Fed and Rafa shoe soles Aussie 2017

brownbearfalling

brownbearfalling

Hall of Fame
while watching the Aussie final there was a brief snap of both Rafa and Fed shoes. Looks like they have custom soles? Fed seems to have a carbon mid foot support plate. Anyone have more info on the shoes? Flyknit? Vapor speed sole?

For Rafa looks like he has the sole of the courtballistec 1.3/2.3. Any news on why he reverted back to those soles? Not really new news since he was playing ballistic 4.3 painted to look like lunar ballistec
 
M

mach2joe

New User
brownbearfalling said:
while watching the Aussie final there was a brief snap of both Rafa and Fed shoes. Looks like they have custom soles? Fed seems to have a carbon mid foot support plate. Anyone have more info on the shoes? Flyknit? Vapor speed sole?

For Rafa looks like he has the sole of the courtballistec 1.3/2.3. Any news on why he reverted back to those soles? Not really new news since he was playing ballistic 4.3 painted to look like lunar ballistec
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Federer has have carbon fiber shank plates in his shoes forever. Rafa shoes are just PJs as we know it :D
roger-federer-nike-shoes.jpg
 
Arti

Arti

Professional
This has been the case for all of their careers, ever since I think 2008 or 2009 they have had practically unchanged shoes just with different upper designs.
rafael-nadal-australian-open-2016-shoes-nike.jpg

2012%20australian.jpg
 
Arti

Arti

Professional
xFullCourtTenniSx said:
But if I feel like it's a traction-less mess, then there's a difference.
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yes, to you. Essentially, find the shoe that works best for you, Roger found that a Zoom Vapor 6 was the best one for him so he is still using it to this day just with a different upper to match that of the retail. I personally like the Asics Gel Resolution 5 the best so I keep buying them (I own about 3 pairs at the moment), they won't last forever though and I will probably have to switch to the Resolution 6.
 
kimguroo

kimguroo

Legend
Rhino said:
What makes you say that?
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I don't know it's angle of pic since the light might create reflections and looks like there is a clear plastic.
Or light reflection made looking like glossy carbon fiber?
You should tell me since you have the shoes haha
Arti said:
I mean it's a vapor 6, im sure it's real with a clear plastic coat for protection.
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Protection for carbon fiber??? For what? Carbon fiber is strong material than clear plastic. Carbon fiber does not need protection. The reason for using carbon fiber is light and strong.
 
British Tim

British Tim

New User
kimguroo said:
Protection for carbon fiber??? For what? Carbon fiber is strong material than clear plastic. Carbon fiber does not need protection. The reason for using carbon fiber is light and strong.
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It does benefit from protection in lots of applications. Its impact resistance is pretty poor, and a combination of heat and oil will make it delaminate pretty quickly. (I'll let others decide if that's relevant on a tennis court)

There are 2 parts to a carbon fibre composite (the clue is in the name ;-) ) the fibres themselves, and the (often resin) material that it site within.
Often the resin is clear - this can make it look like there is a clear plastic layer over the top. And sometimes there is (a plastic layer that has better impact resistance - not offering structural strength but just stopping the resin getting scratched or cracked.

Not for nothing are carbon fibre structures on aircraft not usually left bare.

(I studied Aero Engineering, specialised in materials, and did 9 years in the RAF)

No idea what the norm is in shoe making though.
 
kimguroo

kimguroo

Legend
British Tim said:
It does benefit from protection in lots of applications. Its impact resistance is pretty poor, and a combination of heat and oil will make it delaminate pretty quickly. (I'll let others decide if that's relevant on a tennis court)

There are 2 parts to a carbon fibre composite (the clue is in the name ;-) ) the fibres themselves, and the (often resin) material that it site within.
Often the resin is clear - this can make it look like there is a clear plastic layer over the top. And sometimes there is (a plastic layer that has better impact resistance - not offering structural strength but just stopping the resin getting scratched or cracked.

Not for nothing are carbon fibre structures on aircraft not usually left bare.

(I studied Aero Engineering, specialised in materials, and did 9 years in the RAF)

No idea what the norm is in shoe making though.
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I thought using carbon materials to shoes is making lighter. At the same time, carbon material will give strong impact resistance (I am not an engineer haha). If plastic layer gives better impact resistance for shoes, why Nike put carbon material with a plastic layer instead of better quality plastic similar to retail version? Since there is nothing wrong with retail version and every pros use retail version except Fed himself.
 
Arti

Arti

Professional
kimguroo said:
I don't know it's angle of pic since the light might create reflections and looks like there is a clear plastic.
Or light reflection made looking like glossy carbon fiber?
You should tell me since you have the shoes haha


Protection for carbon fiber??? For what? Carbon fiber is strong material than clear plastic. Carbon fiber does not need protection. The reason for using carbon fiber is light and strong.
Click to expand...
It's pretty dumb to just leave out carbon fiber exposed. Why do you think racquets have clear coats over their exposed carbon fiber like the hyper prostaff for example. Carbon fiber doesn't stand up well to pure friction with the ground. You cover it so it looks nice and glossy and so that it doesn't get destroyed after 3 matches.
 
Arti

Arti

Professional
kimguroo said:
I thought using carbon materials to shoes is making lighter. At the same time, carbon material will give strong impact resistance (I am not an engineer haha). If plastic layer gives better impact resistance for shoes, why Nike put carbon material with a plastic layer instead of better quality plastic similar to retail version? Since there is nothing wrong with retail version and every pros use retail version except Fed himself.
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Well, nike had the carbon material on retail shoes in the form of the vapor 6. They just change the model every few years to make you want to buy more. Federer wants the carbon fibre composite with clear resin so he gets it. The public doesn't have access to fully personal shoes so they can't choose the soleplate they specifically want.
 
British Tim

British Tim

New User
CF is also an easy way to make very small runs of things rather than tooling up injection moulding for plastic (eg just the shoes for one specific player!) so that may be it. Perhaps his plate is shaped for his foot, and productions ones are generic?

Or maybe it's just to drive fanboys wild and keep them buying every variation of RF gear chasing the high...
 
Rhino

Rhino

Legend
kimguroo said:
I don't know it's angle of pic since the light might create reflections and looks like there is a clear plastic.
Or light reflection made looking like glossy carbon fiber?
You should tell me since you have the shoes haha
Click to expand...

It's carbon fibre.
 
kimguroo

kimguroo

Legend
Rhino said:
It's carbon fibre.
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Always thought and believed that real carbon was used for Fed's actual shoes but light made some reflective spots on carbon material and thought it might be not real carbon hahaha.

Arti said:
Well, nike had the carbon material on retail shoes in the form of the vapor 6. They just change the model every few years to make you want to buy more. Federer wants the carbon fibre composite with clear resin so he gets it. The public doesn't have access to fully personal shoes so they can't choose the soleplate they specifically want.
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I still have vapor 6 and Nike did not used real carbon materials to retail vapor 6 shoes. Same thing goes to vapor 7 and 8. Middle part has carbon looking but it's just cheap plastic.
 
T

teckid

Rookie
Part of that sole pattern originated with the Vapor Speed (the "second" vapor) from way way back. Mostly the hourglass or pill shaped pattern and circle cut outs.
 
Arti

Arti

Professional
kimguroo said:
Always thought and believed that real carbon was used for Fed's actual shoes but light made some reflective spots on carbon material and thought it might be not real carbon hahaha.


I still have vapor 6 and Nike did not used real carbon materials to retail vapor 6 shoes. Same thing goes to vapor 7 and 8. Middle part has carbon looking but it's just cheap plastic.
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Im sorry, its a composite of various sole patterns
 
D

Dave1982

Professional
Arti said:
I mean it's a vapor 6, im sure it's real with a clear plastic coat for protection.
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It's not the same as the V6 sole...yes, the carbon shank in Federer's PE shoes is the same shape as the shank found in the V6 but the tread pattern on Federer's shoes compared to that found on the retail version of the V6 is completely different....and the shank on the retail version is also just plastic as opposed to CF.

As a few have indicated, Federer and Nadal have been using the same outsoles and tread patterns on their individual PE shoes since at least 2009, which coincided with release of V6 and Ballistec 1.3.
Federer then used a paint job version of the V6 throughout the 2010 and 2011 seasons as for whatever reason he didn't warm to the V7's and V8's, obviously he then moved to the V9 upper in 2012 and has remained with these and V9.5's since.
Rafa on the other hand moved with the times and wore the 1.3, 2.3 and 3.3 and 4.3 uppers - occasionally using a paint job of the previous model for first tournament or two of the season.

Obviously in each case, the upper used by Rafa and Federer is not exactly like that of the retail models with a few features unique to each player found on their respective PE's...plenty of threads can be found on here detailing such differences.
 
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