Playtest: RDX's-Prestige-Volkl

[jj300]

Today I took out 5 demos and tried them for about 2 hours.

Yonex RDX 500 Mid, Midplus, HD
Volkl Tour 10 V-engine
Head Liquid Metal Prestige Mid

Initial Findings:

Yonex RDX 500 mid: too light for my liking so it affected my whole test. best thing about this racket is the touch, control, and spin. Serves were definetly slower than usual but speed was made up with the awesome kick and slice serves because of the amazing spin. Volleys felt strange because of the light weight. Rallying was impressive because of control but again the weight came into play.

RDX 500 mp: probably the worst of the bunch. Didn't care for this racket at all. Felt a lot bigger than 98inch head. I was so dissapointed I put it down after 15 minutes.

RDX 500 hd: definetly better than the mp because of the tighter string pattern, again though, the head seemed huge! serving was good and groundstrokes were solid. Quiet easy to generate spin as with all the other yonex rackets. again too light!

Volkl Tour 10 V-engine: Racket feels a lot lighter than specs would suggest. Weird head shape. Serves were ok. Definetly low powered with good control.

Head Liquidmetal Prestige Mid: Definetly the winner of all of these. Solid everywhere on court. Serves were great and had plenty of spin. Volleying and drop shots were a pleasure with this racket. Slice was great. Spin came easier than expected and I had no trouble hitting fast dipping topspin forehands and backhands. Definetly a very flexible racket. A winner by far!

Day one: Winner-Prestige
Second Rdx 500 mid
Third- RDX 500 mp hd
rdx 500 mp
volkl tour 10 v-engine

Day two: I will add couple strips of lead on the yonex mid and re-test. Volkl is completly out as is the RDX 500 mp.

 

[Marius_Hancu]

do you intend to switch from Wilson ProStaff Tour 95 and why?

Volkl Tour 10 V-engine: was this the Mid? you might want to edit your posting, if so.

I found the Volkl Mid quite similar to PC600, which I have, except in one area: serving, where as you mention, the Prestiges seem stronger. Volkl was stronger I feel in terms of topspin, very difficult to hit long.

One area of concern in this list is the return (as they are Mids in general, thus smaller). You might want to consider Volkl 10 V-Engine MP, NoBadMojo reports good results there and the racket's more powerful than the Mid.

 

[jj300]

I wasn't aware that the tour 10 v-engine had midplus. Tw only has the mid. Returning: did play a set, half with prestige and half with rdx 500 mid. I have no problems picking my spots and ripping shots with the prestige. The rdx was a little light and I didn't feel comfortable using it. Again I will apply lead tape and re-test tommorow. I played with the tour 95 for months and never got fully used to it. tried over 20 strings in it and never found what i liked. very small sweetspot and not a lot of feel in my opinion. I applied lead tape bringing the racket over 12oz and it still felt unstable on big shots. Just plain didn't like it. I will be selling them soon.