The real answer that TW and most posters don’t want you to know is that any racquet with these specs (maybe SW above 330 and add beam width below 21mm) is good enough for almost all advanced players. You can take any racquet with these specs and tune its performance tremendously experimenting with strings and tensions till it ‘sings’ on the court just as you want it to. Personally, I find it funny that people think there is a lot of variability between how racquets perform when tennis racquets are a very low-tech product with little innovation in 25 years. Once you know the spec range you like, just buy a racquet that looks aesthetically pleasing from the brands you like and then start experimenting with various strings and tensions until it sounds like a ‘Stradivarius’ Violin.
Don’t get too hung up on string patterns as some brands make dense patterns at the center in open string patterns and others do the opposite. It is pretty easy to adjust to different string patterns in a few weeks if you are an advanced player.
The more interesting question is which racquets in this spec range look the best!
Wouldn't it make more sense to say the lighter SW rackets are more tuneable?
I agree rackets are very low tech but I think tennis is a game with a lot of variety in style and strengths. So these little variables that seem simple on paper can actually matter a lot.
Flex, beam thickness, head size, weight, balance, string pattern. Then you have strings...gauge, material, tension. Hybrid or not. Even stringing techniques matter a bit.
These things are all both really often over and under rated.
Personally, I think I'm at a point where I'm really good and I have to accept that my growth from here is going to come more so from my own self than my racket. That's always true but it seems more true the better you get. Until... You're like as good as you can possibly get.
But it's fun to experiment and I still do. It's a slightly guilty pleasure but I hope to find "my" racket soon. It's been a while since I've felt that.
18x20 is really cool. Or 16x20. So many 16x19 and it's hard to beat the control on touch you get with a slightly denser pattern. If you can find a 20 cross pattern you like, I'd go for it.
Loved the gravity pro for a while and try to try the vcore95 but will buy one soon. Have an angell tc95 on the way this week. Maybe that'll be the one. Kinda hope so. But I feel pretty done with 19 crosses as I generally feel the thing I don't like about those rackets often has something to do with the string pattern acting a little reckless here and there.
Really nice to get a dense pattern and drop tension like 7 lbs. You get the comfort and still get the control. It's really nice.