Hi, I'm a recreational intermediate player. I'm hoping some of the experts in this forum will give me a couple of suggestions. My parameters are as follows: I'm of average strength for 5'11" and 170lbs athletic build I mostly play doubles but would like a racquet best for singles racquet I currently use is a carbonex 8(about 20 years old) and the string is almost as old the string is extremely loose-looser than anyone of my friends string I find that when I respond to a good clear shot that I must really throw myself at the bird with everything I've got in order to clear it back to the base line; so much so that I have strained my abs. I definitely want an isometric racquet for the larger sweet spot and I would like more power for a much easier clear. I think my technique is fine but I read that loose string increases power so for me that wouldn't make sense. My current style of play involves lots of net play and being difficult to read. Please help me out with a racquet, string and tension. The cost should stay under $200 and I don't want to be breaking the strings regularly so they should be reasonably robust. Thank you very very much for reading this and helping me out. Eric
Hi, Red Face, welcome to the forum. With the budget of CAD200, you could almost buy any rackets available now in the market. As many forum members would say, the well recongnised offensive single iso rackets would include AT900P, AT700 and Ti-10 (old). Of course, there are other brands with good rackets out there. Since your budget is high, you could read more and shop around before making up your mind. The well known "robust" string would be BG65. Or you could try BG80. But as you probably rightly pointed out, your current challenge is with the tension. If your string is "amost as old" as your racket, than I guess the string must be really 'dead' by now, then I can understand what you mean by throwing yourself at the shuttle to get it to the base line. Just a word of caution: if you have been playing with such loose tension for such a long time, when you get the new racket and a new string with fresh tension, you will feel awkard for a while and you will either find the shuttle going way out (if you still "throw yourself" to the shuttle) or it wont respond. It will take time to adjust so remember to be patient. Enjoy your game!
This is a myth, albeit a common one; the idea is based on a laughably bad argument "from physics". Most players find that higher tension increases power, until a point where they can no longer swing the racket quickly (or accurately) enough, and power reduces. This point depends on the person.
I still carry a Carb8 in my spares bag, it was a fine piece of kit when new and its still not that bad (OK the strings arent as old as yours). Upgrade path I would suggest is to the Muscle Power Range, perhaps a 45?
Agree with more wood that MP45 will be a good choice because it plays closer to Cab8 with bigger sweet spot and not over stiff. Also AT700 is a good smashing choice but hard to control at net. Since price is limited to $200 CAN, NS8000 will be the best choice for the power and net play balance. These are my choices.
Thank you all very much. I'm getting my old Carbonex 8 restrung w BG80 and then I'll try hefting the AT900P and the MP45 but because folks here say the MP45 has more in common with my current racquet I expect I'll end up going for that. thanks again Eric
