Tennis Warehouse Playtest: Babolat Pure Drive 2025
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GraceGlad
New User
String and tension used for test: tourna silver 7 tour 1.3g
Tennis experience/background: club player who ocasionally competes at around 7-9 utr
Describe your playing style: close to baseline attacking player who likes to work the point to the net
Current racquet/string setups: dont have a main racket but been using pa98, gt98, 305s mostly
How many hours did you play with the racquet? 20+
Groundstrokes: Great results on forehand instantly but took a while to get the backhand to work, feels like a racket that is well suited to longer slower strokes rather than quick and snappy - racket is noticably sluggish
Serves: worked really well on all serve types but pure slice serve probably it's biggest weakness. Doesn't really suit my serve style that well, but is probably amazing for someone who has a long serve stroke and is more weight distributional rather than fast arm
Volleys: good on all put away volleys due to it's inherent power, you dont need to do much to get a fast volley, not poor for touch volleys but just very unsatisfying
Serve returns: due to strong energy return and very very stable it's very good on first serve returns, but doe to slugishness generating rackethead speed on second serves can be challenging
Power/Control- ball gets a natural pop, especially on forehands and onehandbackhands due to stroke lenght. Suprisingly good directional control but not exactly a line precision painter; it's the kind of racket where the harder you swing the more control you get
Top Spin/Slice- Very easy to generate really heavy topspin but slice is this rackets worst shot by far, very hard to generate enough racket head speed for that stroke type to get the ball to go low over the net, and the slugishness makes it hard to execute the last ''flick'' needed for the slice
Comfort- very comfortable, feels very similair to the ezone 98 with a slightly more defined sweet spot
Feel- biggest weakness of this racket for me: feels very muted and ''plush'' but not in the good way. Extremely poor ball feel even though the ball goes. Probably due to technology even though it's listed at high ra it doesn't feel like it at all, feels soft and mushy-
Maneuverability- very poor, noticably slower through the air compared to any racket I've used so far even though I customized the racket to get a 31.8 balance (standard for all my rackets)
Stability- rock solid, most stable racket I think I've used so far, makes it so you can swing with 100% confidence everytime, especially on the forehand.
General reaction/comments on overall performance: good racket if you like to blast first serves and just hammer every ball you can get to, but not for me due to extremely muted/mushy feel. Makes it for me extremely one dimensional and any sort of finesse play is just unbearable.
Tennis experience/background: club player who ocasionally competes at around 7-9 utr
Describe your playing style: close to baseline attacking player who likes to work the point to the net
Current racquet/string setups: dont have a main racket but been using pa98, gt98, 305s mostly
How many hours did you play with the racquet? 20+
Groundstrokes: Great results on forehand instantly but took a while to get the backhand to work, feels like a racket that is well suited to longer slower strokes rather than quick and snappy - racket is noticably sluggish
Serves: worked really well on all serve types but pure slice serve probably it's biggest weakness. Doesn't really suit my serve style that well, but is probably amazing for someone who has a long serve stroke and is more weight distributional rather than fast arm
Volleys: good on all put away volleys due to it's inherent power, you dont need to do much to get a fast volley, not poor for touch volleys but just very unsatisfying
Serve returns: due to strong energy return and very very stable it's very good on first serve returns, but doe to slugishness generating rackethead speed on second serves can be challenging
Power/Control- ball gets a natural pop, especially on forehands and onehandbackhands due to stroke lenght. Suprisingly good directional control but not exactly a line precision painter; it's the kind of racket where the harder you swing the more control you get
Top Spin/Slice- Very easy to generate really heavy topspin but slice is this rackets worst shot by far, very hard to generate enough racket head speed for that stroke type to get the ball to go low over the net, and the slugishness makes it hard to execute the last ''flick'' needed for the slice
Comfort- very comfortable, feels very similair to the ezone 98 with a slightly more defined sweet spot
Feel- biggest weakness of this racket for me: feels very muted and ''plush'' but not in the good way. Extremely poor ball feel even though the ball goes. Probably due to technology even though it's listed at high ra it doesn't feel like it at all, feels soft and mushy-
Maneuverability- very poor, noticably slower through the air compared to any racket I've used so far even though I customized the racket to get a 31.8 balance (standard for all my rackets)
Stability- rock solid, most stable racket I think I've used so far, makes it so you can swing with 100% confidence everytime, especially on the forehand.
General reaction/comments on overall performance: good racket if you like to blast first serves and just hammer every ball you can get to, but not for me due to extremely muted/mushy feel. Makes it for me extremely one dimensional and any sort of finesse play is just unbearable.
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