I do use VT Advantec products (both grips and strips in various racquets/setups). I know most of the people featured on the company’s website and on its instagram profile. The racquets they’re holding are their normal racquets, and they have strips, grips, or both. They’re all 4.5+ pros and/or players.
Regarding the nature of the grip, it is indeed a replacement grip rather than an over grip.
Below is my personal experience with VT Advantec.
From my experience, the reduced vibration doesn’t feel like muted contact; when I hit a ball more flatly than intended or with too much topspin (too much y axis, not enough x axis), I know it immediately from normal (positive) frame feedback.
The impetus for my use of the products came
as a result of a nasty case of tennis elbow. I was at the point where frame vibration was problematic and painful.
One of the pros at my club was using the same racquet as I was, and knowing I was going to keeping showing up to play (beyond reason), he told me to use his racquet if I insisted on continuing to do so. The pro’s racquet had the strips but was otherwise the same, and after a few hours, my arm was in significantly less pain than normal. So no, the strips (nor the grips) aren’t a miracle cure for technical issues, forearm overuse, or my own idiocy, but the lack of negative vibration was noticeable due to the sensitivity of my forearm/wrist/hand.
I played a few more days with the pro’s racquet, and decided to get the strips (the grips weren’t yet available). After adding the strips to my frames, the amount of feedback was noticeably lower (immediately). Prior to the strips, I’d toyed with using lead to stabilize my frames, but found the strips were a better fit for me.
Regarding the grips, before I started using the grips (which are now on 7 racquets), I tried (in various combinations) adding lead to my handle, using a big brand leather grip, and using the VT Advantec grip. I found the VT Advantec grip alone to be preferable to anything else for me.
As a matter of disclosure, I do know the company’s CEO, though I started to get to know him a few months after I’d started using the products. I should further note that nobody from the company has ever asked or pushed me to purchase or use any of their products. If anything, the CEO is one of the least pushy salesman I’ve ever met. The CEO is now one of my coaches (through happenstance — I joined a USTA team he coaches), and in a few cases, he given me advice regarding the products against his own financial interest (in a few cases, he told me to leave the strips off due to the string setup and the frame I was using until I had a reason to add the strips). Less scrupulous CEOs in his position would probably advise me to cover all my frames in strips and wrap my forearm in grips. That’s not his style.
Almost as a rule, I consider any “revolutionary” technology/quick fix products to be utter nonsense until proven otherwise (either by hard science or at least by personal experience). There are a lot of people in the tennis world selling products that fall horribly short (I still can’t hit my forehand like Roger Federer or serve like Pete Sampras, despite the YouTube advertisements).
I’ve found VT Advantec products to deliver on they’re advertised to offer, which is the same theme of what many racquet manufacturers are trying to offer (ie Countervail, Yonex VDM, etc). Maybe you’ll like those better, but given the return policy, I would say giving VT Advantec products a try is isn’t much of a monetary commitment (not much downside, a lot of upside if it helps you the way it’s helped me).
