JonathanShefftz
Rookie
I know, what’s the point? Obviously this isn’t a model for the type of tennis player who bothers posting here. But perhaps kind of interesting to discover what happens with a mismatch between shoe model and player type.
Answer = lasts only a few weeks of an hour or two of tennis each day, plus casual use, before becoming unwearable.
Background:
I had stopped playing tennis two decades ago (increasingly enamored of aerobic endurance pursuits), so our daughter never knew me as a tennis player. I would take her out onto the courts every year or two, and she enjoyed it, but in the way you might enjoy a visit to an amusement park – sure, let’s go again … next year!
But this past spring, she announced her intentions to join the high school team.
Huh?
Some friends are on it.
Okay, but how can she be on the tennis team if she doesn’t know how to play tennis?
No cuts.
I figured this would be a passing interest, but I nevertheless insisted she wear actual tennis shoes.
So off we went to our local big box sports retailer (which oddly enough started in my hometown of Binghamton NY, and was just another random local shop when I was a kid).
The selection looked okay on-line, but I didn’t check carefully enough to realize that not a single tennis shoe was in stock for a size 6.5 women’s. (When I eventually looked into new sneakers for myself, only a single model was in stock for a size 9.0 men’s, and it looked like an SMU model.)
Fortunately a single SMU racquet was in stock for her size 4 1/8”, and it actually wasn’t all that bad based upon my serves I eventually tried with it, especially for $35 - yes, some sort of composite, not alu – although I waited too long to realize that I needed to get her a pair of real racquets. Plus I bought a six-pack of Penn “Championships” that on this forum receive so much … attention.
My wife took over the shoe search, since she wanted a neutral model for our daughter, given her custom footbeds / orthotics, and was concerned about her narrow feet. A total of a dozen shoes arrived from a certain Z-etc etailer.
I had no role in the selection process, but somehow the ASICS Game won the contest. I have ASICS running shoes, as does my daughter, and the Game has seven TW user reviews, with 4.9 out of 5.
Sure, the description reads, “An entry level shoe, this is ideal for the recreational player looking comfort and support at an impressive value.” But given that my daughter didn’t know how to play tennis, sounded like a good match! And so comfy that she wore them all the time.
After four months, yipes, she’d worn through the outersole in all sorts of ways and places. But four months isn’t all that bad. So I ordered another pair without thinking much about it.
But then after just seven weeks, uh oh! I don’t know how none of us noticed this until then. I’ve never seen such a destroyed sneaker of any type. And she weighs only 93 pounds! Granted, that’s averaging about two hours of tennis each day, and has progressed to good active extra-hustle footwork (must be at the ~3.5 level now for that), and wearing it casually too. But it was probably ready for retirement after well under a month (had we been looking more closely).
I was so confused by this that I waded through many dozens of glowing reviews at a certain etailer giant before finding one from a fellow father whose daughter wore through the soles in three to four weeks of ~18 hrs of tennis per week. I suspect the explanation is that all those positive reviews are from more casual and occasional players who don’t put in that much footwork in an entire year – or maybe an entire lifetime of tennis!
In addition to wearing through the outersole, check out how the midsole just isn’t there at all – the video might make it seem spongy, but it’s actually completely hollow there now:
I think the Lesson Learned here is to be wary of reviews that don’t mention the tennis skill levels or playing frequency of the reviewer.
And in case anyone is wondering about the replacement …
I ordered something like half-a-dozen shoes for her. The first to arrive was the Resolution 8, since I’d read how many players through the 9 was better than the X, so perhaps a NOS 8 would work? Unfortunately, what was inside the Resolution 8 box was actually a Dedicate 8, such a cheap model that the insole was glued down, not removable for her custom footbeds.
The next batch was supposed to arrive the next day, but as I was driving home from ski patrol training up north just barely in time to play indoors at night before closing bell, I kept calling my my daughter to check the front porch for any packages – nope, nothing.
I pulled into our garage, with only about ten minutes turnaround time before we had to leave for tennis, and saw an odd tuner kind of car in our driveway – huh? Oh wait, maybe this is one of those etailer delivery drivers using his personal car? Indeed it was.
I placed two pairs on the living room rug, removed the stuffing, removed the insoles, inserted her custom footbeds, she tried on the first pair and called it perfect. Upon returning from tennis, my wife returned home, and it passed her inspection, whew! So congratulations to the Mizuno Wave Exceed Tour 6.
Now time to click on the return icon and then tomorrow bike over to the local UPS with a backpack full of never-tried-on tennis shoes…
Answer = lasts only a few weeks of an hour or two of tennis each day, plus casual use, before becoming unwearable.
Background:
I had stopped playing tennis two decades ago (increasingly enamored of aerobic endurance pursuits), so our daughter never knew me as a tennis player. I would take her out onto the courts every year or two, and she enjoyed it, but in the way you might enjoy a visit to an amusement park – sure, let’s go again … next year!
But this past spring, she announced her intentions to join the high school team.
Huh?
Some friends are on it.
Okay, but how can she be on the tennis team if she doesn’t know how to play tennis?
No cuts.
I figured this would be a passing interest, but I nevertheless insisted she wear actual tennis shoes.
So off we went to our local big box sports retailer (which oddly enough started in my hometown of Binghamton NY, and was just another random local shop when I was a kid).
The selection looked okay on-line, but I didn’t check carefully enough to realize that not a single tennis shoe was in stock for a size 6.5 women’s. (When I eventually looked into new sneakers for myself, only a single model was in stock for a size 9.0 men’s, and it looked like an SMU model.)
Fortunately a single SMU racquet was in stock for her size 4 1/8”, and it actually wasn’t all that bad based upon my serves I eventually tried with it, especially for $35 - yes, some sort of composite, not alu – although I waited too long to realize that I needed to get her a pair of real racquets. Plus I bought a six-pack of Penn “Championships” that on this forum receive so much … attention.
My wife took over the shoe search, since she wanted a neutral model for our daughter, given her custom footbeds / orthotics, and was concerned about her narrow feet. A total of a dozen shoes arrived from a certain Z-etc etailer.
I had no role in the selection process, but somehow the ASICS Game won the contest. I have ASICS running shoes, as does my daughter, and the Game has seven TW user reviews, with 4.9 out of 5.
Sure, the description reads, “An entry level shoe, this is ideal for the recreational player looking comfort and support at an impressive value.” But given that my daughter didn’t know how to play tennis, sounded like a good match! And so comfy that she wore them all the time.
After four months, yipes, she’d worn through the outersole in all sorts of ways and places. But four months isn’t all that bad. So I ordered another pair without thinking much about it.
But then after just seven weeks, uh oh! I don’t know how none of us noticed this until then. I’ve never seen such a destroyed sneaker of any type. And she weighs only 93 pounds! Granted, that’s averaging about two hours of tennis each day, and has progressed to good active extra-hustle footwork (must be at the ~3.5 level now for that), and wearing it casually too. But it was probably ready for retirement after well under a month (had we been looking more closely).
I was so confused by this that I waded through many dozens of glowing reviews at a certain etailer giant before finding one from a fellow father whose daughter wore through the soles in three to four weeks of ~18 hrs of tennis per week. I suspect the explanation is that all those positive reviews are from more casual and occasional players who don’t put in that much footwork in an entire year – or maybe an entire lifetime of tennis!
In addition to wearing through the outersole, check out how the midsole just isn’t there at all – the video might make it seem spongy, but it’s actually completely hollow there now:
I think the Lesson Learned here is to be wary of reviews that don’t mention the tennis skill levels or playing frequency of the reviewer.
And in case anyone is wondering about the replacement …
I ordered something like half-a-dozen shoes for her. The first to arrive was the Resolution 8, since I’d read how many players through the 9 was better than the X, so perhaps a NOS 8 would work? Unfortunately, what was inside the Resolution 8 box was actually a Dedicate 8, such a cheap model that the insole was glued down, not removable for her custom footbeds.
The next batch was supposed to arrive the next day, but as I was driving home from ski patrol training up north just barely in time to play indoors at night before closing bell, I kept calling my my daughter to check the front porch for any packages – nope, nothing.
I pulled into our garage, with only about ten minutes turnaround time before we had to leave for tennis, and saw an odd tuner kind of car in our driveway – huh? Oh wait, maybe this is one of those etailer delivery drivers using his personal car? Indeed it was.
I placed two pairs on the living room rug, removed the stuffing, removed the insoles, inserted her custom footbeds, she tried on the first pair and called it perfect. Upon returning from tennis, my wife returned home, and it passed her inspection, whew! So congratulations to the Mizuno Wave Exceed Tour 6.
Now time to click on the return icon and then tomorrow bike over to the local UPS with a backpack full of never-tried-on tennis shoes…
