Hello, TT friends!

We are happy to let you know that Grapplesnake Strings are now available in the United States. We are a German string manufacturer, and have been around in Europe for about two years. Before developing tennis strings, we focused our attention in the rope industry for sports purposes. The plastics involved in both manufacturing processes are actually very similar.

Within the last couple of years, we have grown extremely fast in Europe, and are currently sponsoring multiple ATP/WTA players. We are now excited to offer our products in the US market. We are passionate about tennis and truly believe in our strings. We aim at being innovative. For example, we have developed dual-poly hybrid set-ups (CES Neon/Liquid Neon and Cube Extra Sharp/Liquid) that we are very proud of in terms of performance. In these hybrids, the Main string tends to be more firm, lower powered, and control-oriented, while our softer Cross string serves the purpose of adding feel and power. In the end, this well-balanced recipe plays just right and to us is a game changer. Available in individual sets and 2x Half-Reels.


Another innovation is Irukandji, a string developed to serve as an excellent Cross for hybrids. If you play with natural gut or a multi-filament in the Mains, Irukandji will help prevent notching, and will add snap-back and spin. Being rectangular and round, the larger surface area, in other words, the widest part of that rectangle, will always make contact with the main when being pulled. That, also due to its added elasticity and how "slippery" it is. It always tends to sit on the larger area of the rectangle against the Main string. This larger surface area prevents notching even more effectively than a round string, increasing the longevity of your natural gut or multi. Available in sets and reels, white and blue.


Cube is one of our most popular strings in Europe, and it's an aggressively shaped square poly with great tension maintenance. Most of our sponsored players use Cube either as a full bed or as part of a hybrid. Available in sets and reels. Note: Officially rated at 1.18mm due to standard measuring methods, its square shape makes it more comparable to a 16 gauge round string.


Excellent Purple is a round poly that provides players with excellent tension maintenance and durability. It's our "workhorse" string and it truly looks beautiful when strung. Great for a flat-hitting player who wants precision and utter consistency in launch angles. Also an excellent option for player who enjoy very low tensions due to its low power and high precision. Available in sets and reels.


Finally, Liquid can also be purchased as an individual set, and it's great for players seeking for a hexagonal, high-powered, very soft poly that's easy on the arm. Liquid Neon Dust is slightly firmer and will be available soon.

There are mode models coming soon from Germany, along with two more prototypes currently in development/testing phase that will surprise you due to their shapes and playing characteristics.

I hope this information helps some of you guys/girls that are interested in our strings. We are happy to arrive in America and feel free to shoot us a message if you have any inquiries. I am personally available here to answer questions pretty much every day. Can't provide direct links to our external website, but any questions of that nature will be answered via direct message. I love tennis, am an enthusiastic League and Tournament player, and also a home stringer, along with being the National Rep for Grapplesnake in the States. I will try to provide you with as much technical and real life information as possible.


Thanks again!


Grapplesnake USA
Tennis Strings Made in Germany
grapplesnakestringsusa@gmail.com
 
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congrats and good luck on this new adventures.

Thank you! I'm personally very excited about this. Making T-shirts as we speak for wearing them at Indian Wells. If anybody here happens to see me there, and mentions the forum, I'll be happy to give you a little Grapplesnake gift!

Another aspect to mention is that 100% of what we make is produced in-house, in Germany, packaging included.

We also have a special price structure for not only Retailers, but also Clubs-Academies, and offer partial sponsorships for qualifying NTRP, Junior and College players.

Any further info on that, please Message or Email me.

Again, thank you for your words.


Grapplesnake USA
Tennis Strings Made in Germany
grapplesnakestringsusa@gmail.com
 

Injured Again

Hall of Fame
I received my demo set from Grapplesnake today. The set included Cube, the Cube Extra Sharp/Liquid Neon Dust hybrid, and Irukandji.

uc


I string for some members of my tennis club, and most of the interest has been for the Cube string, so that is why I tried first. I'm currently using the SW104, weighted to around 355 grams with a 350 swingweight. I'm a 57 year old USTA 4.5 rated player and I play a very aggressive all-court game.

The Cube has very sharp edges and an almost perfectly square profile. The sharpness of the edges is apparent from the moment you first hold the strings. It feels a bit plasticky, and has moderate coil memory. When stringing, it is not very elastic. I have a 6-point mount Gamma lockout stringer and would pull tension, let it sit for 15 seconds, and repull tension. There was minimal stretch on the second pull. I use 48 pounds of tension in the center mains and 46 pounds of tension in the center crosses, decreasing towards the edges. This is the same tension profile I'm using with Solinco TourBite in my other racquet.

It's basically impossible to keep some twist out of the string during installation. You can see here that the light glints off the flat surfaces but that there is twist in almost every string. I tried but wasn't obsessive in trying to keep the strings straight.

uc


Though it's stated to be a 1.18 mm string, it's quite large across the diagonal profile and it was a tight fit in many of the holes. It added 2 grams to the racquet over a set of Wilson Resolve Spin 1.30 that was in there previously. It pings tighter than the Solinco TourBite that has been in my other racquet for about eight hours of play but was string at the exact same tension and same double-pull routine.

I'm headed to the courts to test the string out now. Hopefully I can give it a good test as my finger tips are pretty sore. I couldn't imagine stringing more than a couple of racquets with this string a day. Just easily spinning a ball at home, a grazing contact produces somewhat more spin than TourBite, but this is on a ball that is only traveling about 8-10 feet in the air. Bouncing a ball on the strings produces the same sound as TourBite. The Revolve Spin had a more muted, duller sound.

Thanks to Grapplesnake USA for their quick response and efforts in answering my questions. And all of this on a Saturday, when they rushed the strings to the post office so I could receive them today.
 
I received my demo set from Grapplesnake today. The set included Cube, the Cube Extra Sharp/Liquid Neon Dust hybrid, and Irukandji.

uc


I string for some members of my tennis club, and most of the interest has been for the Cube string, so that is why I tried first. I'm currently using the SW104, weighted to around 355 grams with a 350 swingweight. I'm a 57 year old USTA 4.5 rated player and I play a very aggressive all-court game.

The Cube has very sharp edges and an almost perfectly square profile. The sharpness of the edges is apparent from the moment you first hold the strings. It feels a bit plasticky, and has moderate coil memory. When stringing, it is not very elastic. I have a 6-point mount Gamma lockout stringer and would pull tension, let it sit for 15 seconds, and repull tension. There was minimal stretch on the second pull. I use 48 pounds of tension in the center mains and 46 pounds of tension in the center crosses, decreasing towards the edges. This is the same tension profile I'm using with Solinco TourBite in my other racquet.

It's basically impossible to keep some twist out of the string during installation. You can see here that the light glints off the flat surfaces but that there is twist in almost every string. I tried but wasn't obsessive in trying to keep the strings straight.

uc


Though it's stated to be a 1.18 mm string, it's quite large across the diagonal profile and it was a tight fit in many of the holes. It added 2 grams to the racquet over a set of Wilson Resolve Spin 1.30 that was in there previously. It pings tighter than the Solinco TourBite that has been in my other racquet for about eight hours of play but was string at the exact same tension and same double-pull routine.

I'm headed to the courts to test the string out now. Hopefully I can give it a good test as my finger tips are pretty sore. I couldn't imagine stringing more than a couple of racquets with this string a day. Just easily spinning a ball at home, a grazing contact produces somewhat more spin than TourBite, but this is on a ball that is only traveling about 8-10 feet in the air. Bouncing a ball on the strings produces the same sound as TourBite. The Revolve Spin had a more muted, duller sound.

Thanks to Grapplesnake USA for their quick response and efforts in answering my questions. And all of this on a Saturday, when they rushed the strings to the post office so I could receive them today.

Thank you for such a thorough review! We hope you enjoy play-testing Cube, as well as our Neon hybrid and Irukandji.

Grapplesnake USA
Tennis Strings Made in Germany
grapplesnakestringsusa@gmail.com
 

mpournaras

Hall of Fame
You really should add a close up of Irukandji to the page or on the package. People will be curious of its shape. Its easy
 

Injured Again

Hall of Fame
I played with the Cube tonight, and I have to say that it is an excellent string!

Some back story. I played for years with weighted up Babolat Overdrive 110's, which are 16X19 string pattern. My go-to string was Diadem Solstice Power 1.35, which I strung with the center mains and crosses at 55 and 54 pounds. When the last of my racquets cracked, I couldn't find any more Overdrive models, and the 2015 Babolat Pure Drive 110 had such a different beam profile and feel that it might as well have been a totally different racquet from a different manufacturer.

I demo'ed a bunch of racquets and settled on the SW104. It has a bit more power since it's longer and has a bit higher swingweight than I previously used. However, my main problem was that the launch angle with the 18X19 pattern on a smaller head was lower than I was used to. If I used a thin enough string to get back the launch angle, then I had too much springiness in the string bed. I tried several strings and settled on TourBite 1.30, which kind of did everything I wanted except the launch angle was still a bit low. However, the thicker gauge gave me the power level I preferred, and I thought that was more important than having my preferred launch angle but then a springy stringbed.

The Cube string gives me back that higher launch angle - balls now come off the stringbed almost exactly like I am expecting them to, but with the lower power levels I prefer. On shots where I'm trying to hit extreme topspin, the launch angle may be even a bit higher than I am expecting, but it grips the ball very well and several balls that I was expecting to go long, still dropped down inside the baseline. The only real adjustment I had to make was on spin serves. Slices out wide in the deuce court (I'm a righty) wasn't close to the sideline initially due to the grabbing of the ball by the strings. I had to aim towards the doubles alley to get the slice to approach the sideline. Conversely, kicking a serve out the backhand on the ad court had me hitting the ball wide until I adjusted as well. I got excellent movement and bounce on the serves - better by a good margin than with TourBite.

Compared to TourBite, Cube has just a hair less power. TourBite has a springiness when I flatten out and hit the ball hard that makes it feel like the ball is trampolining. Cube doesn't do that - on hard flat shots, it feels like it just pockets the ball firmly and the ball comes off the stringbed very linearly with how hard I'm swinging. Cube also has a very predictable transition from heavy slice to moderate slice to flat to moderate topspin to heavy topspin. Cube didn't require any break-in. It felt good and familiar from the start, almost like I was using my old racquets. After 90 minutes, there's just the beginning of some notching. Tension loss is minimal just based on pinging the stringbed.

Despite feeling very inelastic when stringing, mis-hits weren't actually that harsh - less so than TourBite. There is a greater sensitivity to incoming spin. I netted a couple of volleys that had heavy underspin on them. This incoming spin sensitivity is about as great as any string I've tried so far. The combination of high launch angle and incoming spin sensitivity may be worse with racquets that have larger string spacing, and I'll find that out when I string this up for some other players.

Some other things about the stringing. When the string gets twisted and the clamps come down on the string edges, the pressure required to engage the clamps is pretty high. It's impossible to rotate the string by that time, and I was too lazy to adjust the clamps with every string, so you can see places near the frame where the edge has been flattened by the clamp.

Overall, I love this string! I purchased other string sets to try that I haven't string up yet -1.30 gauges of Hyper-G, Solstice Power, and a few others, but I'm not sure I can envision how any string can be any better fit for me than the Cube. It's at a price point that is super competitive, and as long as it can give me a good 10-12 hours of consistent play, this will be my go-to string.
 

Injured Again

Hall of Fame
You really should add a close up of Irukandji to the page or on the package. People will be curious of its shape. Its easy

Irukandji has a rectangular cross section with soft edges. Not sharp edges like the Cube. My set says the profile is 0.90 mm X 1.45 mm. When I look at it and see the string long the 0.90 section, it looks thinner than a 20 gauge string! I'm not sure how it will lay when being strung - I can't imagine I can string it without some twisting, just like the Cube string.
 
@Grapplesnake USA Official Welcome to the board!
Where in the UK can we get your strings?
What racquet(s) do you hit with, and choice of strings for each racquet?
Can you describe your play style?

Thank you, sir!

Grapplesnake Strings are available in the UK at Tennis Warehouse Europe!

I personally like a few frames that are always in my bag. My go-to tournament frame is a customized Head TGT 307.2, very similar to a Graphene Radical, strung with our Neon Hybrid. Have 4x of these.

Also, 3x customized Wilson H22 18x20 strung with Cube and Excellent Purple. Then, 3x customized Wilson Ultra Tour strung with Cube/Liquid hybrid, Cube 1.18 and Excellent Purple. Finally, 3x Head Intelligence Prestige Mid-plus, all strung with Natural Gut and Irukandji.

Frames are all sitting at about 355g strung, with OG, 31.4 balance. The iPrestige is a little heavier and more HL.

I know, I have racquet-holism problems. I play mostly baseline, USTA 4.5, hopefully future 5.0! I mostly rely on my serve and forehand. Always try to be aggressive. BH is two handed, a little flatter, used to be SH while growing up playing on clay.

Thanks for asking!


Grapplesnake USA
Tennis Strings Made in Germany
grapplesnakestringsusa@gmail.com
 
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I played with the Cube tonight, and I have to say that it is an excellent string!

Some back story. I played for years with weighted up Babolat Overdrive 110's, which are 16X19 string pattern. My go-to string was Diadem Solstice Power 1.35, which I strung with the center mains and crosses at 55 and 54 pounds. When the last of my racquets cracked, I couldn't find any more Overdrive models, and the 2015 Babolat Pure Drive 110 had such a different beam profile and feel that it might as well have been a totally different racquet from a different manufacturer.

I demo'ed a bunch of racquets and settled on the SW104. It has a bit more power since it's longer and has a bit higher swingweight than I previously used. However, my main problem was that the launch angle with the 18X19 pattern on a smaller head was lower than I was used to. If I used a thin enough string to get back the launch angle, then I had too much springiness in the string bed. I tried several strings and settled on TourBite 1.30, which kind of did everything I wanted except the launch angle was still a bit low. However, the thicker gauge gave me the power level I preferred, and I thought that was more important than having my preferred launch angle but then a springy stringbed.

The Cube string gives me back that higher launch angle - balls now come off the stringbed almost exactly like I am expecting them to, but with the lower power levels I prefer. On shots where I'm trying to hit extreme topspin, the launch angle may be even a bit higher than I am expecting, but it grips the ball very well and several balls that I was expecting to go long, still dropped down inside the baseline. The only real adjustment I had to make was on spin serves. Slices out wide in the deuce court (I'm a righty) wasn't close to the sideline initially due to the grabbing of the ball by the strings. I had to aim towards the doubles alley to get the slice to approach the sideline. Conversely, kicking a serve out the backhand on the ad court had me hitting the ball wide until I adjusted as well. I got excellent movement and bounce on the serves - better by a good margin than with TourBite.

Compared to TourBite, Cube has just a hair less power. TourBite has a springiness when I flatten out and hit the ball hard that makes it feel like the ball is trampolining. Cube doesn't do that - on hard flat shots, it feels like it just pockets the ball firmly and the ball comes off the stringbed very linearly with how hard I'm swinging. Cube also has a very predictable transition from heavy slice to moderate slice to flat to moderate topspin to heavy topspin. Cube didn't require any break-in. It felt good and familiar from the start, almost like I was using my old racquets. After 90 minutes, there's just the beginning of some notching. Tension loss is minimal just based on pinging the stringbed.

Despite feeling very inelastic when stringing, mis-hits weren't actually that harsh - less so than TourBite. There is a greater sensitivity to incoming spin. I netted a couple of volleys that had heavy underspin on them. This incoming spin sensitivity is about as great as any string I've tried so far. The combination of high launch angle and incoming spin sensitivity may be worse with racquets that have larger string spacing, and I'll find that out when I string this up for some other players.

Some other things about the stringing. When the string gets twisted and the clamps come down on the string edges, the pressure required to engage the clamps is pretty high. It's impossible to rotate the string by that time, and I was too lazy to adjust the clamps with every string, so you can see places near the frame where the edge has been flattened by the clamp.

Overall, I love this string! I purchased other string sets to try that I haven't string up yet -1.30 gauges of Hyper-G, Solstice Power, and a few others, but I'm not sure I can envision how any string can be any better fit for me than the Cube. It's at a price point that is super competitive, and as long as it can give me a good 10-12 hours of consistent play, this will be my go-to string.

This is an outstanding review. And I don't mean it just because it's a positive one. You put in a lot of work and careful analysis.

This is why we have a Demo Program. This type of information, positive or negative, is invaluable.

Thanks, Injured Again!

Grapplesnake USA
Tennis Strings Made in Germany
grapplesnakestringsusa@gmail.com
 

Hypergxtraspin

New User
I have a demo set coming soon. Can't wait to try it, I have used ultra cable, solinco hyper g, and tier 1 firewire. Looking for something to play similar to these strings. Trying the CES hybrid neon dust set. Will review when i hit with it. Thanks!
 

Injured Again

Hall of Fame
I hit again some more this morning against a ball machine. I wanted to go back to back with TourBite 1.30, which is a dense string. I matched up the racquets when they were unstrung and the TourBite racquet is one gram heavier.

Cube is a very little bit less powerful overall, though the ping frequency is a bit higher than the TourBite that has a few more hours of play in it. On groundstrokes with moderate topspin (my normal stroke), net clearance seems to be higher by about six inches and the balls land with about the same depth. It's hard to tell if there is any less ball speed - they both look the same. On putaway shots that I would hit pretty flat, I get a couple of extra MPH with the TourBite, making that shot a little bit easier.

The problem with spin sensitivity is real. I set the ball machine to skim the net with maximum underspin and about a 45 MPH ball speed. I definitely have to tilt the racquet face open by a couple degrees more to clear the net. The flip side is that drop volleys are easier - the underspin against an open racquet face really helps kill the ball speed. With this same setting, the ball lands around 10 feet inside the baseline, and topspin groundstrokes with the Cube strings are easier to clear the net due to the higher launch angle. What is more difficult with Cube is having to open the racquet face more to underspin it back. I tended to mis-hit a bit more because it felt like I had to have the racquet face pretty open, which makes the sweetspot relatively shallower due to the angle.

I also deliberate mis-hit the ball at various places on the frame. On the sides and along the throat, the response and shock are relatively similar. However, on the tip of the racquet, Cube has a slightly deader response. Those bad mis-hits have more depth with TourBite.

I then set the ball machine to give me a slow, loopy, chest high shot which I tried to loop back with as much topspin as I can hit. Cube gives more spin by a noticeable amount. When I swing inaccurately and manage to just graze the ball, Cube grabs the ball better and gets it over the net where TourBite would often not grab the ball and it would end up in the net.

This Thursday, I have a practice session against a 30-something former college player who hits heavy spin. I'll report back after that. My plans are to play with the TourBite another four hours, totaling about 15 hours on that stringbed, then cut it out and replace it with the Neon Hybrid set. I'll do a back to back comparison between Cube and the Neon Hybrid next week.

I don't believe I'm a good candidate for the Irukandji, so I will be stringing it up for a person who uses Lux Element.

Overall, I really like the Cube string, and unless it dies in less than 10 hours of play or I can't adjust to the degree of incoming ball spin sensitivity that it has, I will make this my new go-to string.
 
Any idea how the cube compares with black code 4S? in terms of softness, tension maintenance and spin

I haven't tried Black Code 4S, so I hope one of our new players can jump in and give you some impressions. I did, however, play a full reel of regular Black Code 1.24 back in the day in a YT Radical MP, and that string felt softer and less spin-oriented than Cube 1.18. I liked it a lot, though, as a power string.

Hope that helps, but it probably won't.


Grapplesnake USA
Tennis Strings Made in Germany
grapplesnakestringsusa@gmail.com
 

Injured Again

Hall of Fame
Strings behave differently in different racquets with varying string patterns, and I'm fairly new to my racquet so have no experience with 4S.
 

Hmgraphite1

Hall of Fame
I strung up bc4s #18 at 45lbs in a 95 18x20. It settled in nicely, liked it, prob closer to tour bite, sounds like the edges of the cube are more pronounced.
 

Injured Again

Hall of Fame
I had two 90-minute singles sessions today. The morning session was a down-the-middle hit with a guy who hits hard and flat, but we both wanted/needed not to run a whole lot. This evening was with my 25 year old son who hits really hard, and we were running each other around as well.

This morning, I started netting some groundstrokes and I thought I was just being a bit lazy with footwork and not bending my knees. This evening, it became clear that the launch angle had decreased, and the stringbed had lost a little bit of ball rebound speed. I did a back-to-back comparison with the TourBite that has around 11 hours of play on it and the TourBite now has noticeably more springiness/pop off the stringbed, and launch angles are very similar. I still get a bit more spin with Cube, but it has lost that extra bit of grip that I loved in the fresh string. The mains now get out of position slightly with every rally. However, the string still pings with a noticeably higher frequency than TourBite, just like when it was fresh, so that doesn't indicate it has lost much tension. It has just lost elasticity.

I have a tough session tomorrow with a high level former college player. I'll try it again just in case I was a bit tired from two hitting sessions today. Total time on the Cube strings is about six hours, so if it has gone dead, it didn't last long.
 
Quick announcement!

As stated above, Grapplesnake USA will be attending the BNP Paribas Open! We will be traveling to Indian Wells today and staying until Monday night. Orders placed between today, 03/07 at 03:00pm PST and Monday 03/11, will be shipped on Tuesday 03/12. We will resume normal operations starting Tue. Orders placed today until 03:00pm, will be shipped... today. We will still answer questions here or via E-Mail every day.

If you are there and see us wearing our cool Grapplesnake USA T-Shirts, mention this forum and you will be rewarded with a gift! We won't have a Point of Sale at the Garden, unfortunately.

Since we can't spend a few days without hitting, we are bringing some firepower to play with in the mornings! This is our new Grapplesnake Prototype, a pentagonal poly which has finalized its testing phase and is now in early production. Available soon in the USA! Love it.

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Grapplesnake USA
Tennis Strings Made in Germany
grapplesnakestringsusa@gmail.com
 
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XJ9

Rookie
attracted by the reviews in another thread
i may go for Irukandji first
anyone used Irukandji in you cross? does it really help to protect a gut/multi main?


thanks guys
 
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