An interesting thing about Head frames

Mansewerz said:

After reading about pro stock Wilsons, I learned that the H22 was designed to give Head lovers who used the PT57s something similar that was better at volleys.


So I wonder: Have there been any all court/serve and volley head users?

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Kick Serve 14 said:

Didn't Guillermo Vilas serve and volley, as well as Arthur Ashe? Then again, both of these men were far before my time, and didn't use the rackets you are referring to...

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Greek Goliath said:

Both of them used wooden racquets, right? So they wouldn't be relevant to the topic at hand, which I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) is referring to graphite/composite frames. So consider around mid-1980s to present (the decline of serve and volley accelerating in the 1990s).

Cheers,

Greek Goliath

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Kick Serve 14 said:

Actually, to be technical, Ashe used the Arthur Ashe competition, which was a fiberglass/graphite/wood composition. While Vilas used a Graphite/fiberglass racket at the end of the year...

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Don't Let It Bounce said:

You could call Ivanisevic an all-courter, but of course you could also object that picking off the dying quails that came fluttering back after he served didn't require much in the way of a dedicated volleying stick...

Remember, all the pro stock racquets come off the line extremely light to allow for a great deal of customization, including customization to the specs that [many] volleyers like. Given the variation between one player's customized PT57 and another's, I can't see how it's possible for PT57's in general to be disadvantageous at the net.

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vsbabolat said:

The Arthur Ashe Competition was fiberglass sandwiched between two sheets of aluminum.


Jason Stoltenberg used the Prestige Tour 600 and was a serve and volly player.

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vsbabolat said:

The Arthur Ashe Competition was fiberglass sandwiched between two sheets of aluminum...

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JW10S said:

After the 1980's only a handful of players can be classified as true S&Vers but the list notable HEAD racquet users who came into net a lot and S&Ved some of the time during their heydays would include: Goran Ivanisevic, Jan Siemerink, Eric Jelen, Marc Rosset, Richey Reneberg, Jason Stoltenberg, Alex O'Brien, Joachim Johansson (later switched to Yonex), Fabrice Santoro, Hishim Arazzi, Karim Alami, Adrian Voinea, Mark Philippousis (later switched to Dunlop, back to HEAD, to Wilson, back to HEAD, etc, etc), Jared Palmer, Jonathon Stark, Mark Knowles, and me, to name just some. And of course there are many doubles specialists who've used and are currently using HEAD racquets who S&V.

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vsbabolat said:

You cant forget Henri Leconte, Andre Pavel (used Prestige Classic 600 before Fischer), and Marc-Kevin Goellner

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JW10S said:

Yeah I did forget them, Goellner was (probably still is) a nice guy. You could add Arnaud Boetch, Leif Shiras, Roger Smith, David Wheaton and Justin Gimelstaub to that list. Justin used a Radical when he 1st turned pro and when he and Serena won the Hopman Cup (or at least finished highly) before switching to Babolat. Sanchez and Casal made a good doubles team S&Ving with their 600s. Don't know that I saw Pavel come to net all that often but I don't know how I forgot you though...

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himynameisNIKE said:

Pavel is actually my coach and wheni asked him about his rackets which is a wilson k blade tour (the h22 you guys keep talking about????) he said it was based off of a head frame. Hope this was some help. and btw he may not have come to the net often but his volleys are ridiculous

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JW10S said:

Companies are always attempting to copy and imitate HEAD frames. A friend of mine is a VP for Wilson and is constantly trying to get me to switch. He sends me racquets all the time saying 'it plays just like a Prestige'--but they never do...

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OliverSimon said:

I think Ivan Navarro used a K-Blade for a little while. Could this have been the H22?

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