Why hybrid poly mains with synethic/multi crosses?

bmr0216

Rookie
I'm constantly seeing people recommend doing a hybrid with either round or shaped poly mains and a soft multi or synthetic gut cross. But in my experience, the negatives greatly outweigh the positive (softening up the stringbed). Wanted to see what others experiences have been with a similar hybrid setup.

I've tried the following setups:

- Mains: Luxilon ALU Power Soft (52 lbs) / Crosses: Head Velocity (54)
- Mains: Luxilon ALU Power (50) / Crosses: Gosen OGSM (54)
- Mains: Solinco Confidential (51) / Crosses: Head Velocity (53)

In all three scenarios, the stringbed feels solid for the first few hours, then playability drastically decreases once the soft crosses begins to notch. Once notched, the poly mains are locked in place so you don't get any snapback of the strings. My groundstrokes start to sail since spin is reduced (this effect is slightly less noticeable with the Confidential since it's shaped).

Thoughts on these types of hybrids? I just don't understand why they are constantly recommended. I asked this question over on the Tennis subreddit recently, and most use a hybrid in this manner / don't notice their stringbed locking up at all. So I don't know if this is just my own unique experience or what.

Im considering moving to a multi/poly or gut/poly hybrid, or finding a poly / poly-poly hybrid that I can use in my 95", 18x20 frame.
 
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bmr0216

Rookie
Using Ashaway Mongut ZX as a cross will soften the feel and the ZX will not notch.
I've read about this string. Only thing really holding me back is the reported pingy sound at impact - I really like my stringbed to sound and feel dampened. Is the sound noticeable even with a vibration dampener?
 

Trip

Hall of Fame
MonoGut ZX is OK if you dont mind the hassle of manual pre-stretching and delicate handling; otherwise you can get equal or better playability in a soft cross from a rubber-based poly such as IsoSpeed Cream, or a slick nylon monofilament such as Babolat RPM Soft or Diadem Evolution, any of which will be much more notch-resistant than typical syn guts or multis.
 
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I'm constantly seeing people recommend doing a hybrid with either round or shaped poly mains and a soft multi or synthetic gut cross. But in my experience, the negatives greatly outweigh the positive (softening up the stringbed). Wanted to see what others experiences have been with a similar hybrid setup.

I've tried the following setups:

- Mains: Luxilon ALU Power Soft (52 lbs) / Crosses: Head Velocity (54)
- Mains: Luxilon ALU Power (50) / Crosses: Gosen OGSM (54)
- Mains: Solinco Confidential (51) / Crosses: Head Velocity (53)

In all three scenarios, the stringbed feels solid for the first few hours, then playability drastically decreases once the soft crosses begins to notch. Once notched, the poly mains are locked in place so you don't get any snapback of the strings. My groundstrokes start to sail since spin is reduced (this effect is slightly less noticeable with the Confidential since it's shaped).

Thoughts on these types of hybrids? I just don't understand why they are constantly recommended. I asked this question over on the Tennis subreddit recently, and most use a hybrid in this manner / don't notice their stringbed locking up at all. So I don't know if this is just my own unique experience or what.

Im considering moving to a multi/poly or gut/poly hybrid, or finding a poly / poly-poly hybrid that I can use in my 95", 18x20 frame.

Your answer is in your statement here ... "the stringbed feels solid for the first few hours".

By the time the SG crosses are starting to notch, it is time to replace the Poly mains too (IE Full Restring).

A Poly / SG hybrid is not designed to increase the longevity of the stringbed. It's main aim is to increase the comfort of the string bed by softening it up. A secondary aim is to provide a stringbed that has a little more "pop" compared to a full bed of stiff poly. Poly/SG hybrids were usually a great way for a developing junior player to transition from full SG to full Poly. More applicable a decade ago when most poly and co-poly strings were on the stiffer side. These days, there is a much wider choice of co-poly strings so that transisition can be a lot more simple.

So Imho, you need to restring frequently - with the Lux or Solinco mains, probably every 6 to 8 hours of hitting.)

If you want to reduce the "falling off the cliff" effect of string notching, you could hybrid two different Poly strings. That might give you a couple more hours of hitting but YMMV.
 

socallefty

G.O.A.T.
Have you tried fullbed of ALU or Confidential? They go dead within 5-7 hours and playability drops off a cliff in addition to increasing the risk of arm/elbow/wrist discomfort. So, you don’t need to hybrid them to see this happening.

If you get a soft poly like HyperG or HyperG Soft that has longer lifetimes in fullbed, you’ll see that they last longer in hybrids also.
 
Have you tried fullbed of ALU or Confidential? They go dead within 5-7 hours and playability drops off a cliff in addition to increasing the risk of arm/elbow/wrist discomfort. So, you don’t need to hybrid them to see this happening.

If you get a soft poly like HyperG or HyperG Soft that has longer lifetimes in fullbed, you’ll see that they last longer in hybrids also.

I never experience (avoid!) the cliff effect with full Poly (be it one Poly or Poly/Poly hybrid) because I religiously restring after 6 hours of hitting. Being confident with the equipment is a lot more important than milking an extra 30 mins or so out of the string. Helps if you purchase string by the reel, have access to a stringing machine and string the racquets yourself.

Love Hyper-G 16. Either tighter in a full bed, or slightly looser as a main hybrided with a stiffer round poly cross. Still restring religiously after 6 hours of hitting. (Stiff racquet with 16x19 pattern).

Of course, every situation is different. YMMV depending on racquet and string used. Stiffer strings like some of the Luxilon and Babolat RPM we restring after every 4 hours. Helps to have three or four or even mor of the same racquet in this case. Small price to play for relieable peak equipment performance and minimising the chances to developing tennis related arm injuries.
 

Ryebread

Hall of Fame
The solution would be to use a soft co poly, full bed.

Ytex ProTour 17L would be a nice place to start.
 

Chairman3

Hall of Fame
I think poly/syngut does increase longevity vs full poly. A multi cross probably not as much because they're softer and start to fray. But the main purpose is comfort.
You maintain the benefits of poly (spin) with the comfort of your cross (syngut or multi plus a little power)

In your case any ALU goes out pretty quickly and I have heard similar of Confidential.
I usually go shaped poly main for extra spin.
 

bmr0216

Rookie
Have you tried fullbed of ALU or Confidential? They go dead within 5-7 hours and playability drops off a cliff in addition to increasing the risk of arm/elbow/wrist discomfort. So, you don’t need to hybrid them to see this happening.

If you get a soft poly like HyperG or HyperG Soft that has longer lifetimes in fullbed, you’ll see that they last longer in hybrids also.

I think poly/syngut does increase longevity vs full poly. A multi cross probably not as much because they're softer and start to fray. But the main purpose is comfort.
You maintain the benefits of poly (spin) with the comfort of your cross (syngut or multi plus a little power)

In your case any ALU goes out pretty quickly and I have heard similar of Confidential.
I usually go shaped poly main for extra spin.

Huh that goes against what I've always read - that softer co-polys have worse tension maintenance than stiffer polys. And everyone always brings up how Confidential has better than average tension maintenance / playability duration (which TWU data and various string reviews seems to confirm).

If a string has better tension maintenance, doesn't that mean it will have greater playability over an extended period of time than a softer co-polys?
 

Chairman3

Hall of Fame
And everyone always brings up how Confidential has better than average tension maintenance / playability duration (which TWU data and various string reviews seems to confirm).
I could have been confusing Confidential for Tour Bite.
I'd go Confidential with OGSM, use 16g for the cross to delay notching.

I was also using a 6 or 8 sided poly so the edges were less pronounced than the 4-sided solinco strings. This may have helped reduce notching so quickly. Crosses usually don't notch like mains though, in my experience.
 

bmr0216

Rookie
I was also using a 6 or 8 sided poly so the edges were less pronounced than the 4-sided solinco strings. This may have helped reduce notching so quickly. Crosses usually don't notch like mains though, in my experience.

Good point. My Velocity crosses had v-shaped notches from the Confidential mains, so the mains got really locked in place. I'll try something other than a 4 sided shaped main ... Head Lynx Tour comes to mind. I'd try Hyper G but I just can't stand that color :rolleyes:
 

Chairman3

Hall of Fame
Head Lynx Tour would be good
Volkl Cyclone is really popular and "gear" shaped, whatever that means
Round polys also work well in hybrids
 
Yonex PT Rev is working out as a lightly shaped main with Velocity crosses hybrid for me; I also really like it with Yonex PT Air crosses in a shaped main/round crosses poly/poly hybrid - has adequate spin, doesn’t shred the crosses and has good tension maintenance.
 
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ryohazuki222

Professional
If a string has better tension maintenance, doesn't that mean it will have greater playability over an extended period of time than a softer co-polys?

not necessarily.

tension maintenance describes the percent loss in tension over time.

tension is correlated to but does not equate to stiffness.

for example: yonex poly tour pro has a relatively poor tension maintence state, but if you use TWU data across different tensions, you’ll see that poly tour pro is very tension insensitive — meaning that stiffness doesn’t change that much relative to tension.

other strings like RPM blast, have huge differences in stiffness at different tensions.

I’d recommend looking at both those stats to make a guess at playability duration.

also worth noting that if you dig out stiffness/tension curves from TWU, poly is an S curve. So I’d further claim that playability duration also depends where you are on that (non linear) curve.
 

ryohazuki222

Professional
Probably worth adding that maximum playability duration would be the lowest tension loss percent combined with the most consistent stiffness at various tensions. Go check out natural gut compared to other string types and you’ll see that it absolutely stands on its own with these characteristics in the twu database. Pretty neat.
 

bmr0216

Rookie
Probably worth adding that maximum playability duration would be the lowest tension loss percent combined with the most consistent stiffness at various tensions. Go check out natural gut compared to other string types and you’ll see that it absolutely stands on its own with these characteristics in the twu database. Pretty neat.
So I've been using the TWU string database completely wrong all this time ... Thank you for the explanation!
 
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