misterg
Rookie
In the last few months I platested this three sticks because of their low stiffness and because they are not too heavy and not to light, just the range that fits my needs best. Comfort and arm friendliess was (is) my first preoccupation. Here are my impressions. But first: I'm 45, very tiny, classical, mostly flat strokes and about 4.0. Current racquets Babolat Pure Drive... and Pro Kennex Kinetic 5g.
Comfort: Prince o3 wins hands down. It is a very arm friendly and forgiving racquet. All the racquet head is a big sweet spot. There are absolutely no vibrations of the frame. I was really impressed by the confort of this stick. In the range of the PK5g or even better.
Babolat Pure storm (98). Very confortable racquet too but not so flexy as the Prince and the sweet spot seems to be not so big as in the o3 tour.
Head radical Tour was a big disappointment. It's like hitting with a broken racquet. The sound is like a "bleing-ping" and the damperer doesn't help at all. With time you get used to this but for me it was very annoing. I'm not sure if strings would fix the problem because this was strung with multis. Hits near the troat however are very confortable and without any noise. It must be the flexpoint, pity because I liket the playing charactheristic of this racquets. Without the flexpoint it would be much better for me.
Playing characteristics: I liked the head most. Great power, great spin and slice. Great touch. It is the heavier racquet and it has the most pop of the three. It is very maneuvrable and despite the weight is is very easy to swing. You can do absolutely all with this stick, from heavy spin to flat bombs. I was really impressed by the playing charactheristic of the head. IMO the beat of the group.
The 03 is an extremly maneuvrable racquet and easy to whip. IMO it has not enough mass to be consideret a really players racquet. Topspin is easy to generate but balls are flying in loopy parabolas. Flat shots are really fast but very difficoult to control. Loved the slice bachand, it really grips the ball.
The Babolat Pure Storm has a lot of power and the stick is easy to swing around. I found it perfect for hitting flat strokes, topspin and slice are in the average.
I demoded the Pure Storm because is the most flex of the Babolats and because I wanted to compare it with the Pure Control zylon wich I owned for a while. It is essentially the same stick with the difference that the Pure Storm does everithing a little better: it has a little more pop, a little more spin, but it is also a little less maneuvrable. IMO the same racquet.
Serves: The server is by far my worse stroke so don't take my too seriosly. Because of schoulder problems I serve only 3/4 paced slice serves. I server best with the Pure Storm, I was able to go for the lines, and because of the dense string pattern I generated more pace than spin. It was easy on the arm and very light. The o3 tour was average. Loved the confort and the maneuvrability of the stick, my arm never got tired. The Head was simply too heavy for my arm and I couldn't produce any decent serve. But it was just me, and not the stick, I'm pretty sure that in strong hands this racquet will perform as good as in groundstrokes.
Feel: All the tested racquets had very good feel for touch shots, volleys etc. Even with the o3 tour witch has a very muted sound you can really feel the ball, probably because of the very tiny beam.
Final thoughts: My first goal was to find and arm friendly racquet. And I found it, it's the o3 tour wich I higly reccomand to all the people with arm problems. However I foud that the head radical tour has the best playing characteristc of the group.
Comfort: Prince o3 wins hands down. It is a very arm friendly and forgiving racquet. All the racquet head is a big sweet spot. There are absolutely no vibrations of the frame. I was really impressed by the confort of this stick. In the range of the PK5g or even better.
Babolat Pure storm (98). Very confortable racquet too but not so flexy as the Prince and the sweet spot seems to be not so big as in the o3 tour.
Head radical Tour was a big disappointment. It's like hitting with a broken racquet. The sound is like a "bleing-ping" and the damperer doesn't help at all. With time you get used to this but for me it was very annoing. I'm not sure if strings would fix the problem because this was strung with multis. Hits near the troat however are very confortable and without any noise. It must be the flexpoint, pity because I liket the playing charactheristic of this racquets. Without the flexpoint it would be much better for me.
Playing characteristics: I liked the head most. Great power, great spin and slice. Great touch. It is the heavier racquet and it has the most pop of the three. It is very maneuvrable and despite the weight is is very easy to swing. You can do absolutely all with this stick, from heavy spin to flat bombs. I was really impressed by the playing charactheristic of the head. IMO the beat of the group.
The 03 is an extremly maneuvrable racquet and easy to whip. IMO it has not enough mass to be consideret a really players racquet. Topspin is easy to generate but balls are flying in loopy parabolas. Flat shots are really fast but very difficoult to control. Loved the slice bachand, it really grips the ball.
The Babolat Pure Storm has a lot of power and the stick is easy to swing around. I found it perfect for hitting flat strokes, topspin and slice are in the average.
I demoded the Pure Storm because is the most flex of the Babolats and because I wanted to compare it with the Pure Control zylon wich I owned for a while. It is essentially the same stick with the difference that the Pure Storm does everithing a little better: it has a little more pop, a little more spin, but it is also a little less maneuvrable. IMO the same racquet.
Serves: The server is by far my worse stroke so don't take my too seriosly. Because of schoulder problems I serve only 3/4 paced slice serves. I server best with the Pure Storm, I was able to go for the lines, and because of the dense string pattern I generated more pace than spin. It was easy on the arm and very light. The o3 tour was average. Loved the confort and the maneuvrability of the stick, my arm never got tired. The Head was simply too heavy for my arm and I couldn't produce any decent serve. But it was just me, and not the stick, I'm pretty sure that in strong hands this racquet will perform as good as in groundstrokes.
Feel: All the tested racquets had very good feel for touch shots, volleys etc. Even with the o3 tour witch has a very muted sound you can really feel the ball, probably because of the very tiny beam.
Final thoughts: My first goal was to find and arm friendly racquet. And I found it, it's the o3 tour wich I higly reccomand to all the people with arm problems. However I foud that the head radical tour has the best playing characteristc of the group.
