If you want a racquet: 1. How often do you play, how serious are you? At the moment I play once a week for 2-3 hours and am improving a lot from where I was. I am hoping to play more often and increase my abilities so I can play competitively. 2. What style of player are you? (Aggressive smasher, net player ...) I'm an aggressive player who like smashing. I have a lot of power as it is from my current bad (a cheap £10 Wilson Force 1000). But I also like to be crafty and throw in some deception and just drop shots over the net. Basically I am an aggressive all rounder but given a change I will try to put the shuttle through the floor. I quite often struggle to keep the shuttle in court, but this is more my technique than anything, so I dont need something to improve my power. 3. Do you care much about durability or is it all about performance? Durability is important. I don't want to have to replace the new racquet any time soon, but I would like a little extra performance from it where possible. So really, durability with a little extra performance; though just about anything will help over what I have. 4. How much money do you want to spend? Up to about £100 retail. I get some discounts from a supplier through another sport, so I wont be paying that much anyway. Just a note, I don't have the abilities to warrant something of the expense of Yonex, and I do enjoy being different, so if possible I would like to avoid that unless there is a clear benefit of going down that route. I'd like something around average weight, so about 80-90g (my bat is 105g) and something not too flexible as I can already generate quite a bit of power. As I can generate the power, I would like something to help me with the control a little better so I can hopefully stop hitting the shuttle out as often. With all this in mind, would someone be so kinds as to recommend a string tension for my style. I was thinking around 24-25lbs from what I have read elsewhere? Oh, and I am not tied to the supplier I am planning to use (and they were a little shoddy with deliverly last time) so if you could recommend somewhere to buy stuff from (I havent looked in the forum that far yet) I would appreciate that too. Thanks
How long have you been playing, and how good are you? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're probably quite new to the sport? Being able to generate power with a flexible, 105g racket, strung at about 20lbs, is one thing. Being able to generate power with a stiff 85-90g racket, strung at 25lbs is quite another - I really think you'd get a shock. Realistically, you're probably going to be better off with a lower string tension (Ashaway actually recommend 18-20lbs for an intermediate), and at most a medium-stiff racket. I know plenty of people are going to disagree with me on this, but personally I've never found any racket better than any other in terms of control - I believe that's down to the strings (having said that, I'm not a finesse type player). To be honest, it's really hard to recommend a racket - you say you're an attacking power player, but then you say you don't want a racket that's oriented towards power? I think it would really help you narrow down the options, if you could borrow a few rackets from friends, and see what you like - paying particular attention to weight, stiffness, balance, and string tension. Otherwise, I'd get something quite cheap for now, incase you don't like it - maybe Karakal or Ashaway? Most anything would be an improvement on your current racket.
Thanks for the reply. I've been playing about once a week for about 5 months now. I'd like to play more and am looking into that. I'll take any advice I can get on board and hopefully speak to the people at the club I go to next time I am there also. I mentioned I wanted a stiff racquet because I have seen the force 1000 lited as "stiff" for flexibility. I'm not sure how it compares in flex to others, but some sports shops I looked in had similar flexes on medium ones. I think they were the Head racquets.
If you want to be different, look at the Karakal MTec 80 tattoo limited edition. It's light, moderately stiff and looks striking. There is a member on these forums who is a Karakal distributor and will give you a good price. His name is Sunny and he goes under the alias of karakalkat. Send him a private message and see how much an MTec 80 tattoo would cost you.
