Volkl Worldcup MS24… an exotic frame with a perfect head size, and beautifully made, but ruined by its clunky nylon throat bridge, which made it look like a downmarket aluminum racquet. It was heavy, slow through the air, had no ball feel, and there was no evident stringing solution to improve on its lackluster performance. I was given some of these, and even hit with Volkl’s top WTA player, as a junior and was offered a sponsorship, but I disliked the racquet so much, I politely declined.
Kneissl White Star Twin… It was Kneissl’s answer to the popular Rossignol F200 Carbon, with approximately the same +20% head size, two-handed grip, and super flexy mostly fiberglass composition, but it played as though it had a hinge in the middle.
Leach… I’m pretty sure this one DID have a hinge in the middle! One of my first coaches played this frame, which looked like the ubiquitous plastic Leach racquetball racquet on the end of a stick. It was nothing like a “game improvement” racquet; switching from the Head Graphite Vector I was playing at the time to the Leach, I suddenly couldn’t hit the ball over the net, let alone direct it in any general direction.
Donnay Wimbledon Mid… I picked this beautiful black number off a rack of a Northern California Big 5 sporting goods store, after mowing lawns for weeks in 1983. It looked like something Borg would swing, and had a cool-sounding name, but was evidently Donnay’s foray into the (non-) lucrative sector of balsa-graphite composites… bad flexy, no control, a power sponge, and quickly warped within a few weeks of me trying really hard to hit balls with it. When its smooth leather grip slipped out of my hand on an overhead smash, and it rocketed down, bouncing off the hardcourt and popping up in a splintered mess, I was mortified but simultaneously relieved.
