Davis TopSpin - It will drive your opponent insane.

kevin qmto

kevin qmto

Hall of Fame
First of all, sorry for the lousy angle, the perimeter tarps at indoor facilities are always a wildcard of whether the angle is good or not. And this time it wasn't. However, I still think the footage is pretty great for entertainments sake. This was for a 4.0-4.5 league and I'd played and lost against this guy a couple times already. @Max G. knows him. He's calm and collected as long as he's got a comfortable lead, but will turn into quite the chatterbox if you can get up a break or so. I figured I'd lose to him again so I picked that night to compare some wood frames in matchplay. First up was a standard run-of-the-mill dept store level woodie, followed by the Davis TopSpin Diagonally strung frame. The Davis was bought NOS, and luckily I was given a slip of stringing instructions to give to my local pro shop, who did a bang out job stringing it. (Technifibre X-One Biphase 16 @50lbs). The Davis can definitely produce some great spin for the time, far more than a standard wood. And the literature made sure to clarify that the racket is perfectly legal for all major tennis leagues!

Anyways, enjoy the video and pics!

Video is just a collection of decent or noteworthy points, leading up to the drama at the end. Match went down as him forfeiting lol.

Round 2 - better play and camera angles, and a more sane opponent...

71uZL7z.jpg

JGMJUjl.jpg

NXuFOxn.jpg

N0vD0p9.jpg

IRW3lD6.jpg

ALboays.jpg
 
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Grafil Injection

Grafil Injection

Hall of Fame
Seems to be a great stick with good depth and spin. Quite an open pattern I guess that diagonal pattern results in. You need to take a graphite Standard next time you play him, just for a laugh.
 
J

JW10S

Hall of Fame
I remember when these racquets came out and was always a little surprised that they didn't catch on.
 
R

retrowagen

Hall of Fame
If not your opponent, this racquet could make your racquet stringer insane!

(unless you’re playing against the person who strings your racquets, then…)

Joking aside: Voelkl had a few models featuring the diagonal stringing, as well. I tend to think if it really was a good idea, most would now feature this detail, and the old, orthodox grids on axis with the centerline of the frame would be derided as old, obsolete, inferior design!
 
gold325

gold325

Hall of Fame
Some questions/comments for you and others on this forum
  • Does he or did he know he was being recorded?
  • His meltdown is being broadcast on the internet for random people (many not of very high quality themselves) to make fun of and laugh at.
  • Have you never had a meltdown of your own?
  • Would you want it broadcast like this?
Anyway, that said - I think you should start a channel with full matches with opponents permission of course. Will be a lot of fun to watch with your banger forehand, serve and unorthodox backhand. Do you have software to auto scrub down videos down to just the points?
 
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B

Bambooman

Hall of Fame
gold325 said:
Some questions/comments for you and others on this forum
  • Does he or did he know he was being recorded?
  • His meltdown is being broadcast on the internet for random people (many not of very high quality themselves) to make fun of and laugh at.
  • Have you never had a meltdown of your own?
  • Would you want it broadcast like this?
Anyway, that said - I think you should start a channel with full matches with opponents permission of course. Will be a lot of fun to watch with your banger forehand, serve and unorthodox backhand. Do you have software to auto scrub down videos down to just the points?
Click to expand...
If you broadcast that behavior in a public place, anything goes.
 
kevin qmto

kevin qmto

Hall of Fame
gold325 said:
Some questions/comments for you and others on this forum
  • Does he or did he know he was being recorded?
  • His meltdown is being broadcast on the internet for random people (many not of very high quality themselves) to make fun of and laugh at.
  • Have you never had a meltdown of your own?
  • Would you want it broadcast like this?
Anyway, that said - I think you should start a channel with full matches with opponents permission of course. Will be a lot of fun to watch with your banger forehand, serve and unorthodox backhand. Do you have software to auto scrub down videos down to just the points?
Click to expand...
Yes. He absolutely knew and consented to being recorded. The video is unlisted and one must have the direct link to see it. I keep viewing eyes to places like this message board. I have meltdowns all the time, and even have a running compilation of them, and confess about them on this board. I don’t really care if this particular opponent saw this video, as I don’t really care if I play them again, and this type of reaction was so bizarre it had to be seen to be believed.
 
B

Bambooman

Hall of Fame
GAS said:
That guy treat you like a ***** and you took it like a *****.
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Truth.

The meek submission and retrieval of a racquet with "some graphite on it" followed by polite bunting was a bit soft.

Should have had a conversation as to what exact edge you had with your non real racquet.

The "I hope so" was pretty good though.
 
kevin qmto

kevin qmto

Hall of Fame
Bambooman said:
He claims that it was X-One Biphase but you can't trust that.

No doubt it's Babolat Unicorn Gut in 25 gauge.
Click to expand...
Well if I can’t convince you of the string inside it, maybe you’d believe my pro shop stringer said it took him all of 2 hours to string. And he’s usually a 20-25in stringer for normal rackets.
 
B

Bambooman

Hall of Fame
kevin qmto said:
Well if I can’t convince you of the string inside it, maybe you’d believe my pro shop stringer said it took him all of 2 hours to string. And he’s usually a 20-25in stringer for normal rackets.
Click to expand...
That was a joke referring to the epic illegal qualities of your old racquet that surpasses all modern renditions.
 
kevin qmto

kevin qmto

Hall of Fame
Bambooman said:
That was a joke referring to the epic illegal qualities of your old racquet that surpasses all modern renditions.
Click to expand...
Its funny that the stringing instructions also provided a paragraph from the USTA explaining that diagonal stringing was perfectly legal in all recognized pro leagues.
 
kevin qmto

kevin qmto

Hall of Fame
Grafil Injection said:
What was the 'Traditional Wooden Racket' btw? It looks a pretty cool design.
Click to expand...
It's one you've seen before, the Sports Action Championship. 7 plys of magic and a bit of royal blue paint. It's a winner. The no name dept store racket that somehow plays among my favorites in terms of feel, especially the small grip. Though overall my level is still higher with the Topspin. I recommend everyone add that model to their to-buy list of classics ASAP.
e3TV6dw.jpg

wFK9O4d.jpg


I think I played much better overall this night.

 
vsbabolat

vsbabolat

G.O.A.T.
kevin qmto said:
First of all, sorry for the lousy angle, the perimeter tarps at indoor facilities are always a wildcard of whether the angle is good or not. And this time it wasn't. However, I still think the footage is pretty great for entertainments sake. This was for a 4.0-4.5 league and I'd played and lost against this guy a couple times already. @Max G. knows him. He's calm and collected as long as he's got a comfortable lead, but will turn into quite the chatterbox if you can get up a break or so. I figured I'd lose to him again so I picked that night to compare some wood frames in matchplay. First up was a standard run-of-the-mill dept store level woodie, followed by the Davis TopSpin Diagonally strung frame. The Davis was bought NOS, and luckily I was given a slip of stringing instructions to give to my local pro shop, who did a bang out job stringing it. (Technifibre X-One Biphase 16 @50lbs). The Davis can definitely produce some great spin for the time, far more than a standard wood. And the literature made sure to clarify that the racket is perfectly legal for all major tennis leagues!

Anyways, enjoy the video and pics!

Video is just a collection of decent or noteworthy points, leading up to the drama at the end. Match went down as him forfeiting lol.

Round 2 - better play and camera angles, and a more sane opponent...

71uZL7z.jpg

JGMJUjl.jpg

NXuFOxn.jpg

N0vD0p9.jpg

IRW3lD6.jpg

ALboays.jpg
Click to expand...
If I had been you I wouldn’t have picked up the other racket. You found a groove with that Davis Topspin and he was pissed you were out playing him with a wooden racket. Good for you. Your serve looked very dialed in that match. Great job!
PowerAngle has or had (I don’t know their status) diagonal strung rackets. TW even sold them for a while.
 
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Grafil Injection

Grafil Injection

Hall of Fame
kevin qmto said:
It's one you've seen before, the Sports Action Championship. 7 plys of magic and a bit of royal blue paint. It's a winner. The no name dept store racket that somehow plays among my favorites in terms of feel, especially the small grip. Though overall my level is still higher with the Topspin. I recommend everyone add that model to their to-buy list of classics ASAP.
e3TV6dw.jpg

wFK9O4d.jpg


I think I played much better overall this night.

Click to expand...

Nice. I remember now. I'm pretty sure you confirmed this was actually used by Pete Sampras too. Got to be worth $6-12k? Probably.
 
kevin qmto

kevin qmto

Hall of Fame
@Sanglier do you think the failure of diagonal strung rackets to gain popularity has more to do with the diffuciltly/time consuming nature of stringing them more than the playing advantages/disadvantages? After hitting a good deal with the Topspin I really think the concept has more potential than the handful of diagonally strung frames would suggest. Particularly if you watch further into part 2 of my video.
 
B

Bambooman

Hall of Fame
kevin qmto said:
@Sanglier do you think the failure of diagonal strung rackets to gain popularity has more to do with the diffuciltly/time consuming nature of stringing them more than the playing advantages/disadvantages? After hitting a good deal with the Topspin I really think the concept has more potential than the handful of diagonally strung frames would suggest. Particularly if you watch further into part 2 of my video.
Click to expand...
You have to wonder if the V of the crosses gives more grab than straight lines.
 
Sanglier

Sanglier

Professional
kevin qmto said:
@Sanglier do you think the failure of diagonal strung rackets to gain popularity has more to do with the diffuciltly/time consuming nature of stringing them more than the playing advantages/disadvantages? After hitting a good deal with the Topspin I really think the concept has more potential than the handful of diagonally strung frames would suggest. Particularly if you watch further into part 2 of my video.
Click to expand...

My understanding of the rationale behind the claim that diagonally-strung patterns have more inherent spin potential is that, in contrast to the conventional orthogonal pattern, where you have a set of longer strings (mains) doing almost the entirety of the spin-generating work, resting on a set of shorter strings (crosses) that only play a supportive role during that process, a diagonal pattern has two sets of strings of equal length sharing the same work load in the central region of the stringbed where it really matters, resulting in greater and more consistent elasticity in the area that comes into contact with the ball, relative to conventionally-strung frames of otherwise identical physical characteristics.

Whether this theoretical advantage is worth the stringer's trouble to deviate from his routine practice is difficult to assess, as I am not aware of any controlled experiment having been performed to prove it empirically one way or the other, despite the pattern having been around for over 100 years. Your own recent experience certainly suggests there may be something to it.

In terms of stringing difficulty, it's nowhere near as troublesome as the ones with a third additional string orientation woven into the mix (e.g., the Star of David pattern), so I would attribute the failure of this pattern to catch on after all this time to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" type of general resistance to buckling conventions, rather than any actual shortcomings in the pattern itself.
 
Grafil Injection

Grafil Injection

Hall of Fame
Is it possible to measure the average cell size of the central 100 cells, to compare to the usual 1.0-1.2 cm2 range for Standards? It looks like that 17x17 pattern is at the upper end.

I may be misremembering, but I thought shortly after the MadRaq came out in the early 90s, the diagonal pattern was officially questioned for tournament play, if not banned. And there were always string breaking concerns.
 
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E

ey039524

Professional
I imagine the string movement and subsequent snapback is totally different, given that both diagonals are moving; in contrast to just the mains. It would be interesting to see slow motion video of the strings at contact.
 
kevin qmto

kevin qmto

Hall of Fame
ey039524 said:
I imagine the string movement and subsequent snapback is totally different, given that both diagonals are moving; in contrast to just the mains. It would be interesting to see slow motion video of the strings at contact.
Click to expand...
I’ll say this, at 50lbs, the strings seems to not move whatsoever. I’ve yet to notice them shifting out of place at all.
 
C

Chairman3

Hall of Fame
Is diagonal stringing still legal?
It is curious, why didn't it catch on?
Obviously the Davis looks like other wood racquets, it's just the string pattern.
Understandable something like a Bosworth wouldn't catch on as easily but why not diagonal stringing on normal racquets?
 
kevin qmto

kevin qmto

Hall of Fame
Chairman3 said:
Is diagonal stringing still legal?
It is curious, why didn't it catch on?
Obviously the Davis looks like other wood racquets, it's just the string pattern.
Understandable something like a Bosworth wouldn't catch on as easily but why not diagonal stringing on normal racquets?
Click to expand...
Everything I’ve been able to research says it’s totally legal. I think a lot of people just thought if pros weren’t using it, how good could it be? Davis of course, never sponsored players.
 
Grafil Injection

Grafil Injection

Hall of Fame
I definitely recall some legality discussions when Mad-Raq and Protagon were around in the early 90s, and they were normal shaped sticks. Although, perhaps they were started by annoyed stringers.
 
gold325

gold325

Hall of Fame
kevin qmto said:
Everything I’ve been able to research says it’s totally legal. I think a lot of people just thought if pros weren’t using it, how good could it be? Davis of course, never sponsored players.
Click to expand...

Looks like TW carried PowerAngle rackets from 2005 to 2016 and in those 11 years couldnt find the time to do a single proper review

Its cool to read the feedback from users although not that many commented

2005

2016

Only official review I could find?
Unfortunately the video was in the ruffle platform and I guess no longer works
 
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