Legend/Velocity

Traffic · Jul 24, 2018

Ok, I think V is worn out. String bed locking. Losing TS.
Had to put L/V away and pick up V/C stick and play tonight. Good thing V/C is still a great setup. Nice backup for sure. Now I gotta figure out how to re string before Sat USTA match. No time tomorrow and Thursday...also, V/C has a good amount of hours on it too...

Grieeegoorr · Jul 25, 2018

Is L still good, can you just restring crosses?

Traffic · Jul 25, 2018

Grieeegoorr said:
Is L still good, can you just restring crosses?

It's already the 2nd cross with this 1/2 set of L. But I don't see why not. I may just do that as that'll save me a little stringing time.

esgee48 · Jul 25, 2018

Any way for you to determine the tension on the Legend mains? I would suspect by his time that the strings have lost a significant amount of tension. New crosses will not help with spin if this has occurred.

Traffic · Jul 25, 2018

esgee48 said:
Any way for you to determine the tension on the Legend mains? I would suspect by his time that the strings have lost a significant amount of tension. New crosses will not help with spin if this has occurred.

Not sure.
I'm rather concerned that I've had L in my racquet for a while now. I also flipped the cross weaving to wear in the clean side. So I might have to start all over with a new 1/2 set. Then I can plan on flipping it possibly with another round of fresh V.

deaner2211 · Jul 25, 2018

esgee48 said:
Both @ByeByePoly and @Traffic are using V1 Pro. They are 16x19, but dense in the central mains. Interesting point you bring up though. I could never jive with multis and NG because they were too soft or powerful for my game. Only way I could handle them was with high tensions, which I did not like as that shorten their longevity a lot. People who can't find the sweet spot need a forgiving string bed and frame. I always break my string beds in the center of my string bed; has been so for decades. I noticed a long time ago, that players who break strings in the SS have a tendency to use stiffer strings and that they needed it due to RHS. So @Traffic, maybe you should just forego the NG. As you learn to increase RHS, you will end up going back to stiffer strings, just so you don't have to use higher tensions.

What? Higher tensions shortens the longevity of gut and multi strings? Where did you get that from? The more elastic the string is the longevity decreases. The tighter the strings the less elastic they are. Nothing beats a full bed of uncoated gut at 68 lbs. Best combination of power, spin and feel I have ever experienced.

tomato123 · Jul 26, 2018

Did someone say L/V???

just so happened to find an L/V racquet cover to go with your L/V racquet

Traffic · Jul 26, 2018

Ok. Re-strung L/V. 58/55 on a DW. RT = 61. It was 42 when I cut the strings out.
RT history shows L/C @ 60/55 RT'd at 60.9. A day later it was 57.8

Decided not to re-string V/C as it RT'd at 53. It was strung back in June @ 51/50 with RT=56

Mains have a good amount of notching. But surprised at only 3# tension drop.

If I have time, I may re-string. The notching has me a bit worried.

Traffic · Jul 27, 2018

Wow. Hit with L/V today. It's very stiff. Need it to break in quickly. Match tomorrow. Not feeling the groove. I'll see if I can warm up with sonny-boy and see if I have to use V/C. Either that, or I need an extra dose of post stretching...

Grieeegoorr · Jul 28, 2018

Traffic said:
Wow. Hit with L/V today. It's very stiff. Need it to break in quickly. Match tomorrow. Not feeling the groove. I'll see if I can warm up with sonny-boy and see if I have to use V/C. Either that, or I need an extra dose of post stretching...

Maybe you found your sweet spot for L in the second cross, maybe you could have got a third cross out of the previous 1/2 set. Give sonny-boy the fresh L/V to bash a few with and break it in for you.

Traffic · Jul 28, 2018

Grieeegoorr said:
Maybe you found your sweet spot for L in the second cross, maybe you could have got a third cross out of the previous 1/2 set. Give sonny-boy the fresh L/V to bash a few with and break it in for you.

Actually, I was thinking that I should have strung L/V @ 58/53 the first time. Then when V wears out, string V @ 55. This should yield lower tensions for the intitial stringing and maybe comparable tensions for the 2nd stringing.

Grieeegoorr · Jul 29, 2018

Traffic said:
Actually, I was thinking that I should have strung L/V @ 58/53 the first time. Then when V wears out, string V @ 55. This should yield lower tensions for the intitial stringing and maybe comparable tensions for the 2nd stringing.

I think that logic will give you a consistent DT over the life of the 2 stringings. You just need to be sure that 2lbs drop in cross tension is going to soften the string bed up enough. That DT of 61 is along way from the DT of 42 when you cut L/V out. The general consensus is that characteristics of the strings in the mains will dominate the feel of the string bed, so is this true for tension as well? Is the stiffness of the string bed going to be more affected by the tension in the mains or the crosses?

Traffic · Jul 29, 2018

Ok, played a match last night. String's are still too stiff. No forgiveness on my groundstrokes. Great at net though. My net game made up for my numerous groundstrokes errors. That also contributed to my serve confidence or more importantly lack of. What a rough outting. Still won the match 6-4, 7-6 (9-7)

ByeByePoly · Jul 29, 2018

Traffic said:
Ok, played a match last night. String's are still too stiff. No forgiveness on my groundstrokes. Great at net though. My net game made up for my numerous groundstrokes errors. That also contributed to my serve confidence or more importantly lack of. What a rough outting. Still won the match 6-4, 7-6 (9-7)

It's hard out there for a gut player

Traffic · Jul 30, 2018

I'm going to see if there is an opportunity to hit again this week and see if 5+ days after stringing, one warm up session and one doubles match is enough to loosen up the strings (not to mention about 5min of post stretching). Otherwise, I'll have to cut out Velocity and re-string at 52 or so to lower the DT. As it is right now, I really don't like play with this setup.

ByeByePoly · Jul 30, 2018

Traffic said:
I'm going to see if there is an opportunity to hit again this week and see if 5+ days after stringing, one warm up session and one doubles match is enough to loosen up the strings (not to mention about 5min of post stretching). Otherwise, I'll have to cut out Velocity and re-string at 52 or so to lower the DT. As it is right now, I really don't like play with this setup.

Here is some limited data ... do your Engineer thing:

All in v1 pro:

- fb bab vs touch 16 @55 NOT a rocket launcher
- fb bab origin 16 @55 WAS a rocket launcher
- fb v @55 pretty low power
- origin/v @55/52 not a rocket launcher

The key bit of info to me is that a v cross ... even @52 ... runs pretty good interference on a rocket launcher main. It's a multi ... we are never going to believe a multi cross @52 could tame anything ... and yet it does.

Traffic · Jul 30, 2018

ByeByePoly said:
The key bit of info to me is that a v cross ... even @52 ... runs pretty good interference on a rocket launcher main. It's a multi ... we are never going to believe a multi cross @52 could tame anything ... and yet it does.

YES. This is the x-factor. With Cream in the cross, I needed to up the cross tension to tame the gut. But with Velocity, I think I can run it lower and it'll still tame the gut.

I may have no choice but to re-string V with lower tension. I strung on Thursday with three days of 2+min of post stretch. 1-30min warm up session. 1-1.5hr doubles match. Should be all broken in by now. But nope. Still very stiff.

ByeByePoly · Jul 30, 2018

Traffic said:
YES. This is the x-factor. With Cream in the cross, I needed to up the cross tension to tame the gut. But with Velocity, I think I can run it lower and it'll still tame the gut.

I may have no choice but to re-string V with lower tension. I strung on Thursday with three days of 2+min of post stretch. 1-30min warm up session. 1-1.5hr doubles match. Should be all broken in by now. But nope. Still very stiff.

I can't remember if I strung fb Cream @50 or @52, but seems the power was pretty much the same as fb v @52. That is ... after first 30+ minutes of Cream (it had an initial extra lively period for me). vs/c @55/52 was also not a rocket launcher.

Remind me ... legend power comoared to bab vs?

Also ... I am now remembering my experience is LO tensions vs your drop weight. The relative power feedback is all that is probably useful.

ByeByePoly · Jul 30, 2018

Traffic said:
YES. This is the x-factor. With Cream in the cross, I needed to up the cross tension to tame the gut. But with Velocity, I think I can run it lower and it'll still tame the gut.

I may have no choice but to re-string V with lower tension. I strung on Thursday with three days of 2+min of post stretch. 1-30min warm up session. 1-1.5hr doubles match. Should be all broken in by now. But nope. Still very stiff.

We should never change racquets or strings or choice of tennis balls.

Traffic · Jul 30, 2018

ByeByePoly said:
I can't remember if I strung fb Cream @50 or @52, but seems the power was pretty much the same as fb v @52. That is ... after first 30+ minutes of Cream (it had an initial extra lively period for me). vs/c @55/52 was also not a rocket launcher.

Remind me ... legend power comoared to bab vs?

Also ... I am now remembering my experience is LO tensions vs your drop weight. The relative power feedback is all that is probably useful.

I thought Legend had a little more power than VS. I struggled with taming the power of Legend initially. Then I got the power dialed in but struggled with slight variations in launch angles until I switched to Velocity in the cross. But that was a 2nd stringing of Legend. So DT may have been lower overall. I didn't RT L/V off the stringer at the time.

Grieeegoorr · Jul 30, 2018

Do you have anything softer than V you could string in the crosses for a while, then go go back to V when L has loosened up a touch? Good excuse for another experiment

Traffic · Jul 30, 2018

Grieeegoorr said:
Do you have anything softer than V you could string in the crosses for a while, then go go back to V when L has loosened up a touch? Good excuse for another experiment

The only thing I've got softer than V is probably alphagut 2000. But that's my daughter's string.

Plus, it would throw all the fine tuning off because of power levels.

Not interested in any radical experimentation. I know generally what I want. Just trying to find time things.

I just need to carve out 30min to cut out the cross and re-strung at 52-ish...

Traffic · Aug 2, 2018

Well, gonna have to put this combo on hold. Family vacation for a couple weeks. If stringbed hasn't softened up by the time I'm back in town, then V gets cut out and re-strung at lower tension.

In the meantime, I'll probably grab my V/C racquet to hit with my boy while on vacation.

Traffic · Aug 13, 2018

Ok, just got back from an 11 day road trip to SoCal and Las Vegas. Was able to hit for a couple days with V/C. Started to groove pretty well with it. But the strings were starting to move since V was getting pretty notched. Came home and got on the court with L/V. Hitting a lot better with it. Got home and RTd it at 53.5. Took several weeks, but it's loosened up enough that I'm grooving with it.

I'm gonna have to order another pack so that I can keep experimenting with the right tensions for initial stringing and 2nd stringing.

In the meantime, I've gotta re-string my V/C racquet to keep my solid setup fresh...

tomato123 · Aug 15, 2018

Would you say L/V (or any gut/multi hybrid for that matter) would only be worth it if you're willing to restring crosses a couple times?

Traffic · Aug 15, 2018

tomato123 said:
Would you say L/V (or any gut/multi hybrid for that matter) would only be worth it if you're willing to restring crosses a couple times?

I think some of the magic would be lost after 20hrs of play (YMMV). But if you string twice L ($30/set) and V ($11/set), then it works out to roughly $20 per stringing. (A good multi is roughly $20 fb.)

If I can cut out V and re-string and get another 20hrs, then 1 set of L and 2 sets of V would be:
$30+$22 for 80hrs. or roughly $14 per stringing. A very good value.

BTW, I played Friday for an hour. Saturday for an hour. Monday evening for an hour. Tuesday morning for 1.5hrs and Tuesday evening for 1.5hrs. No arm issues other than some soreness in line with what I'm feeling throughout my entire body.

What's that worth to you?

Traffic · Aug 16, 2018

BTW, I had practice session with my 7.0 MXD team. But only the guys were available so I got a chance to hit with them. Was a lot of fun and I have to admit, L/V was playing its best. The feel finally softened up and the forgiveness came back. Too bad its taken 9hrs of play and about 3 weeks to get there.

I will say that I did a longer pre-stretch on this last stringing. So that may have also contributed to the "too stiff" feeling initially. I'm hoping to get another 11hrs out of this stringing before cutting out V and re-stringing. L looks great. V is starting to show signs of wear.

ByeByePoly · Aug 16, 2018

Traffic said:
BTW, I had practice session with my 7.0 MXD team. But only the guys were available so I got a chance to hit with them. Was a lot of fun and I have to admit, L/V was playing its best. The feel finally softened up and the forgiveness came back. Too bad its taken 9hrs of play and about 3 weeks to get there.

I will say that I did a longer pre-stretch on this last stringing. So that may have also contributed to the "too stiff" feeling initially. I'm hoping to get another 11hrs out of this stringing before cutting out V and re-stringing. L looks great. V is starting to show signs of wear.

I would string lower.

tomato123 · Aug 16, 2018

Traffic said:
I think some of the magic would be lost after 20hrs of play (YMMV). But if you string twice L ($30/set) and V ($11/set), then it works out to roughly $20 per stringing. (A good multi is roughly $20 fb.)

If I can cut out V and re-string and get another 20hrs, then 1 set of L and 2 sets of V would be:
$30+$22 for 80hrs. or roughly $14 per stringing. A very good value.

BTW, I played Friday for an hour. Saturday for an hour. Monday evening for an hour. Tuesday morning for 1.5hrs and Tuesday evening for 1.5hrs. No arm issues other than some soreness in line with what I'm feeling throughout my entire body.

What's that worth to you?

I've been enjoying natural gut setups for the past month and a half or so, and played with gut/poly which lasted a good 15 hours before the poly half of the hybrid started to feel uncomfortable, and with full poly I play about 6-8 hours before cutting them out. Turns out, with an 18x20 midsize frame and an eastern, semi-flat forehand I'm not much of a "string breaker."

For me,

15 hours with Lux gut and any typical poly (e.g. Head Hawk) is roughly $29 with half sets of each, and at 15 hours it comes out to $1.93 per hour. If I switch the gut to Legend, it goes down to $1.36(!!) per hour.
7 hours with a full bed of poly (e.g. Hyper-G) comes out to $1.70 per hour, and at best, for my preference 8 maximum hours it averages to $1.50 per hour, and with good value poly strings like Tier One Firewire boost, it comes down to $1.12 per hour at 8 hours, which is still very close to Legend/Poly, which can be brought down by going with a value poly cross as well.

So if I think about it like this plus the long term arm health benefits, natural gut is without question a great option, if not the best option. With this kind of value, perhaps @ByeByePoly can be convinced to join the "gut snob club" except it's actually not snobby, it's priced very competitively for the number of hours

I just received my packs of Legend I ordered, and my last hybrid of gut/zx did not turn out well because I don't have a way to prestretch the zx besides the dropweight method, and that ended up locking up the stringbed due to the zx digging into the gut's coating during the stringing process. Quite disappointed because I thought that would be my best setup, and I don't know if I have the discipline to prestretch the zx through other methods. So now I'm getting interested in some of the gut/multi hybrids, especially if multis like V pretty much functions as a slippery supporting cross string. Isospeeed Professional Classic also comes to mind based on reading @Toby14 's preference for this string with natural gut so I'll definitely keep following these threads and will likely try one of these combos out in the near future, you guys are doing God's work

ByeByePoly · Aug 16, 2018

tomato123 said:
I've been enjoying natural gut setups for the past month and a half or so, and played with gut/poly which lasted a good 15 hours before the poly half of the hybrid started to feel uncomfortable, and with full poly I play about 6-8 hours before cutting them out. Turns out, with an 18x20 midsize frame and an eastern, semi-flat forehand I'm not much of a "string breaker."

For me,

15 hours with Lux gut and any typical poly (e.g. Head Hawk) is roughly $29 with half sets of each, and at 15 hours it comes out to $1.93 per hour. If I switch the gut to Legend, it goes down to $1.36(!!) per hour.
7 hours with a full bed of poly (e.g. Hyper-G) comes out to $1.70 per hour, and at best, for my preference 8 maximum hours it averages to $1.50 per hour, and with good value poly strings like Tier One Firewire boost, it comes down to $1.12 per hour at 8 hours, which is still very close to Legend/Poly, which can be brought down by going with a value poly cross as well.

So if I think about it like this plus the long term arm health benefits, natural gut is without question a great option, if not the best option. With this kind of value, perhaps @ByeByePoly can be convinced to join the "gut snob club" except it's actually not snobby, it's priced very competitively for the number of hours

I just received my packs of Legend I ordered, and my last hybrid of gut/zx did not turn out well because I don't have a way to prestretch the zx besides the dropweight method, and that ended up locking up the stringbed due to the zx digging into the gut's coating during the stringing process. Quite disappointed because I thought that would be my best setup, and I don't know if I have the discipline to prestretch the zx through other methods. So now I'm getting interested in some of the gut/multi hybrids, especially if multis like V pretty much functions as a slippery supporting cross string. Isospeeed Professional Classic also comes to mind based on reading @Toby14 's preference for this string with natural gut so I'll definitely keep following these threads and will likely try one of these combos out in the near future, you guys are doing God's work

I have only played fb bab vs touch 16 @55, and tonic/cream @55/50 ... both in my current V1 Pros. Other than volleys, I just didn't love gut ... at least not babolat. I also am not a fan of fraying strings. That said, if I was hitting with @Traffic ... I would really want to try his L/V.

I have gut snob potential.

Traffic · Aug 16, 2018

tomato123 said:
I've been enjoying natural gut setups for the past month and a half or so, and played with gut/poly which lasted a good 15 hours before the poly half of the hybrid started to feel uncomfortable, and with full poly I play about 6-8 hours before cutting them out. Turns out, with an 18x20 midsize frame and an eastern, semi-flat forehand I'm not much of a "string breaker."

For me,

15 hours with Lux gut and any typical poly (e.g. Head Hawk) is roughly $29 with half sets of each, and at 15 hours it comes out to $1.93 per hour. If I switch the gut to Legend, it goes down to $1.36(!!) per hour.
7 hours with a full bed of poly (e.g. Hyper-G) comes out to $1.70 per hour, and at best, for my preference 8 maximum hours it averages to $1.50 per hour, and with good value poly strings like Tier One Firewire boost, it comes down to $1.12 per hour at 8 hours, which is still very close to Legend/Poly, which can be brought down by going with a value poly cross as well.

So if I think about it like this plus the long term arm health benefits, natural gut is without question a great option, if not the best option. With this kind of value, perhaps @ByeByePoly can be convinced to join the "gut snob club" except it's actually not snobby, it's priced very competitively for the number of hours

I just received my packs of Legend I ordered, and my last hybrid of gut/zx did not turn out well because I don't have a way to prestretch the zx besides the dropweight method, and that ended up locking up the stringbed due to the zx digging into the gut's coating during the stringing process. Quite disappointed because I thought that would be my best setup, and I don't know if I have the discipline to prestretch the zx through other methods. So now I'm getting interested in some of the gut/multi hybrids, especially if multis like V pretty much functions as a slippery supporting cross string. Isospeeed Professional Classic also comes to mind based on reading @Toby14 's preference for this string with natural gut so I'll definitely keep following these threads and will likely try one of these combos out in the near future, you guys are doing God's work

Well, to make a short story long, I first tried VS Touch/Cream. I found VS to feel more crisp than L. L felt a little more comfy but had a touch more power. Either that or it would lose tension a little more than VS.

I'm not a big hitter. I use spin in most of my shots. But I don't produce as much spin as my son. I found that with L/C, there was 5-10% of my hits that would go unexpectedly errant. Hard to describe other than it felt like I would hit a sweet spot and the ball would go sailing. Also, I would get slightly different responses whether I set up for a stroke with a lot of spin vs flat.

Using V as a cross, the consistency was much better.

I use V/C as my goto racquet. I've referred to it as my MaryAnne. Very accurate, very forgiving. But gut provided a touch more feel, a touch more spin. It had a bit more launch angle which I wanted to produce a bit more spin. But using Cream, I just couldn't rely on it stroke after stroke. I can trust L/V just the same as V/C. L/V is a bit more lively, a bit more feel, a bit more spin AND it is more comfy.

As comfy as Cream is, it is still a poly and will still go dead. Luckily it holds tension well. But dead is dead. V in the mains hides it well. But there will get a point where I will lose power and lose spin. L/V as it wears, starts to lose some spin. The power is still there. Comfort is still there. I just notice I'm not producing as much spin. The accuracty is still there for flatter shots. But the loss in spin is my indicator that it is time to re-string.

And yes, I do believe that @ByeByePoly will eventually land on L/V (or VS/V). It has the targeting accuracty, near poly spin production, AND comfort he is looking for. And if he can go 1/2 set gut and 1 set of V for 50hrs of play, it hits the value threshold.

ByeByePoly · Aug 17, 2018

Traffic said:
Well, to make a short story long, I first tried VS Touch/Cream. I found VS to feel more crisp than L. L felt a little more comfy but had a touch more power. Either that or it would lose tension a little more than VS.

I'm not a big hitter. I use spin in most of my shots. But I don't produce as much spin as my son. I found that with L/C, there was 5-10% of my hits that would go unexpectedly errant. Hard to describe other than it felt like I would hit a sweet spot and the ball would go sailing. Also, I would get slightly different responses whether I set up for a stroke with a lot of spin vs flat.

Using V as a cross, the consistency was much better.

I use V/C as my goto racquet. I've referred to it as my MaryAnne. Very accurate, very forgiving. But gut provided a touch more feel, a touch more spin. It had a bit more launch angle which I wanted to produce a bit more spin. But using Cream, I just couldn't rely on it stroke after stroke. I can trust L/V just the same as V/C. L/V is a bit more lively, a bit more feel, a bit more spin AND it is more comfy.

As comfy as Cream is, it is still a poly and will still go dead. Luckily it holds tension well. But dead is dead. V in the mains hides it well. But there will get a point where I will lose power and lose spin. L/V as it wears, starts to lose some spin. The power is still there. Comfort is still there. I just notice I'm not producing as much spin. The accuracty is still there for flatter shots. But the loss in spin is my indicator that it is time to re-string.

And yes, I do believe that @ByeByePoly will eventually land on L/V (or VS/V). It has the targeting accuracty, near poly spin production, AND comfort he is looking for. And if he can go 1/2 set gut and 1 set of V for 50hrs of play, it hits the value threshold.

I am going to let two guys I hit with try Isospeed baseline 16g (poly) from my reel I bought last year. I know I liked it at 45lbs on a LO. One of these guys has a dw stringer ... what would be a good dw starting point trying to match my LO 45lbs?

Traffic · Aug 17, 2018

ByeByePoly said:
I am going to let two guys I hit with try Isospeed baseline 16g (poly) from my reel I bought last year. I know I liked it at 45lbs on a LO. One of these guys has a dw stringer ... what would be a good dw starting point trying to match my LO 45lbs?

I'm sure @esgee48 would be better at recommending an adjustment factor for going LO vs DW. But my DW seems to come out 1-2# tighter than a LO.

ByeByePoly · Aug 17, 2018

Traffic said:
I'm sure @esgee48 would be better at recommending an adjustment factor for going LO vs DW. But my DW seems to come out 1-2# tighter than a LO.

I might just have them start at 50lbs ... supposedly baseline loses tension pretty fast.

Traffic · Aug 17, 2018

ByeByePoly said:
I might just have them start at 50lbs ... supposedly baseline loses tension pretty fast.

I think 50# is a great place to start any poly. But you mentioned you played at 45#? So the "adjustment" factor would be to string 43# on a DW.

ByeByePoly · Aug 17, 2018

Traffic said:
I think 50# is a great place to start any poly. But you mentioned you played at 45#? So the "adjustment" factor would be to string 43# on a DW.

Oh cr@p ... I got it backwards. I thought I had to string higher on dw. Good thing I asked.

Traffic · Aug 22, 2018

Ok, reporting back after a weeked of play-offs. Probably logged in at least 5hrs worth of practice sessions and matches. Played 3 matches (each round of the play-offs) for our 7.0MXD team and went undefeated. Our team finished won the final. In my first game, I played like a good 3.0. Some good shots with some errors sprinkled in at key times. My 2nd match, I played lights out. More like a very good 3.5. Probably my best tennis ever in my life. My final match, we looked lost for the first half of the first set. Then we adjusted our strategy and steamrolled our opponent.

Through it all, L/V played great. Very predictable. Good spin when I finished my strokes. Good response for volleys and those oh crap get my racquet on the ball shots.

I played last night as a sub for my men's doubles flights. Man, it's different playing on the bottom court of 3.0. No predictability whatsoever and I had to adjust my strokes to hit a ball with no pace. What an adjustment. I owned the net though.

I can see V getting worn. It still plays predictably and whatever changes in play there may be, it's happened slow enough that I don't notice it. I will get on the court a few more times over the weekend then I go out of town. I'm thinking of re-stringing V just before I leave to give it time to de-tension and be ready to play when I get back.

drak · Aug 22, 2018

Traffic said:
Ok, reporting back after a weeked of play-offs. Probably logged in at least 5hrs worth of practice sessions and matches. Played 3 matches (each round of the play-offs) for our 7.0MXD team and went undefeated. Our team finished won the final. In my first game, I played like a good 3.0. Some good shots with some errors sprinkled in at key times. My 2nd match, I played lights out. More like a very good 3.5. Probably my best tennis ever in my life. My final match, we looked lost for the first half of the first set. Then we adjusted our strategy and steamrolled our opponent.

Through it all, L/V played great. Very predictable. Good spin when I finished my strokes. Good response for volleys and those oh crap get my racquet on the ball shots.

I played last night as a sub for my men's doubles flights. Man, it's different playing on the bottom court of 3.0. No predictability whatsoever and I had to adjust my strokes to hit a ball with no pace. What an adjustment. I owned the net though.

I can see V getting worn. It still plays predictably and whatever changes in play there may be, it's happened slow enough that I don't notice it. I will get on the court a few more times over the weekend then I go out of town. I'm thinking of re-stringing V just before I leave to give it time to de-tension and be ready to play when I get back.

I am surprised how fast V has notched in my Legend/V hybrid, it plays okay but I am not impressed, going to cut out the V as gut looks very good and put in my standby Revolve and compare how they play

drak · Aug 22, 2018

drak said:
I am surprised how fast V has notched in my Legend/V hybrid, it plays okay but I am not impressed, going to cut out the V as gut looks very good and put in my standby Revolve and compare how they play

Just got a definitive answer for myself as to which Hybrid plays better "for me" in my Angell TC100 - much preferred my standby of Legend/Revolve that I strung this morning, better spin/feel and better spin makes control better as well, also felt more comfortable and reason for this is IMO that the strings slide/snapback way better. Somewhat surprised how much better this played for me vs Legend/V, I wanted to try V cross and that won't happen again

Traffic · Aug 28, 2018

Ok, so I was feeling like I wasn't getting enough spin. Basically hitting with sgut or fb nat gut mabye. I really had to try hard to add spin to my strokes. So I was hitting the net or going long more than I'd like.

Cut out V and re-strung. I pre-stretched 3x10sec prior to stringing V in the cross @ 52#

OMG. Love it! The best.

ByeByePoly · Aug 28, 2018

Traffic said:
Ok, so I was feeling like I wasn't getting enough spin. Basically hitting with sgut or fb nat gut mabye. I really had to try hard to add spin to my strokes. So I was hitting the net or going long more than I'd like.

Cut out V and re-strung. I pre-stretched 3x10sec prior to stringing V in the cross @ 52#

OMG. Love it! The best.

You were at 55 without pre-stretch before right? It would be interesting to know how much pre-stretching changed V tension retention. It's already at 10-15% ... maybe even better pre-stretched. How much stretch did you get out of it?

Edit: oh ... 17g ... not necessarily same result for 16 and 17.

Traffic · Aug 28, 2018

ByeByePoly said:
You were at 55 without pre-stretch before right? It would be interesting to know how much pre-stretching changed V tension retention. It's already at 10-15% ... maybe even better pre-stretched. How much stretch did you get out of it?

Edit: oh ... 17g ... not necessarily same result for 16 and 17.

58/55 first time. Similar pre-stretch on L. None on V.

It was too stiff for too long. Then it finally detensioned enough to play well. I felt like the window had narrowed since it took half the usable life to get to good tensions.

I was struggling with ground strokes during a drills class. The next day I hit with V/C to compare. More spin, more control. My groundies were grooving. L/V needed new crosses.

This time, it felt great from day 1 of re-stringing. So comfy. So much pocketing. So much control. Oh and the spin. It was almost like magic. Some might think the stringed is too soft. But the control made it all work. I was taking full cuts at the ball and they were ripping back with authority and they just kept landing in.

I even ended a game with a top spin lob over the net person that coughed up a floater for my net person.

So good. I need to chart repeatable dialing in the right tension.

Grieeegoorr · Aug 30, 2018

Traffic said:
Ok, so I was feeling like I wasn't getting enough spin. Basically hitting with sgut or fb nat gut mabye. I really had to try hard to add spin to my strokes. So I was hitting the net or going long more than I'd like.

Cut out V and re-strung. I pre-stretched 3x10sec prior to stringing V in the cross @ 52#

OMG. Love it! The best.

Hey Traffic,
Any guesstimation on the Tension of L in this second cross stringing?
Do you think that the softer stringbed is more a result of V @ 52lbs and prestretch rather than L loosing tension?
Cheers

Traffic · Aug 30, 2018

Grieeegoorr said:
Hey Traffic,
Any guesstimation on the Tension of L in this second cross stringing?
Do you think that the softer stringbed is more a result of V @ 52lbs and prestretch rather than L loosing tension?
Cheers

V settles after 10% loss in tension. So I expected 5# drop in tension after play8bg for a couple hours but I feel like I pre-stretch to shorten the tension loss.

If have to research how much L drops in tension. But let's say it does the same so from 58-->52. V with pre-stretch might drop to 50? I'm guessing RT about 50. But I'll check when I get home

If I were to do a fresh stringing, I would pre-stretch L and tension at 55. I would pre-stretch V and string at 50.

I really need L to maintain as much tension as possible and be strung at close to preferred tension then use 2nd V stringing to compensate in case RT too low

esgee48 · Aug 30, 2018

If you pre stretch any normal string aside from poly, all you do is decrease the amount of static tension loss. This implies that you want to string the strings closer to your desired playing tension since the losses are less. As an example, if you string at 55 expecting it to drop to 50, then after a pre stretch, string it at 52. For me [not everyone agrees with me], I will pull my mains at least 15-20 seconds before clamping. I can hear my tensioner making noise as it pulls, re-pull, re-pull. For crosses, I do the same, tension at ref tension for at least 15-20 seconds moving the crosses up and down to minimize frictional losses. I use to string my frames at 58#, but with the longer pulls, I now string at 53# and the tension 'stays' there until the string breaks. By then, the tension may have dropped 10%. Poly is a special case. It does not stretch that much at ref tension. So that string gets clamped in 5-10 seconds.

Traffic · Sep 4, 2018

Ok, so 5hrs into the 2nd stringing. Play is still good. But strings are moving and not going back in place. Not bad. Just a touch. Maybe from the lower tensions? Shoot, I forgot to RT...

1990's Graphite · Sep 4, 2018

waaaaaaaaaayyy overthinking the whole velocity thing, just get out and play people! ;-)

ByeByePoly · Sep 4, 2018

1990's Graphite said:
waaaaaaaaaayyy overthinking the whole velocity thing, just get out and play people! ;-)

You defintely will want to avoid the ATP Forehand threads ... hehehe.

1990's Graphite · Sep 4, 2018

ByeByePoly said:
You defintely will want to avoid the ATP Forehand threads ... hehehe.

forehands and velocity.. got it

ByeByePoly · Sep 5, 2018

Traffic said:
Ok, so 5hrs into the 2nd stringing. Play is still good. But strings are moving and not going back in place. Not bad. Just a touch. Maybe from the lower tensions? Shoot, I forgot to RT...

fyi ... I never have bad string movement in our middle tight 8 strings (and yes @esgee48 ... I have video proof I hit there sometimes) ... but origin/v has been my best. First set broke @25 hours ... and still pretty straight. FB V @54/52 better than fb v @52, but o/v best.

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