I will share Nadals lead set up with you

danbrenner

danbrenner

Legend
Ok, so I just spoke with Roman Prokes of ****, who is currently customizing my Babolat. He is personal Freinds with Nadal, and had had him in his ship several times. With pics on the wall to prove it. Bottom line. Nadal uses 14 grams if lead. 9 under the bumper at the 12, and 5 under the handle. About one inch from the end of the butt cap. There you have it. In pretty sure that would make his stick head heavy? That's the only scientific number I don't know. With this set up, I would think he is at even balance or slightly head heavy. But for all you Nadal fanatics, there it is. From someone who know him personally and has closely worked in his sticks. Boom.
 
Didnt understand a word in vid but the racket looked like a genuine gt which nadal doesnt use. It looked like an actual cortex
 
degrease said:
Didnt understand a word in vid but the racket looked like a genuine gt which nadal doesnt use. It looked like an actual cortex
Click to expand...

I don't understand Spanish either, but I think the intention is to show how to replicate Nadal's rqt, but obviously using a retail version. The person doing the customisation looks to be part of the stringing team at the Madrid Open (from previous years), as this year the service was under the Babolat banner.

Regards

Paul
 
uk_skippy said:
Babolat in France customises Nadal's racquets, not ****.

Regards
Click to expand...

I know that Babolat customizes his racquet. I am simply telling you what Roman Prokes told me in person about his racquet set up. Nadal had been to Prokes several times to tinker with his stick when he is in New York. And Roman knows Rafas stick first hand close up and personal. Trust me on that.
 
danbrenner said:
I know that Babolat customizes his racquet. I am simply telling you what Roman Prokes told me in person about his racquet set up. Nadal had been to Prokes several times to tinker with his stick when he is in New York. And Roman knows Rafas stick first hand close up and personal. Trust me on that.
Click to expand...

Can't see why Nadal would go to **** as his sticks would have been set up by Babolat France before the start of the american hardcourt season; and Babolat have player representatives in NY at the time of the open, including the guy who customises them.

Roman may know the specs of Nadal's frames, but then its easy to do with the right equipment. I could get the specs at Wimbledon if I wanted, but also, I'm up close and personal with them when I string them.

Regards
 
uk_skippy said:
Can't see why Nadal would go to **** as his sticks would have been set up by Babolat France before the start of the american hardcourt season; and Babolat have player representatives in NY at the time of the open, including the guy who customises them.

Roman may know the specs of Nadal's frames, but then its easy to do with the right equipment. I could get the specs at Wimbledon if I wanted, but also, I'm up close and personal with them when I string them.

Regards
Click to expand...

Hey Skip! Well Nadal was definitely in his shop. And in the last two years, judging by the more mature look that is evident in the pic on Romans wall. Roman has no doubt handled his stick. Even if just to string grip or tinker. Whatever. My question to you Skip, is given that 9g at 12 and 5 grams under the handle, what would the hh or hl balance be on the aero after adding the lead?
 
anyways. lets keep this convo in perspective. Even tho Nadal uses lead weight 14grams to be exact, i will not be copying him anytime soon. The AeroPro is a sturdy enough stick for me to begin with. This thread is merely put out there to demystify what the pros really use. His set up would seem way to head heavy for most of us club players, and we would need some serious workouts to even come close to being able to handle the leaded beasts. And if his exact stick was sold at the retail shops, sales would surely decline massively. It would feel way too cumbersome.
 
movdqa said:
I've never seen lead tape that wide before. It looks like a sheet of lead tape that he adds glue to to hold it on.
Click to expand...

That looks like 1" wide lead tape.

For industrial uses, there are very wide lead tapes. It is one of the best soundproofing material,

A few years ago, I bought a roll of 2" wide lead tape and it will last a long long time. The wider ones are really nice for adding weight under the grip.

Here is some 18" wide lead tapes made by 3M (The URL of the image contains a TW competitor's three letter name so TW blocked it :) and you need to click to see.)

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/...ead-Foil-Tape-420?N=5472880+3294334730&rt=rud
 
Last edited:
danbrenner said:
Hey Skip! Well Nadal was definitely in his shop. And in the last two years, judging by the more mature look that is evident in the pic on Romans wall. Roman has no doubt handled his stick. Even if just to string grip or tinker. Whatever. My question to you Skip, is given that 9g at 12 and 5 grams under the handle, what would the hh or hl balance be on the aero after adding the lead?
Click to expand...

I don't disagree that Rafa was in the **** shop, and I guess it would be a photo op.

As for the balance, even though we know the amount of lead being used, we don't know the initial balance. So, unless we have the rqt to measure I can't give you the exact answer. The other issue is that pros' rqts are matched so that they are all the same spec, even though the raw frame may not be the same to start with, but are likely to be close. This means it may may take a little more or a little less lead around the frame to get the right specs.

If someone confirms the measure balance of the frame, then it's easy to workout the exact HL or HH of the rqt.

If I take the balance point of a retail APD as given by Babolat, and then add the specific weight then I determined that the balance would be 5.5pts HL. Of course, that refers to the retail version and not the version as used by Rafa.

Hope that helps
 
Greg Raven did a similar exercise a long, long time ago - essentially a 9 plus 3, rather than 9 plus 5, but both could be right:

Rafael Nadal’s Babolat Aeropro Drive
2007 Pacific Life Open
Racquet Mass Bal. cm RDC Flex Swgwt Length
Nadal's 332 33.50 65 355 26-7/8
USRSA 337 33.75 69 337 27
Tennis Warehouse 320 32.70 67 324 27
Notes on Nadal's racquet

This racquet may be shorter than spec due to hoop compression during stringing. I did not get a chance to measure the racquet unstrung.
There is no way to take a racquet with the specs given by USRSA and make it into a "Nadal" racquet. However, if one had a racquet with Tennis Warehouse's measurements, one could add roughly 9.5 grams under the bumperguard near the tip, and about 2.5 grams one inch up from the end of the butt cap to get a racquet with measurements very similar to those of Nadal's racquet.
It is not unheard of for otherwise identical brand new Babolat racquets to have 2 kg•cm² difference in flex.
Nadal's string reel reads "Pro Hurricane Nadal." The printing on the string itself reads "Babolat Pro Hurricane Tour," just like the normal Pro Hurricane Tour. However, the string is translucent, unlike the normal opaque Pro Hurricane Tour. Here is a 60x image with Nadal's string on top and the retail Pro Hurricane Tour on the bottom.
To the casual observer, Nadal's Pro Hurricane Tour looks and acts for all the world like Babolat Duralast.
Nadal requested that the crosses be strung from the bottom up.
 
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Ok. Going to make a quick translation of that vid (the customization segment).

1 - This is the same racquet Nadal uses. We will go through the same process we'd to personalize a racquet for him. ("if he requested us to..." I could add that based on my interpretation of his words).

The text displayed on the video says: "The weight balance depends on the personal desire by each tennis player"

2nd segment: He says more obvious stuff, tell people he's holding lead tape. Then he measures that tape to check how much it weighs.

Text: The details of racquet customization are almost never disclosed.

3rd segment: He explain to the audience why tennis players don't disclose the details of the customizations. He uses an example of race drivers (Formula 1). Race drivers wont tell the configuration of their cars, same as tennis players wont tell the specifications of their racquets.

Then he says some more obvious stuff (for us, TW posters);

Text: Every tennis player got his own personal stringer (lol).

4th segment: He talks about the strings. Says nowadays the synthetic stringers are more popular amongst players. Then he explains why Nadal keep changing racquets every time new balls are added to the game. (He says every seven games). We all know why...

He also says that altitude is a factor into choosing the strings tension. (more obvious stuff).

He finishes saying it's the same model of Nadal's racquet with a SIMILAR personalization, so yeh, he doesn't saying he's exactly replicating nadal's configuration.

-------------

So yeh, it was a segment to inform people that don't know much about tennis about racquet personalization. Wont tell us anything we don't know, tho.
 
danbrenner said:
Hey Skip! Well Nadal was definitely in his shop. And in the last two years, judging by the more mature look that is evident in the pic on Romans wall. Roman has no doubt handled his stick. Even if just to string grip or tinker. Whatever. My question to you Skip, is given that 9g at 12 and 5 grams under the handle, what would the hh or hl balance be on the aero after adding the lead?
Click to expand...

"Roman has no doubt handled his stick"

Wow
 
JanowiczJ beat me to the punch on a rough translation/transcription of the video, but it is a very rough estimate... shows the lead he adds, silicone in the handle and talks about the secretive nature of racquet modifications... the guys who were "on court" at the start are as worthless as the American commentators-- just mentioning that the racquet was really popular with the kids and they all wanted it.
 
JanowiczJ said:
Ok. Going to make a quick translation of that vid (the customization segment).

1 - This is the same racquet Nadal uses. We will go through the same process we'd to personalize a racquet for him. ("if he requested us to..." I could add that based on my interpretation of his words).

The text displayed on the video says: "The weight balance depends on the personal desire by each tennis player"

2nd segment: He says more obvious stuff, tell people he's holding lead tape. Then he measures that tape to check how much it weighs.

Text: The details of racquet customization are almost never disclosed.

3rd segment: He explain to the audience why tennis players don't disclose the details of the customizations. He uses an example of race drivers (Formula 1). Race drivers wont tell the configuration of their cars, same as tennis players wont tell the specifications of their racquets.

Then he says some more obvious stuff (for us, TW posters);

Text: Every tennis player got his own personal stringer (lol).

4th segment: He talks about the strings. Says nowadays the synthetic stringers are more popular amongst players. Then he explains why Nadal keep changing racquets every time new balls are added to the game. (He says every seven games). We all know why...

He also says that altitude is a factor into choosing the strings tension. (more obvious stuff).

He finishes saying it's the same model of Nadal's racquet with a SIMILAR personalization, so yeh, he doesn't saying he's exactly replicating nadal's configuration.

-------------

So yeh, it was a segment to inform people that don't know much about tennis about racquet personalization. Wont tell us anything we don't know, tho.
Click to expand...

The guy (maybe one of the best racquet professionals in Spain) specifies he puts 5 grams of lead at 12 and injects 10 grams of silicone in the handle.

Note: Spanish is my mother language.
 
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