The 2018 Jolly video review thread.

J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
Hello folks. In an effort to boost TW sales, spur on the economy, and help the tennis community I have decided to resume reviewing racquets.

Every month in 2018 I will make an effort to review 1-4 frames as time and availability warrant.

The frames I review will be chosen by you, my esteemed readers, with me choosing the ones with the most votes.

The frames must be available through TWs excellent demo program, and I will have veto power over silly requests or frames that are too similar.

Racquets voted for:

Prince Phantom Pro 93P (2) ***April***
Wilson Ultra Tour (3) ***January***
Prince Phantom Pro 100P (6) ***February/March***
Babolat Pure Drive + (1)
Yonex Ezone98 (4) ***February/March***
Wilson Ultra 100CV (1)
Yonex Ezone100 (2) ***January***
Babolat Pure Drive (2) ***January***
Tecnifibre Tfight 315 (1)
Tecnifibre Tfight 320 (1)
Tecnifibre Tflash (1)
Dunlop Srixon Revo CX 2.0 (2) ***January***
Wilson Blade 98 (2)
Volkl V-Sense 10 325g (1)
Head Prestige Mid (1)
Volkl V-Sense 10 Tour (1)
Yonex SV 95 (1)
Tecnifibre 315LTD (1)
Dunlop Srixon 2.0 Tour (1)
Prince Beast 98 (1)
Wilson RF97 (3) ***April***
Pro Kennex Ki Q+5X (1)
Pro Kennex Ki Q+5X pro (1)
Volkl V-Sense V1 Pro (2)
Yonex VCore SV 98 (1)
Head Graphene Touch Prestige MP (1)
Yonex VCORE Duel G 97 (2) ***February/March***
Yonex VCORE Duel G 100 (1)
Dunlop Srixon Revo CV 3.0 F Tour (1)
Prince Beast 100 (1)
Wilson Pro Staff 97CV (2) ***February/March***
Tecnifibre TFight 305 DC (1)
Wilson RF 85 (1)
Head Graphene Radical MP (1)

Racquets reviewed:

January: Wilson Ultra Tour, Yonex Ezone100, Babolat Pure Drive, Dunlop Srixon Revo CX 2.0

February/March: Wilson PS 97CV, Yonex eZone 98, Yonex VCORE Duel G 97 330, Prince Phantom Pro 100P

April:
May:
June:
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:

J
 
Last edited:
Faris

Faris

Professional
ditto on phantom 93p! Also keen on PD+ for this January if you want to do XL ones jolly....
 
K

Kamshaft

New User
Might I make a suggestion? Instead of simply reviewing 1 stick per video, which is the same as TW but your opinion vs theres, how about you pick a certain spec and family of rackets to demo that month.

For example. Wilson power frames Ultra CV, Burn CV. Or Wilson control frames Blade, Ultra Tour, PSL

Or maybe 98 sq in side by side, Blade vs DR 98

Just an idea instead of basically remaking Tw's reviews?
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
Kamshaft said:
Might I make a suggestion? Instead of simply reviewing 1 stick per video, which is the same as TW but your opinion vs theres, how about you pick a certain spec and family of rackets to demo that month.

For example. Wilson power frames Ultra CV, Burn CV. Or Wilson control frames Blade, Ultra Tour, PSL

Or maybe 98 sq in side by side, Blade vs DR 98

Just an idea instead of basically remaking Tw's reviews?
Click to expand...

I like it!

Let's see the votes come in and maybe pick a bunch of similar frames.

J
 
J

JoshyS

Rookie
Great idea @J011yroger. If it’s not too much trouble I’d be intrigued to hear a brief racket history for you and a little bit about what drew you to your particular choices and what made you change. Thanks
 
ShahofTennis

ShahofTennis

Hall of Fame
Why not follow suit with the Brotherhood of the Traveling Radical?

Record your video review on a handheld camcorder from the late 20th or early 21st century and mail a single DVD with that months review across this great nation.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk
 
P

PMChambers

Hall of Fame
You can give away the review sticks to deserving readers like myself. With a Jolly character on the new string job of winners {IE, me} choice.
Why don't you bring back the Video challenge? You started that last year if my memory servers. Not many takers if I remember. I needed wider lens, got 20mm F2. 8 should do the job later in the year. Maybe try June 2018.
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
JoshyS said:
Great idea @J011yroger. If it’s not too much trouble I’d be intrigued to hear a brief racket history for you and a little bit about what drew you to your particular choices and what made you change. Thanks
Click to expand...

I started at 4ish with a Wilson jr racquet, my first adult sized racquets were Princes, then I blew out my shoulder at 17 and didn't play for 6 years, I had no pain and it didn't affect my normal life, I just couldn't lift it above parallel to the ground.

In my early 20s I started running distance and working out, and through my gym work my shoulder slowly got better and by the time I was 23 I had full range of motion and no pain (for now hahaha) but still very weak (like pink aerobics Barbie weights weak) so I decided to go buy a racquet and see if maybe I could play again.

I went down to the local Sports Authority looked at the giant wall of racquets, went over to the Prince section, picked up all the racquets, gave them a test shake, read the cards on the back of the racquets found one that felt good and had a description that sounded like how I played, moderate length strokes, medium power, (narrator: "little did he know that was NOT how he played anymore,") and $89.99 later I was the proud owner of a Prince Triple Thread Bandit OS.

I hopped into my little black truck and motored directly to the elementary school of my youth, cracked open a fresh can of balls and started hitting against the wall. It felt good, and I was hooked.

Every day I would go hit against the wall, and hit a basket of serves until my shoulder started to hurt. All I could manage was a big loopy topspinny serve that went like 6' over the net and topped out at approximately 58mph. But hey, a lousy serve was better than no serve at all, and I figured by spring I would be ready to play with actual living breathing tennis players.

So spring came and I hit the courts full of zeal, I didn't know anyone who played tennis so between the internet and hanging out at the courts I built up a bunch of people to play with, old timers, hackers, and housewives mostly but playing with crappy players was better than not playing and I was making lots of friends.

But something had happened in the six years between 17&23 that I hadn't counted on, I had become a man. I was a late bloomer physically, when I graduated from high school I was 5'11"-6' 180+lbs ran distance but was hardly a contender. When I was 19ish the Dr. told my dad he had diabetes and had to go on a pretty strict diet to avoid medication and my dad was pretty dejected so I said how hard could it be, and I went on the diet with him (goodbye Ben and Jerry's cookie dough ice cream.) This clean eating, distance running, and gym work coupled with me being a late bloomer and growing another 3" meant that when I was ready to start playing people I was a 25 year old 6'2"+ 160lb grown man with abs that you could grate cheese on (for one glorious summer,) and my teenage game wasn't going to cut it.

I was taught to have very compact strokes, stand on the baseline and control the court, like a crappy 90's junior version of 2003 Agassi. As an adult I decided to make my stroke bigger, grip more western, stand farther back, and serve bigger (as much as my still dodgy shoulder would allow.) I decided to see how good I could get since I never had the opportunity as a junior, and I thought it would be really cool if I could get good enough to use tennis as an excuse to travel. As I was getting my old game back and turning it into a new one it became extremely apparent that my three Bandits were not going to hack it for the player I wanted to be.

(To be continued in pt. 2)

J
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
(Pt. 2 continued from above)

The next spring I went on a demo spree, the Ncodes had come out and I tried the ones popular with the better juniors, they didn't really resonate with me, I wanted something smaller and heavier. The only 100" I felt I could play with was the Babolat Pure Control which I absolutely loved.

By the end of the summer I had it narrowed down to three frames, the Dunlop M-fil 200, the Head Liquidmetal Prestige Mid, and the Wilson N-Six-One tour 90.

I thought the Dunlop was a solid frame, did everything well but had no exceptional qualities, but I could certainly play with it and it was much cheaper than the other two so it was in the discussion. The Prestige and the Prostaff were dead even in every category to me except that I felt like I got more action on my junk serves with the Wilson and since I wasn't blowing fireballs past anyone I decided that was important enough to overcome my aversion to using Federer's racquet and a beautiful marriage began.

For 9 years I used a Wilson 90 of some sort I ended up going through 17 nCodes, 24 K-Factors (imo the greatest racquet ever made,) and 5 white BLX90s.

By 2014 all my racquets were worn out and broken, and I was carrying around a hodge podge of various generations of Wilson that weren't too bad, while scouring the internet for used K90s when my buddy let me try his new Graphene Prestige MP.

I was smitten, but I resisted officially switching for almost a year but I have been happily swinging it ever since and am very stocked up on them.

J
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
331evkx.jpg


#nostalgia

J
 
haqq777

haqq777

Legend
J011yroger said:
I think they were 408g~14.3 oz and 400SW.

I'm down to a paltry 13.5-13.6 now.

J
Click to expand...
SpinToWin said:
Pathetic! :p

I'm at around 12 oz meanwhile. Granted, with XL frames, so they hit bigger than standard length frames at least :)
Click to expand...

Hah! I have you lot beat, lol. A mere 332g (albeit with a healthy swing weight) and I beat a local DII kid last week in a war of attrition. Did the whole crazy high static weight routine years ago myself. Let it go because it becomes harder and harder to keep up with those spin master college kids wearing bandanas and wielding crazy light sticks dropping bombs that rise up to your shoulders.
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
haqq777 said:
Hah! I have you lot beat, lol. A mere 332g (albeit with a healthy swing weight) and I beat a local DII kid last week in a war of attrition. Did the whole crazy high static weight routine years ago myself. Let it go because it becomes harder and harder to keep up with those spin master college kids wearing bandanas and wielding crazy light sticks dropping bombs that rise up to your shoulders.
Click to expand...

I have one of those bombs!

J
 
haqq777

haqq777

Legend
J011yroger said:
Will be interesting to see what the demo frames do to it. I've always been nervous serving hard with a light frame. I can throw the heck out of a football but get nervous throwing a baseball or tennis ball.

J
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, first thing off is going to be timing. Just needs a little getting used to period. I'm sure you'll adapt very quickly through.
 
McLovin

McLovin

Legend
J011yroger said:
Gentlemen, we are about to have a four way showdown, Wilson Ultra Tour, vs. Yonex Ezone 100, vs. Babolat Pure Drive, vs. Dunlop Srixon Revo CX 2.0.
Click to expand...
mctennis said:
Only one will come out of the cage match a winner. Let the games begin!
Click to expand...
Given his racquet lineage, my money is on the Ultra Tour or the Srixon. I hit w/ the Ultra Tour briefly in the fall, and if it was 16x20 instead of 18x20, I'd have at least one in the bag.
 
haqq777

haqq777

Legend
McLovin said:
Given his racquet lineage, my money is on the Ultra Tour or the Srixon. I hit w/ the Ultra Tour briefly in the fall, and if it was 16x20 instead of 18x20, I'd have at least one in the bag.
Click to expand...
Oh you'd be surprised. I think 2018 PD is a very worthy competitor. Will easily beat the Srixon atleast, in my opinion. Both Srixon I tried were meh. One was 16x19 and other 18x20. Yonex Ezone line was a downer for me.
 
jonestim

jonestim

Hall of Fame
McLovin said:
Given his racquet lineage, my money is on the Ultra Tour or the Srixon. I hit w/ the Ultra Tour briefly in the fall, and if it was 16x20 instead of 18x20, I'd have at least one in the bag.
Click to expand...

Have you looked at the Beast 98 specs? 16x20 and very similar weight, flex and swingweight. Slightly thicker beam. and TWARON!!!!
 
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