New face of the pro staff line? Shouldn’t they invest in a potential GS favorite to win a title and not a guy who’s just making it to R1 or 2 of GS?
I’d keep an eye on Draper maybe for pro staff down the road. I don’t mean to be negative towards Dunlop - but can they keep 2 of their top 30 players right now if they continue to ascend into the top 15-then 10?
Yes, considering he used a Six.One 95 in the past before moving to Yonex and the VC SV95 it could make sense. He obviously plays with loads of power and spin and wants a bigger frame for more consistency and forgiveness. The Pro Staff 97 has both plenty of power and spin on tap and is still a slightly bigger headsize than his SV95. It is also an incredibly polarized frame that can easily be modified to his polarized set up of 9-10pts HL/340ish sw or something like that. In addition, the Pro Staff being a box beam may reduce his incredible number of miss hits and shanks by lowering his RHS slightly. As I said before I don't think the switch is likely, but don't you think Wilson or the general public would like to see a an exciting, all court, shot making OHBH player with the Pro Staff line again? His head and mental game are currently in the gutter and have been for a while, but when he's on his game it's incredibly exciting to watch. Finally, players are more likely to switch when they AREN'T playing well and I think bigger companies are likely to throw smaller contracts at them with incentives as a low risk investment with a big payout for them if it works out but that's just speculation.
Draper to the Pro Staff just sounds like recency bias. I'll admit he looked great but for the most part he wasn't really challenged in the draw until he played Sinner in the SF. His current Dunlop is basically a Pure Drive which makes sense since he played with one in the past as a junior and if he WAS to switch I would imagine he'd go back to Babolat or to Yonex like a lot of pros right now and play the Ezone 100. Shapovalov also had a Wimbledon SF in 2021 as well and look where he is now so I wouldn't put too much stock in Slam results. Sometimes players get lucky and get a good draw with upsets and sometimes they get very very unlucky and draw a tough quarter.
As far as Dunlop being able to keep 2 of their top 30 players right now if they were to continue to ascend into the top 15 or 10... I think they'll be fine. Popyrin at the moment is ranked 24 and is largely due to winning Montreal and without those 1000 ranking points he'd be ranked 63. However, it has to be said that he played very well BUT the draw was much weaker as a lot of top players were absent preparing for the Olympics. I'm happy for him and it is probably a career defining moment and high for him but I doubt he will defend his title next year. On the other hand, Draper is an excellent talent and I could see him as a future top 10. Probably around 6-10 but personally think he will a consistent top 20 player probably in the 12-14 range for most of his career but I hope he proves me wrong. Given his age and talent he should be able to go on a few more slam runs in his career but we will have to wait and see.