tennis-head
New User
Hello all,
I've been playing with the Babolat Pure Aero (2019) for around 4-5 years now, which I've enjoyed using. I string it with Babolat RPM Blast 125 at 50lbs and I find this is great for topspin exchanges at the back of the court, but I sometimes hit it long. I find with my volleys there isn't often much feel and they are hard to control, e.g. my volleys can go long (which is, of course, partly a skill/technique issue). As I progress in my tennis game, I feel that having a more control-orientated racket would be a good idea. I hold back quite a bit on my ground strokes and have plenty more to give in power, so having something where I can select to hit harder at opportune moments seems a good move so I can have more of an all-court game instead of just being a baseliner.
I've looked into a many racket options in the control lines:
My main questions are:
I've been playing with the Babolat Pure Aero (2019) for around 4-5 years now, which I've enjoyed using. I string it with Babolat RPM Blast 125 at 50lbs and I find this is great for topspin exchanges at the back of the court, but I sometimes hit it long. I find with my volleys there isn't often much feel and they are hard to control, e.g. my volleys can go long (which is, of course, partly a skill/technique issue). As I progress in my tennis game, I feel that having a more control-orientated racket would be a good idea. I hold back quite a bit on my ground strokes and have plenty more to give in power, so having something where I can select to hit harder at opportune moments seems a good move so I can have more of an all-court game instead of just being a baseliner.
I've looked into a many racket options in the control lines:
- Babolat Pure Strike 98 (16x19)
- Wilson Blade v9 (16x19)
- Head Gravity Pro/Tour (18x20)
- Yonex Percept 97 (16x19)
My main questions are:
- Having come from a spin-orientated racket it would seem to make sense to stay with 16x19 string pattern, but should I discount other string patterns (e.g. the Head Gravity) simply because of that? I know some of the above come with 18x20 pattern versions too.
- Is the change from a power and spin racket all the way down to a control range too bigger step? Should I consider for example the Pure Aero 98 as an intermediate step instead?