List of Random Racquets - Your Comments Wanted

[WilsonPlayer101]

I'm going to list some random racquets and I want your opinion on them and your thoughts. If you don't know anything about a particular racquet that's fine, you can post about the racquets you know of and have thoughts on. Some are vintage and some are new models.

1) Wilson T-2000
2) Adidas Ivan Lendl
3) Original Wilson Pro Staff (Think Connors played this one then Sampras)
4) Dunlop Max 200
5) Head Arthur Ashe (I, II, or III)
6) Wilson Pro Staff Tour 6.6 Jim Courier
7) Wilson Pro Staff 6.1 Classic as played by Stephan Edberg
8) Spaulding Pancho Gonzales
9) Wilson BLX Tour
10) Wilson nTour Two nCode
11) Wilson K Factor KTour
12) Boris Beckor Pro

 

[el sergento]

T-2000
A real b@#ch to string!

 

[jmjmkim]

Head Arthur Ashe I, II and III

The (I) was a fiberglass sandwiched between a thin aluminum sheet. The Al sheets looked like it was from the high school metal shop, but the quality was pretty good. In those days, rackets did not have grommets thus leather was commonly used to save the strings from bending too harshly as they made the "U" turns on the frame. It was a flexible racket and actually hit pretty good.

The Version II was slightly thicker with a brown middle, supposedly to contain "Boron". I think it was still a good measure of fiberglass. It was a bit more stiff than the Comp I.

Ther verions III (in my opinion) was the worst of the three. It had a white inner, probably same fiberglass material. It was thinner than the two, and a lot more flex. It had too much flex, in my opinion.

A few years after these Ashe Comp series, a black, squared frame emerged, I think it was called the XRC. It was graphite, and very, very stiff, thus giving it a lot of power. . . but the trade off was that it had little feel.

Head experimented with different head shapes for a while, and the "tear drop" shape was very successful.

As for me, the Ashe comp II was the last Head racket that I owned. I was close to getting the "VILAS" wood+graphite, but moved on to PRINCE rackets and stuck with it ever since.

I did have a Fischer racket that had like an "Octogon" shape, but that racket actually held me back from improving, for a long time.

My favorite racket, that actually helped my game improve, were the Prince Original Graphite OS and 110 series. Man, these rackets were nice.


The tennis racket went through Material transition first (from wood to Aluminum, graphite and composite graphite/fiber glass, etc.). Then the second major transition was of course the Head size.

I remember Pam Shriver first coming onto the scene with her Green and Silver Prince Classic. We all thought it was a joke and a fad. But, we were wrong and now enjoy the benefits of the large head size.