Need help identifying 2 racquets from the 80-s. Mayor brand name, can it be Pro Kennex made?

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shugai

New User
Hi everyone!
Thinking about buying these beauties locally.
Take a look at pics in album here https://ibb.co/album/yWdMdh

All I can gather so far is that Mayor brand supposedly is Indian made racquets from the 80-s.
I have my doubts about that. Why someone would run a tennis racquets factory in India to make a Pro Kennex clones there when you can outsource to Kunnan Lo like pretty much everyone did back then?
Sorry I'm rambling. Question is - albeit different paint job do these looks like Pro Kennex Ace's to you?
Would appreciate your thoughts/opinions!
 
To my knowledge, none of the Taiwanese racquet producers ever set up shop in India. When seeking expansion opportunities, they tended to go where there were few regulatory hurdles, and where there was already an established Chinese community presence. Relative to SE Asian countries, India was not high on the list in fulfilling either of those criteria.

However, India is a massive country with its own indigenous racquet-making history going all the way back to the early decades of lawn tennis (check out the "Ancient History" thread on this sub-forum), so they didn't really need any goading from the Taiwanese to give composite frame manufacturing a shot. I have seen some sample racquets produced by an Indian company with the generic name of "Carbon Composite LTD" from the early 1980s. These frames were definitely 100% graphite, but rather roughly finished (compared to what was coming out of Taiwan at the time). They were sent to potential OEM clients around the world for testing. The fact that Indian-made racquets remained effectively unknown outside of their own country suggests that such efforts were largely fruitless.

I am unfamiliar with the Mayor brand (likely inspired by the "Major" brand, rather than reflecting an unusual affection for civic leaders). The frames you posted seem to take their superficial design cues from contemporary Head offerings. Could you point to the source of your conclusion that these were produced in India?
 
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Very interesting! It makes perfect sense that Indian products were well-positioned to fill a market niche like this in the USSR.

Mayors for MiGs! :)
 
So apparently it may indeed very well be an Indian made graphite racquets!
Interesting - the light brown is 16x19 and black is 18x17. Quite a variety.
(y) (y)
 
shugai said:
Hi everyone!
Thinking about buying these beauties locally.
Take a look at pics in album here https://ibb.co/album/yWdMdh

All I can gather so far is that Mayor brand supposedly is Indian made racquets from the 80-s.
I have my doubts about that. Why someone would run a tennis racquets factory in India to make a Pro Kennex clones there when you can outsource to Kunnan Lo like pretty much everyone did back then?
Sorry I'm rambling. Question is - albeit different paint job do these looks like Pro Kennex Ace's to you?
Would appreciate your thoughts/opinions!
Click to expand...
According to Google, Mayor Sport Private Ltd. is indeed from India and exists since 1950s. They have website and still seem to manufacture some cricket bats.

Metal racket on one of the photos seems to be Polonez made in Poland, it was also common in USSR at some point. To own 2 or even 3 Mayors in “USSR” would be an absolute, almost excessive luxury. Even strong players and juniors could mostly afford only single racket. I would not be surprised if these rackets originate from some ex-Warsaw bloc household outside of “USSR”.

I recall these paintjobs, the cream-colored rackets were typically “for girls” and were much more seldom. Most popular Pj was black with green stripes. It was mostly junior or ambitious amateur racket, stronger players did not like them because of their excessively soft feel.

I owned another Indian graphite composite racket too (not Mayor), unfortunately can’t recall its name, it was ridiculously thin, light and soft, to the extent that even soviet metal junk rackets were more playable.
 
Thanks that's quite an interesting piece of history.
Now I really wanna try one as I have a knack for a soft racquets.
Metal one is indeed Polonez and it looks pretty much as an AMF Head red head clone to me.
 
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