA and playing pretty nicely for 1.5hrs then thwak, it breaks
Finally, a chance to play singles with my TC100 63RA and playing pretty nicely for 1.5hrs then thwak, it breaks
Yeah, I have become so convinced of the TC100 63RA that I am seriously thinking of selling off my TC95s and stop the switching between them. The additional forgiveness is very nice and I don’t feel I am giving away a lot of precision. The TC100 is like a more amped TC95 with forgiveness.
Thanks for your nice words on TC100. I just ordered 2 (with the same specs as I did with my TC97) with green grommets!
