Looking forward to reading your impressions. Hopefully you like it! It does take an hour or 2 of hard hitting for the frame to break in.
Ok, so yeah - 2 hours and 800ish calories later of hitting and I have some impressions.
When I was warming up, I was thinking that the modded frame swung a bit heavy which made no sense coming from the P93. I was still able to play with it fine, but the more I hit, I finally just took the lead off during a water break. So yeah, this is why I don’t mod frames, because I clearly don’t know WTF I am doing..lol. This frame plays fantastic with the lower SW just like you said. Clearly there have been some changes in racquet tech or something because I don’t understand how this frame plays so solid and deep, but it definitely does it. There must be something happening in the tech because I know there are plenty of guys on the challenger and even pro circuit playing with Yonex frames stock. So anyway, I don’t know what I am doing when it comes to modding frames anymore, but I digress.
So yeah, I am basically playing the frame with 4 grams under the handle now, a YY OG and Sampras dampener. That’s it. It’s the same as switching to a leather grip basically. It’s 336 grams, which is a nice weight to play at.
As soon as I did that, the timing was so much better and I was able to hit the sweet spot constantly. This frame feels awesome, I have missed that true Yonex feel, as they don't all have it. For example the Vcore 98 does not. It’s firmness is a lot more apparent when I switched to it for a minute from the 97Pro.
This frame is a perfect compromise if you like the classic feel but don’t want something heavy. The P93 has made me very reliant on ball feel, and this racquet has it. It is low powered, but definitely has more punch to it than a classic frame. Additionally it’s really easy to generate tip speed so I am able to play a big hitting game without swinging out of my shoes and gassing myself, which was my concern and why I added lead in the first place.
Trajectory is still fairly low (which I like) and I would say this frame rewards a full swing. It’s a 16x19, but it plays like an 18x20. But I was able to hit deep and heavy top over and over, and that’s what I needed. I also could hit pretty solid backhands down the line and move the ball around easily. I love the control of it. This is not a power frame like a Bab or a Vcore 98, but it’s not like using a prestige from 8 years ago either. You can bomb with this frame and push people back as long as you have a full swing.
Volleys were very nice, not as good as theP93, but nothing is for me. Serves have a ton of potential too. I have more angles to attack the ball with on serve than the P93, but the P93 is still my ultimate serving frame. Tough to really go wrong here.
I would say this is the first frame I have tried where you can actually have your cake and eat it too. The cake may not be super rich and loaded with frosting, but it’s still damn good. The feel of this frame is excellent, imo. And my wrist is quite happy right now that I didn’t whip around a 350 gram frame. So there is that as well. The bummer here is that the Vcore 98 is looking like the odd man out and that sucks since the p/j is incredible. At least the 97 has a really nice one as well.
Anyone who plays with a Wilson Blade should try this frame out for sure. I think the YY has a much better balance to it and better feel as well.
Other thing - this max power rough is fantastic. I love it. I need more time with it to see how it does over the course of 8-10 hours but I may buy a reel. It feels incredible in the 97 pro and the spin and control is top notch. I had it strung at 46/44#s, and the first 2 hours were fantastic. Hopefully it wont pull an ALU and drop off a cliff on me.
