Goodbye to the Wilson Shift, we hardly got to know you.

ultralinear

ultralinear

Rookie
My experience with the Wilson Shift started when I flew home from Detroit with MIB's personal racket. I guess it wasn't his personal racket if we are defining personal as the racket he was using at the time. Long story short, Jonas at tennisnerdsteered MIB toward the Shift 99. I found it a rather odd suggestion, knowing MIB's game first hand. At the same time, I was somewhat heartened MIB had reached out to someone for racket help when he already owned a fantastic tennis game, especially in doubles. As good as he is, MIB was still striving for improvement!

By the time El Shifto (300G / 16x20) was in my hands it had been through some changes, courtesy of the MIB. It had a leather grip and a Tourna overgrip as well as significant quantities of lead tape at 3 and 9. It felt a little like the tennis racket equivalent of Manny Sanguillén's bat from the 70s. If you don't get the reference, oh well. The point is that MIB's Shift was heavy.

Me? I like a heavy racket as much as the next guy but Michael's tuning of it felt more than a little off to me so bit by bit I undid what had been done. First to go was the lead tape. Then I lost the leather grip. That's when things got wild. You see, MIB uses a 4 3/8 grip while I prefer a 4 1/4. My solution was to go Modified Djoker. I heard Novak Djokovic used two overgrips and no main grip. True? False? Who knows or cares? But I added a twist. I placed vertical strips of blue masking tape on the bare grip (five layers to be precise) and finished the grip with a single Yonex Super Grap Wet.

Before I get to the results let me tell all of you who don't know and, really, why would any of you know, I find the grip sizing system to be totally stupid. I think tennis grips should be sized by measured dimensions rather than a reference to something that's actually not a reference but a simplistic effort at correlation, in this case a bizarre attempt at correlation between the length of one's palm and the added length of their ring finger and the correct grip size.

What?

I've probably lost you by now and that's Ok since this is my tennis fever dream. Back to the five layers of blue masking tape. Quality 3M masking tape actually builds up quite a bit of cushion, especially five layers of the stuff so once I had the Yonex overgrip installed the Shift's grip felt pretty much like a 4 1/4 with nicely pronounced bevels.

Voila!

https://flic.kr/p/2s6bR5b

Not quite. But here's the thing. El Shifto felt and played great. It took a couple grams of lead tape in the throat to get El Shifto to 310G strung. It is my lightest racket by 10 grams but it feels exceptionally solid on volleys and quite precise on my groundies. My serve had great pop and El Shifto rewarded a smooth stroke, happy to do a good deal of the work for me. Notwithstanding my general disinclination against Wilson tennis rackets I have to say the modified El Shifto has become my favorite racket. It has me thinking about grabbing a Son of El Shifto or hunting down a Wilson Labs version just for fun. Then, right as my enthusiasm for the Wilson Shift was in its ascendance I read that Wilson had ditched the racket for a yet unnamed successor. I say unnamedeven though I've read rumors that Shift's replacement will be called the Python.

You know. Snakes. Tennis. Sure.

This is what I don't get. Wilson, by all indications, did a lot of work creating the Shift, similar to the effort put behind the development of the Clash. The Clash is now in Version 3 but Shift has been unceremoniously consigned to the ash heap of tennis racket history without the common courtesy of even a Version 2.

Why?

I'm sure Python or Viper or Garter Snake or whatever Shift's successor is called will incorporate some and perhaps many of Shift's innovations. Abandoning Shift bothers me as a marketer and I think it makes Wilson look bad, at least in my eyes. If they knew they had a good racket in the Shift, and they obviously did and likely still do, what's the hurry to dump it? Is the Wilson Burn really flying off the shelves? I don't think so.

Maybe Wilson thinks the Shift is too close to the Clash, but I don't think that's correct. Obviously, the Blade V9 is a darling of the professional game for both women and men. For a while, the Ultra V5 with its flashy blue paint, looked like it was going to catch on for both pros and recreational players but its appeal to both sectors seems to have flattened somewhat.

The Shift deserved more respect from Wilson. At least it has mine.

Will any of the rest of you miss the Shift?
 
I would say the Ultra v5 is doing great in Juniors, especially on the ladies side. I have seen exactly one clash at junior tournaments in the last 2 years, and that was even after the wilson reps tried as hard as they could to get kids to pick it up a couple of years ago. Maybe they could kill off the burn and put the shift at the $199 category to at least make up some of the R&D budget? What's Roddick going to use?
 
I mentioned several times on different topics here in the forum that the Shift has had a huge potential in potential version 2...unfortunately, this will not happen. It has been decided quite a long time ago actually, this is not hot news. Wilson has come up with really something new and innovative and I played with the Pro version for some time and I did like it. But it seems like the Shift never really found a way to the hands of the rec players at all. I have personally never seen any version of the Shift in the wild on the courts :-/
I believe Wilson could have dumped something else than the Shift but that´s just me.

Side note to the Ultras - the Ultra 99 Pro is an excellent frame, one of my go-to-racquets that I carry in my bag so this was actually a good move. Funny that is is not an "ultra" by any means in the line, we all know it´s a resurrection of the Steam 99 painted with glossy ultra blue colour. But this was a nice touch from Wilson bringing this one back. No we´ll have a Blade Pro 100 16x20 coming out of the Steam 100 :-D
 
Last edited:
Why? The Clash is a well-liked frame amongst beginners and intermediates. The Shift was a commercial failure it’s fair to say. It was intended to be Wilson’s offering for the modern spin market but neither recs at scale nor pros particularly liked it.
 
I liked both the shift and especially the shift pro. Unfortunately the 2 shift pros I had were pretty high sw at just under 340 but they still played well and somehow the pro had amazing spin for such a tight 18x20 stringbed. Also the pro lab paintjob of the shifts were awesome

It is a shame the silo will be killed off after 1 iteration. Maybe it’ll be back one day…
 
That's the problem with innovation, it's a risk.
The clash worked and the shift didn't.
People didn't understand it and the modern association with spin is 16x19, not 16x20 and especially not 18x20.

It's like a good joke, if you have to explain it...is it really that funny?
If you have to explain the vertical bending tech are people really going to believe or understand it?

I thought it was an interesting racquet, too stiff and muted for me, but the regular 99 should've competed more directly with the PA98.
So Wilson abandon it for a more traditional route via the python.
Such is life and business
 
Chairman3 said:
That's the problem with innovation, it's a risk.
The clash worked and the shift didn't.
People didn't understand it and the modern association with spin is 16x19, not 16x20 and especially not 18x20.

It's like a good joke, if you have to explain it...is it really that funny?
If you have to explain the vertical bending tech are people really going to believe or understand it?

I thought it was an interesting racquet, too stiff and muted for me, but the regular 99 should've competed more directly with the PA98.
So Wilson abandon it for a more traditional route via the python.
Such is life and business
Click to expand...
I don’t think the string pattern was the issue considering the PA98 is a thing. But yeah otherwise agreed
 
SpinToWin said:
I don’t think the string pattern was the issue considering the PA98 is a thing. But yeah otherwise agreed
Click to expand...
It came out in 2023 and Alcaraz had only won 1 maybe 2, depending on actual release, slams by then. So the PA98 hype train hadn't left the station yet.
Now of course people are clamoring for the PA98 with its 16x20 but not yet at that time.
 
I just started playing tennis seriously in 2019, started with the Clash after test many at USTA Orlando.
As I got better, I switched to the SHIFT when it came out and LOVED IT. Love the Spin, good volleys.

But it's amazing how many Clash's you see at clubs, and how every view Shifts.
I play a a bunch of different clubs and USTA leagues endive only ever seen 1 other SHIFT. I see multiple Clashs every time I play.

I went back and even bought another Wilson Labs SHIFT model so I had a 3rd.
 
This is really a problem with Wilson and their brand image as a whole. We all know this is a young person's sport, along with equipment and merchandise. You want your products to take off? Make sure you can put them in the hands of juniors and young people.

It's evident that Wilson has become a true legacy brand name and it's perceived as the unc-generation brand. Case in point, the Pro Staff and Pure Strike cater to the same player more or less, but we all know the Pure Strike outsells and has a larger market share on tour and rec play.

If the Shift was in the hands of Yonex or Babolat, it would have lived on. Hell, even Head would have been able to find a way to keep this racquet going.
 
As I’ve said in many posts, I love the shift. It’s a great frame in many regards… but it’s different. I don’t think there’s anything similar on the market which means the onus is on Wilson to teach the market what it is (like was mentioned above).

What most surprised me is that they didn’t even attempt to paint a pro’s racket to get more hype generated. I’d have expected some endorsement even if they weren’t using the frame.

Not everything can be a market hit, I get it. I hope their new frame fits into the market the way they expect it to. They definitely have struggled with spin/power offerings over the years

I loved hitting with the Shift and I’ll keep a high opinion of it
 
TheBoom said:
As I’ve said in many posts, I love the shift. It’s a great frame in many regards… but it’s different. I don’t think there’s anything similar on the market which means the onus is on Wilson to teach the market what it is (like was mentioned above).

What most surprised me is that they didn’t even attempt to paint a pro’s racket to get more hype generated. I’d have expected some endorsement even if they weren’t using the frame.

Not everything can be a market hit, I get it. I hope their new frame fits into the market the way they expect it to. They definitely have struggled with spin/power offerings over the years

I loved hitting with the Shift and I’ll keep a high opinion of it
Click to expand...
They won't even do that for the Pro Staff to keep it from being irrelevant.

Also, I suspect they screwed it up with the all white paintjob. Because people would just think it's another Tecnifibre frame on TV if they painted it.
 
Chairman3 said:
That's the problem with innovation, it's a risk.
The clash worked and the shift didn't.
People didn't understand it and the modern association with spin is 16x19, not 16x20 and especially not 18x20.

It's like a good joke, if you have to explain it...is it really that funny?
If you have to explain the vertical bending tech are people really going to believe or understand it?

I thought it was an interesting racquet, too stiff and muted for me, but the regular 99 should've competed more directly with the PA98.
So Wilson abandon it for a more traditional route via the python.
Such is life and business
Click to expand...
For sure. Guys at Wilson I talked to at IW said that Python is a much more incremental offering, so pros can switch to it and thus have more immediate market success. Consumers care more about what pros use than ever and that unfortunately makes it harder to innovate and take risk for them, since pros like no change or very little changes. Clash success with no endorsement is a huge exception and outlier. Their Steam release went nowhere in 2014 in a market where only pro staff were considered legit for serious players, but it took 10 years for juniors growing up using it for it to be one of the most popular stick on tour in WTA and now back as “pro” line.

Shift was a much riskier experiment than Python and is too foreign to pros today, but would it have the success of Steam down the line if there’s junior growing up with it? Maybe, maybe not. I would loved to see future iterations personally.

I really enjoy the stick and play most for the 2 years since labs came out with it. One of the racquets that adds the most to my forehead and serve without downsides. But I never seems to be able to hit a clean backhand with it :p. As others mentioned, it is simply very different than existing offerings out there. It certainly took me some time to find its magic. I understand when people didn’t click with it initially they don’t bother to try it again.

Also, I was told that at pro level swing speeds, the shift was maybe too flexible vertically leading to wildness. But at my level NTRP~4.5 it works great with full accelerations.
 
TheBoom said:
As I’ve said in many posts, I love the shift. It’s a great frame in many regards… but it’s different. I don’t think there’s anything similar on the market which means the onus is on Wilson to teach the market what it is (like was mentioned above).

What most surprised me is that they didn’t even attempt to paint a pro’s racket to get more hype generated. I’d have expected some endorsement even if they weren’t using the frame.

Not everything can be a market hit, I get it. I hope their new frame fits into the market the way they expect it to. They definitely have struggled with spin/power offerings over the years

I loved hitting with the Shift and I’ll keep a high opinion of it
Click to expand...
I’m on the same page. Loved the stick after some time to figure it out. I’m going to keep 4 + 1 RG limited cosmetic.

Terrible marketing and endorsement strat. I’m a nerd and struggles to explain “vertical bending” to other nerds. They should have marketed its many excellent playability over the tech that sounds like a gimmick no one understands imo. Endorsements is necessary to sell tennis racquets, the Clash success is a massive outlier. Are Speed MP/ Aero 98 really the best sticks for the hoards of players buying them? Unlikely.

Anecdotally, I have seen more shifts around than some of the posters shared above though.
 
MR. MOGGER said:
I liked both the shift and especially the shift pro. Unfortunately the 2 shift pros I had were pretty high sw at just under 340 but they still played well and somehow the pro had amazing spin for such a tight 18x20 stringbed. Also the pro lab paintjob of the shifts were awesome

It is a shame the silo will be killed off after 1 iteration. Maybe it’ll be back one day…
Click to expand...
The specs they tuned for both offerings were pretty bad. Many of the shift 300g (at least the labs I got) are all underspec especially in SW.

And Shift Pro is soooo demanding coming above 300SW unstrung often, especially with the extra strings they are pushing above specs that almost all non professional players can handle. Didn’t help that the shape wasn’t very aerodynamic.

Should have been a 300g regular shift with like average 315 strung SW, and a 305g 18x20 Pro with like 322-325 SW strung average. Shift already plays slightly heavier/slower than measured specs would suggest.
 
Maybe the new ownership is starting to outrun the legacy it had built up? Seems like they are more focused on apparell these days
 
thebigz said:
The specs they tuned for both offerings were pretty bad. Many of the shift 300g (at least the labs I got) are all underspec especially in SW.

And Shift Pro is soooo demanding coming above 300SW unstrung often, especially with the extra strings they are pushing above specs that almost all non professional players can handle. Didn’t help that the shape wasn’t very aerodynamic.

Should have been a 300g regular shift with like average 315 strung SW, and a 305g 18x20 Pro with like 322-325 SW strung average. Shift already plays slightly heavier/slower than measured specs would suggest.
Click to expand...
Yeah I agree the specs were a miss. I definitely had to weight up the shift 300 quite a bit. Mine was 311 strung and I wanted at least 320sw.

I think the shift pro with a 310g, 325-330sw would be fantastic, kinda like the speed pro but somehow way more spin friendly. I don't really know what but I do think the shift pro had something special to it
 
ultralinear said:
My experience with the Wilson Shift started when I flew home from Detroit with MIB's personal racket. I guess it wasn't his personal racket if we are defining personal as the racket he was using at the time. Long story short, Jonas at tennisnerdsteered MIB toward the Shift 99. I found it a rather odd suggestion, knowing MIB's game first hand. At the same time, I was somewhat heartened MIB had reached out to someone for racket help when he already owned a fantastic tennis game, especially in doubles. As good as he is, MIB was still striving for improvement!

By the time El Shifto (300G / 16x20) was in my hands it had been through some changes, courtesy of the MIB. It had a leather grip and a Tourna overgrip as well as significant quantities of lead tape at 3 and 9. It felt a little like the tennis racket equivalent of Manny Sanguillén's bat from the 70s. If you don't get the reference, oh well. The point is that MIB's Shift was heavy.

Me? I like a heavy racket as much as the next guy but Michael's tuning of it felt more than a little off to me so bit by bit I undid what had been done. First to go was the lead tape. Then I lost the leather grip. That's when things got wild. You see, MIB uses a 4 3/8 grip while I prefer a 4 1/4. My solution was to go Modified Djoker. I heard Novak Djokovic used two overgrips and no main grip. True? False? Who knows or cares? But I added a twist. I placed vertical strips of blue masking tape on the bare grip (five layers to be precise) and finished the grip with a single Yonex Super Grap Wet.

Before I get to the results let me tell all of you who don't know and, really, why would any of you know, I find the grip sizing system to be totally stupid. I think tennis grips should be sized by measured dimensions rather than a reference to something that's actually not a reference but a simplistic effort at correlation, in this case a bizarre attempt at correlation between the length of one's palm and the added length of their ring finger and the correct grip size.

What?

I've probably lost you by now and that's Ok since this is my tennis fever dream. Back to the five layers of blue masking tape. Quality 3M masking tape actually builds up quite a bit of cushion, especially five layers of the stuff so once I had the Yonex overgrip installed the Shift's grip felt pretty much like a 4 1/4 with nicely pronounced bevels.

Voila!

https://flic.kr/p/2s6bR5b

Not quite. But here's the thing. El Shifto felt and played great. It took a couple grams of lead tape in the throat to get El Shifto to 310G strung. It is my lightest racket by 10 grams but it feels exceptionally solid on volleys and quite precise on my groundies. My serve had great pop and El Shifto rewarded a smooth stroke, happy to do a good deal of the work for me. Notwithstanding my general disinclination against Wilson tennis rackets I have to say the modified El Shifto has become my favorite racket. It has me thinking about grabbing a Son of El Shifto or hunting down a Wilson Labs version just for fun. Then, right as my enthusiasm for the Wilson Shift was in its ascendance I read that Wilson had ditched the racket for a yet unnamed successor. I say unnamedeven though I've read rumors that Shift's replacement will be called the Python.

You know. Snakes. Tennis. Sure.

This is what I don't get. Wilson, by all indications, did a lot of work creating the Shift, similar to the effort put behind the development of the Clash. The Clash is now in Version 3 but Shift has been unceremoniously consigned to the ash heap of tennis racket history without the common courtesy of even a Version 2.

Why?

I'm sure Python or Viper or Garter Snake or whatever Shift's successor is called will incorporate some and perhaps many of Shift's innovations. Abandoning Shift bothers me as a marketer and I think it makes Wilson look bad, at least in my eyes. If they knew they had a good racket in the Shift, and they obviously did and likely still do, what's the hurry to dump it? Is the Wilson Burn really flying off the shelves? I don't think so.

Maybe Wilson thinks the Shift is too close to the Clash, but I don't think that's correct. Obviously, the Blade V9 is a darling of the professional game for both women and men. For a while, the Ultra V5 with its flashy blue paint, looked like it was going to catch on for both pros and recreational players but its appeal to both sectors seems to have flattened somewhat.

The Shift deserved more respect from Wilson. At least it has mine.

Will any of the rest of you miss the Shift?
Click to expand...
Pittsburgher here. Definitely got the Manny Sanguillen reference!! But who is MIB?
 
Eudaimorium said:
This was my experience as well. It is currently my main stick (I have 3x 2024 RG version), but they've all required substantial modification. Two were at ~274 SW unstrung.
Click to expand...
That tracks with most of my labs models unstrung SW. My RG night session one was 267 SW unstrung lol, needed long strips of lead to match my other ones. I’d say you are lucky.

I personally don’t think this stick needs a high SW to perform well for me. So I found throat weight + 12 weight mostly enough, and maybe 1g on each side of 3/9 on the lighter ones

I like Lynx tour best in it which is a heavier string. And happy with 315-318 strung SW after lead. I tried higher but loses out on too much swing speed to get the best of the effect of this stick for me
 
taylor15 said:
I would say the Ultra v5 is doing great in Juniors, especially on the ladies side. I have seen exactly one clash at junior tournaments in the last 2 years, and that was even after the wilson reps tried as hard as they could to get kids to pick it up a couple of years ago. Maybe they could kill off the burn and put the shift at the $199 category to at least make up some of the R&D budget? What's Roddick going to use?
Click to expand...
The burn is essentially killed off. It only comes in a cheap prestrung version
 
I was a Shift devotee as well, by the specs it was too stiff but I included it in a demo 3 pack out of interest and was sold. I'd say it won me several points per set as balls that would have gone out with other frames dipped down beautifully much to my opponent's displeasure. Due to a wrist injury I've had to go back to an Extreme Tour but hope to swing the Shift in anger again when heeled.
 
Goodbye Wilson Shift, you served so true and clean,
Your strings sang out in sunlight like a silver-bending dream.
You never chased the spotlight, just the perfect strike each day,
The rhythm of the rally stole my heart away.

You gave your power softly, with balance in your hand,
On courts of clay and hardtop, you ruled this eager land.
Though new frames keep on coming, with promises so grand,
None wield control and grace quite the way you can.

And I’ll remember always, that shimmer in your feel,
The subtle flex of beauty beneath each spinning reel.
You were more than just a racquet — a whisper in my play,
Goodbye Wilson Shift, you still shine in my day.

courtesy of you know who!
 
ND always used Head calfskin base grip with two OG on top of it. Very obvious from many pictures, no idea how anyone would come up with the statement in the OP…
 
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