QuentinFederer
Professional
I have recently bought this frame and thought I'd share a review here. In short, this racket is close to perfection. It's very hard to fault it.
Specs:
Weight: 346 g inc string, grip, dampener
SW: 328
Bal: 9 HL
String: poly tour fire 1.25mm 50lbs
Grip: leather + supergrap
No lead added, racket came in one gram over weight in stock form. Very good QC from Yonex.
Serves: Huge spin available on serve, it really made me confident going for kick second serves. Many were bouncing to shoulder height at the baseline. Flat first serves were very fast, I didn't have a radar today but my usual flat serves are around 100mph and I was definitely hitting bigger with the Yonex. Slice serves we're staying low and really spinning wide nicely. My kick serve out wide on the ad side was much improved, it's my weakest serve but I felt great confidence going for it with the Yonex. I was getting a lot of cheap points off the serve with this racket.
Groundstrokes: This racket again offers great spin and power, but flatter hitting was slightly more erratic. I feel like this is due to the string however, not the racket. I usually use an 18x20 with gut poly around 60lbs. I plan to increase the tension in the Yonex to 56 lbs next time to fix this, or possibly try gut poly. My backhand cross court was great, I was getting great spin and really using it to pressure my opponent into hitting errors on their own backhand. When I got dialed in on the forehand I was able to hit winners even when stood behind the baseline. Slice was good also, but it was sitting up a bit compared to the slice from my Wilson 6.1. I think with a bit more adjustment I could easily overcome this. This racket just feels so clean through contact on my topspin one hand backhand. I really was able to come through to ball and hit a heavy shot. While I want 100% confident attacking on the forehand side, my backhand made me very confident.
Volleys/Touch: I serve and volley as one of my primary tactics so the feel and stabilty of a racket is crucial to my game. This racket was incredible at net. The drop volley is my bread and butter shot and I was hitting it with ease. The racket was very comfortable at contact and crisp at the same time. This is exactly what I look for in a racket. Drop shot were fantastic, I was regularly using drop returns with great success. Driven volleys were easy and over heads were good too. It's a very fast feeling racket and very manoeuvrable. I was surprised at just how stable this was considering I hadn't put any weight in the hoop. I plan to put 5g at 3 and 9 just for a bit more stability.
Returns: Fast and manoeuvrable, this racket made returning easy. Stability wasn't an issue here, although a few more grams in the hoop would likely improve things. I could block or drive returns off both forehand and backhand.
I have been using a K6.1 18x20 this season, but I feel like I could switch to the Yonex by next year. It's a modern classic, I can really see this frame becoming very sought after in a few years, especially consider that Denis Shapovalov now uses it. It's just such a great all court weapon, I believe it would suit any style of play. I am also really enjoying my RF97 and CV Blade 18x20, but the Yonex just feels right in my hand. I hope you all find this review useful and I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys have.
A bit about my game: Strong serve, I'm always looking to attack the net. I will grind when required, but I prefer to keep points short. Groundstrokes aren't my biggest strength but are improving all the time. I'm from the UK but I would estimate that I'm around 4.0 on the American rating system, although I'm not 100% sure on this.
Specs:
Weight: 346 g inc string, grip, dampener
SW: 328
Bal: 9 HL
String: poly tour fire 1.25mm 50lbs
Grip: leather + supergrap
No lead added, racket came in one gram over weight in stock form. Very good QC from Yonex.
Serves: Huge spin available on serve, it really made me confident going for kick second serves. Many were bouncing to shoulder height at the baseline. Flat first serves were very fast, I didn't have a radar today but my usual flat serves are around 100mph and I was definitely hitting bigger with the Yonex. Slice serves we're staying low and really spinning wide nicely. My kick serve out wide on the ad side was much improved, it's my weakest serve but I felt great confidence going for it with the Yonex. I was getting a lot of cheap points off the serve with this racket.
Groundstrokes: This racket again offers great spin and power, but flatter hitting was slightly more erratic. I feel like this is due to the string however, not the racket. I usually use an 18x20 with gut poly around 60lbs. I plan to increase the tension in the Yonex to 56 lbs next time to fix this, or possibly try gut poly. My backhand cross court was great, I was getting great spin and really using it to pressure my opponent into hitting errors on their own backhand. When I got dialed in on the forehand I was able to hit winners even when stood behind the baseline. Slice was good also, but it was sitting up a bit compared to the slice from my Wilson 6.1. I think with a bit more adjustment I could easily overcome this. This racket just feels so clean through contact on my topspin one hand backhand. I really was able to come through to ball and hit a heavy shot. While I want 100% confident attacking on the forehand side, my backhand made me very confident.
Volleys/Touch: I serve and volley as one of my primary tactics so the feel and stabilty of a racket is crucial to my game. This racket was incredible at net. The drop volley is my bread and butter shot and I was hitting it with ease. The racket was very comfortable at contact and crisp at the same time. This is exactly what I look for in a racket. Drop shot were fantastic, I was regularly using drop returns with great success. Driven volleys were easy and over heads were good too. It's a very fast feeling racket and very manoeuvrable. I was surprised at just how stable this was considering I hadn't put any weight in the hoop. I plan to put 5g at 3 and 9 just for a bit more stability.
Returns: Fast and manoeuvrable, this racket made returning easy. Stability wasn't an issue here, although a few more grams in the hoop would likely improve things. I could block or drive returns off both forehand and backhand.
I have been using a K6.1 18x20 this season, but I feel like I could switch to the Yonex by next year. It's a modern classic, I can really see this frame becoming very sought after in a few years, especially consider that Denis Shapovalov now uses it. It's just such a great all court weapon, I believe it would suit any style of play. I am also really enjoying my RF97 and CV Blade 18x20, but the Yonex just feels right in my hand. I hope you all find this review useful and I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys have.
A bit about my game: Strong serve, I'm always looking to attack the net. I will grind when required, but I prefer to keep points short. Groundstrokes aren't my biggest strength but are improving all the time. I'm from the UK but I would estimate that I'm around 4.0 on the American rating system, although I'm not 100% sure on this.
