I knew SD a bit when he was working with Warren Jacques back in the day, he was playing Kennex then.Hank Pfister and Steve Denton appeared alongside Bosworth and Gilbert in mid-80s WORLD TENNIS magazine ads for FOX. Not sure if they actually used them in tournament play though.
Can I get some specs on the Bronze? Thanks
I am very interested in buying one or more red ATP Fox graphite (NOT Bosworth) rackets. The specs on the racket I want are: 118 sq in, 100% graphite, 12 oz, 28 in long, and grometless. If any of you have any such rackets you would be willing to sell, I will pay a reasonable amount for them.Here are 3 Red Fox that are grommet-less in design...string simply goes thru frame. These 3 are all the same model but one has a satin finish on it. I've never strung one up so I can't speak of how they hit. I also have a Silver Fox that is about an inch longer than these. I'll find a pic of it and post it.
Don't forget the Midland S.T.R. The Maynard AirPower and the Tretorn with removable string set also have no external grommet holes when the string set is in place....So for internal stringing we have the CORTLAND STEEL, guess we should include T 2000 series, Seamco, and Fox ATP. It was quite interesting that the experts from the competition couldn't work out how to mold an internal loop as exists in these. Good interesting history.
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Then there is the Dunlop "Black Max Plus"/ Match-Mate angle. The former was (I was told by a pro who played with this frame) only a stop gap measure before the latter became commercially available. The "Black Max Plus" and the first version of "Match Mate Graphite" are 100% identical. There are in fact other clones of this frame floating around under different guises, at least one of which showed up on the bay several months ago wearing the "Aussie" brand (an inheritor of the Chemold "Rod Laver" privilege?). This frame is an even closer derivative of the "Big Ace", and was likely made by Racquetech under contract, at least initially. It too, wears the "Graphite 1000" string pattern:
Match-Mate was trademarked by "The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tennis Practice System Corporation", a ball machine maker incorporated in 1977 in Northridge. As it so happens, their business location is a mere 8 miles away from the Chatsworth address that Graphite Sales Co/BBC/Racquetech/Fox operated out of. It is not much of a stretch to imagine that when Match-Mate executives wanted to get into the racquet-making business, they simply took a 20 minute drive to see the nearest manufacturer, and licensed the best frame they saw. Alternatively, perhaps someone who once worked at the Graphite Sales Co/BBC joined "The Great A.P.T.P.S. Corporation" and brought his racquet making knowledge and practice with him? If he had been living nearby he wouldn't even had to move.
My understanding at this point is that Match-Mate carried on making incrementally improved versions of this frame for some years even after Fox/FTM quit making anything themselves and moved to Florida in '87, so this design (in its many iterations) had achieved quite an impressive lifespan, especially considering the fact that it had begun its journey as a boutique product, and remained as one till the bitter end. It may or may not have been the first modern graphite racquet in the world, but it almost certainly was the last production racquet to have been made in Los Angeles (if not the US).![]()
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Nice racquet, Mark! Does your friend remember the year in which he bought it? It certainly does look like a MatchMate derivative, though the beam profile seems a little more rounded in your photos than that found on the MatchMate.A friend of mine has this 80's racquet he bought in the US. Seems to be the same MatchMate later frame with the RoxPro logo.
Does anyone know anything about this racquet?
Thanks.
Mark Jordan
Nice racquet, Mark! Does your friend remember the year in which he bought it? It certainly does look like a MatchMate derivative, though the beam profile seems a little more rounded in your photos than that found on the MatchMate.
According to my source, the later MatchMates were made by Marshal, a Taiwanese OEM manufacturer that began making graphite frames in 1981, so it's entirely possible that your friend's Rox Pro was in some ways connected to those Taiwan-sourced MMs.
Has your friend compared the playing characteristics of his Rox Pro with those of the MM? Are the similarities more than skin deep? If the tie is legitimate, it would certainly add another interesting branch to the BBC/Fox/MM family tree.
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David do youhave the stringing pattern for the grey ATP Fox mid please?In my opinion, the most interesting Fox racket is the "ATP Mid Fox" with no external grommet holes.
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David must be busy with work. Maybe the scan below can help you get started? It's excerpted from a USRSA pdf.David do youhave the stringing pattern for the grey ATP Fox mid please?
Thanks so much hopefully we can follow.David must be busy with work. Maybe the scan below can help you get started? It's excerpted from a USRSA pdf.
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I strung up one of these a while back guided only by the technical drawing from the US patent pdf (long before I came to my senses and paid for a USRSA subscription). As the patent description did not include any stringing instructions, I had to reconstruct the steps backward from the minimalist drawing and muddle my way through the rest (so my tensions were completely off). It was a mentally exhausting exercise, as everything just felt "wrong" from the beginning to the end.