Hello all,
I'm looking for some opinnions on Multifilament strings with great value (low price). I'm planning on buying Wilson Blade 100 for my racquet and don't think my arm likes Poly strings that much. So I've considered Full Multifilaments. I searched TW Europe for their value reels and I'm looking for something around ~100€ per reel.
My findings:
Head Velocity
Prince Premier Power
Wilson Sensation Comfort
Any experiences with these strings? Are they good/bad/low/high quality for the price?
I'm not too big on multi's in general, but I keep a reel of Prince Premier Control 16 and 17 on hand for jobs that require a full bed of multi.
-Service life is rather good - it does a pretty good job of holding tension compared with a number of other multi's I've sampled through the years. Stronger hitters I've coached who have needed a softer string option in the middle of a competitive season have found at least 50% more service life with the 15L ga. compared with the 16 ga. Note that the 15L ga. is typically available in individual sets, not reels.
-Proven arm-friendliness - I've used this string to successfully reverse the onset of arm issues for several local players through recent years who were playing with poly or poly hybrids in their racquets.
Cost is rather low among decent multi's - I buy this string by the reel and it costs less than half the price per racquet compared with some of the "premium" multis like Wilson NXT and Tecnifibre Biphase (nice strings, but pricey for what they offer).
There are other decent multi's out there for sure, but PPC has deliverer terrific bang for the buck when I've used it.
Arm friendly alternatives to poly aren't limited to merely multi's or perhaps natural gut. Synthetic guts (SG's) shouldn't be overlooked. They still offer very good bang for the buck for many of us. They're typically more affordable than the vast majority of multi's, most SG's offer moderate softness that's enough to keep a lot of arms happy through hours of action on the courts, and I know that I prefer the feel and performance of SG's to multi's in my own racquets - they're not as prone to steadily softening the same way that many multi's can.
You may consider sampling Forten Sweet - this is the softest SG I'm aware of out there. So comfortable that it can actually work as an affordable substitute for many multi's. The 17 ga. version of this string is a little on the fragile side, but the 16 ga. (Sweet 16) holds up fine.
Two SG's that I avoid due to their stiffness are Prince SG with Duraflex and Gosen OG Sheep Micro. Prince's Original SG is moderately soft, but others including Babolat, Volkl Classic, and Kirschbaum (my favorite!!) also bring moderate softness at a low cost. My arm can't tolerate poly, but I can comfortably workout day in and day out with these moderate softies in my racquets When I'm coaching outdoors when it's cold in the late winter/early spring, I can drop tension by about 5 lbs. with these SG's to recover a lot of feel and comfort. Always nice that these strings only cost me a few bucks when I either need or want to swap in a fresh set.