I posted this a couple of days ago on a different thread. Hopefully, it is helpful to you. I had tennis elbow last year and now have a wrist TFCC injury. I had been playing with a Babolat Pure Strike 98:
1st Hit with Clash 98 (version 1)
After about two weeks off of tennis, my new Clash 98 arrived at the end of the week. It came in at almost 2gm under spec, which suited me just fine as I am used to a 305gm racquet. I trimmed the unnecessary replacement grip (due to OHBH) and added some Tourna OG. Strung with Ultra Cable at 45# with 10% pre-stretch (my usual string setup). Interesting that although UC is quite heavy for a 17g string, SW came in a bit low at 319 vs. 326 spec. I did not make any other weight modifications.
On the court: I hit for one hour with a 4.5-level hitting partner. I only did groundstrokes today, and it was immediately apparent that they were noticeably less jarring than with my Pure Strike 98 18M. I am quite certain that forehands, for example, would not have even been possible today with the PS98, as my wrist is still somewhat irritated from when I injured it during an intense session a couple of weeks ago. By the end of the one-hour session, once I was well warmed up, I could hit forehands with good pace and topspin without much, if any, discomfort. OHBH felt fine, as expected since my TFCC injury does not seem to be too affected by that stroke. By the end of the session, topspin off both wings seemed as good and quite possibly better than with the PS98. My backhand slice felt quite dialed in (more consistent and less floaty) by the end of the hour as well. I was purposely trying to avoid hitting hard today, but power with the Clash 98 nonetheless did not feel too far off from that of the PS98. I did hit a bit harder than I should have on a couple of forehands, and it was clear that there was impressive power on tap if needed. Directional and length control both seemed fine to me as well. After the first 15-20 minutes of getting acclimated to the racquet, any errors did not strike me as out of the ordinary, compared to the types and frequency of errors that I might typically make (I am a 4.0-4.25) with my usual PS98. No unusual or concerning wrist pain so far after the hit. Nonetheless, I have been icing it and doing some low-level laser on it. The true test will be seeing how it feels tomorrow, though, as the pain seems to come on the day after...
All in all: a very encouraging beginning. I can already tell that I could be very happy with the performance of this racquet. It is the most comfortable racquet I have ever hit with, despite using Ultra Cable, which I believe is generally considered to be quite a stiff poly. I was able to hit with good pace and spin, and I did not notice anything unusual in terms of control. If there were control issues, I am not sure how I would know, as the errors that I made were very much in keeping with the way I generally play since getting back into tennis a couple of years ago.
