Well damn, has it been a year since I posted here about my swap to the Gravity Pro? Huh. Well, on the off chance someone on here is interested in the long term playtest from the perspective of a 4.0ish player swapping from the 2022 Ezone 98, this is for you.
TLDR; this racquet is certainly not as easy as the Ezone, but the extra predictability makes your game better in many ways.
I've had to make some changes to my ground strokes, most notably moving my forehand from an almost western grip to a more semi-western one. The Gravity can whip shots if need be, but it doesn't want to rely on whip, it wants to plow through the ball as well. Around April I had some hand issues, which weren't the result of a whippy forehand on the Gravity, but it certainly didn't help. Arming the ball in social doubles is sort of manageable, but not advisable. Unlike the Ezone, which gave me a lot of help, the Gravity will tell you, admittedly very kindly, when and how you made a mistake.
Why does this make my game better? Because I've been working on my footwork and my leg usage in both ground strokes and serve, on better follow-through, better contact point. As a result, I'm hitting better. Still some work to be done, but the foundations are there, just need to put in the reps to solidify them. Turns out the tactile sensation of hitting the ball well with the Gravity was motivating enough to make me want to play better.
I've used this racquet in several club tournaments, and have done well, despite those tournaments being around the time I was trying to find my forehand. If you're willing to run down balls and have a good backhand slice to rely on, you can really make things difficult for people.
Some string observations: I've mostly been using hybrids of Lynx Tour with round crosses (Razor Soft was a standout), but lately I've found a lot of success using full bed Dunlop Explosive Bite at 46 pounds. Explosive Red isn't bad either, but far stiffer and less spin than Bite. I do have Babolat VS gut/poly hybrid ready to string up when the wet weather goes away, which should be a fun experiment.
Customisation wise, my under spec 2021 models are stock with a few grams of tungsten putty under the buttcap. The 2019 model that I had changed to the Nadal double overgrip now has a leather grip on it, for pure curiosities sake. Certainly fun, but a bit chunky for match play.
So yeah, not changing away any time soon. Would I recommend this switch to everyone? Not universally, but it's certainly worth a try.
