Ok, I hit with it for about 2 hours yesterday and have some preliminary thoughts to present. My stats: 4.5 level serve and volley player, 1HBH and semi-western grip off the forehand. My current racquet is a Yonex RDS 001 mid (90) strung with a gut/poly hybrid.
General Comments
Looks-wise, this is a sweet looking racquet. Definitely better in real life than the pictures might indicate. Grip is the typical Head style, a bit more rectangular than other racquets, but not unwieldy. I was able to adjust fairly quickly to it. I didn't find myself searching for the proper grip and never got caught with the wrong one. As for playability this is a solid, solid racquet. It is a bit light stock, so I added 6 grams of lead at the throat. Not sure it did much, really, because the racquet had such a solid feel anyway, but I think it may have helped a bit to gain some depth on my shots. The demo racquet was strung with Head synthetic gut at mid tension. I used a rubber band vibe dampener.
Serve
Great serving racquet. This is the only area where my current racquet is lacking, so this was a welcome improvement. First serves had a decent amount of heat on them. Not the fastest, but solid, controllable, and reliable. Second serves had some serious kick on them. Spin was very, very accessible and I could definitely see this racquet being used to good success in a serve & volley game.
Groundstrokes
As I said, this racquet hits a solid ball. The spin is "just right" off the ground and you don't have to do anything fancy to hit a good ball. My 1HBH has never been better. BUT... I got a "disconnected" feeling whenever I really cracked the sweet spot. Not sure why. But when I really connected well, I had NO IDEA where the ball was going. I'm thinking that a little more familiarity with this racquet and maybe this problem will go away. But my initial impression says that the feel is a bit lacking. But it does hit nice shots. I also found the depth a bit lacking, too. Any shot not struck perfectly clean tended to drop a bit short. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I didn't seem to hit many "heavy" balls that I typically get with my current racquet. A change of strings might change things, who knows. Maneuverability-wise, this racquet cuts through the air like a knife through butter. I haven't played with a racquet so easy to swing since my M-Speed. As a result, I found that my timing was frequently off for service returns. But I don't attribute that to the racquet, that's just my unfamiliarity with it. But I did find that when I was late to a shot, I could easily get the racquet head around and get the ball back in play. The downside to that was that there wasn't much weight behind the shot and they tended to land short.
Volleys
Very nice. The racquet was easy to maneuver into position and I didn't find myself getting handcuffed at all. The racquet lacked a bit of depth on putaways, but if you really gave it a good punch, volleys had some decent pace. And despite the lack of feel that I described earlier, I was able to hit some decent touch shots and angles. Overheads were strong and were no problem to control with pace and placement.
Well, that's about all I can think of at the moment. All in all, a very nice racquet. Something I would definitely recommend to a serve and volley style player. Not the greatest off the ground, but has enough controllable power and touch to really shine in the S&V game.
Definitely worth a demo if you're in the market.
