Last night, at an informal club night, somebody (older guy, must be in his 50's) asked to borrow a racquet from me. That's pretty rare in HK. So he looked at my racquet and said "Hey, it's a funny shape". I looked at my precious cab20 and said "what do you mean?!" Him: "Well, it's pointed" Me: "Huhhh??" Him: "See, that other is squarer"................ Me: "Ahh, use this then" and gave the isometric clone racquet strung at 28lbs. Used for one game and then immediately handed back to me. I have another excuse to give: "You can use it but the racquet is very hard to find. Probably it would cost HKD3000 (USD 380 approx), to find another one, IF I can find one..."
Probably one of those guys who started play after the Carbonex series has stopped being the top model... a long time ago.
this is to confirm that guy dont know how to play badminton or even near to badminton before. at age 50++ and never see oval shape badminton racket. are you sure that he is not coming from Neptune?
sometimes it is hard to do that. esp hard when you actually know that person. i had to deal with a similar situation the other day. a friend of mine who is known to break rackets. he broke 2 of someone elses racket already asked me to borrow one for the evening. i had to refuse him. while i don't have out of print rare US$400 cab20 that Cheung have, they are still $100 rackets and some are demos that do not belong to me. my rackets are my babies and i just couldn't bear dealing with one broken.
...$400 racquets; if put up for sale in the buy and sale thread, will it be sold instantaneously? Seriously, there are takers?
I bought a load of 150HKD generic racquets just for this purpose. Well for practising stringing also. Edit* and they're oval shape too!
I only lend them for testing purpose only and when playing singles. I wont lend them if playing doubles cos that will be too risky.
its always a good idea to carry one or two $30 racket to badminton session. not to deal only with borrower but 'aggresive' partner....
Yeah, quite amazing comment. I was very surprised. That would be the set price, whether a buyer comes is another matter. But what if he broke my precious racquet? I'd be in real trouble because they are so very difficult to find. I tried isometric before (iso800, slim 10) years ago and I could not find a distinct advantage. In fact, it was very difficult for me to get the right angle and I hit loads of smashes below the tape. OK, I have spare racquets of the same model (collected over 10 years ago) but other people using and then breaking them would be rather difficult to accept. Quite agree. In fact, the clone that I carry was giving to me for testing purposes. Luckily, I had it strung only last week (after keeping it over a year). Fortunately, I don't seem to get into many racquet clashes. Perhaps my partners are not aggresive enough..LOL (or I'm not aggresive enough ) The other unusual thing is this guy actually wanting to borrow my racquet. It's an unusual request in HK(for me anyway!). It's a new club (only 3rd time I have attended) so I don't really know that person very well at all. There were a few other club members around that he could have asked to borrow a racquet from. This situation poses a bit of a problem. You go to a new club, you want to create a good impression and then the racquet lending dilemma turns up. For some of us, we might not have the $30 racquet in the bag in order to travel "light". For myself, if I need to borrow a racquet, I choose the cheaper ones out of politeness.
Some of my mates think that I am an s-hole becos I refuse to lend them my top end yonex for them to try out. I hope I am not the only one who strongly refuses to give in.
I borrowed a friends NS90II a few days ago and mishit a few smashes (full power). No expression on his face means hes a good friend or hes great at poker.
There's no way to tell. How many rackets does he have? Are you his good friends? I lend cheap rackets to someone I don't know or not close friends. For my friends, I don't mind though
No brand for me, I'm trying to find a racquet that plays decent for the price. Regardless of brand. If I cant find one, then I revert back to my old racquets. Lesser brands like Victor,LN,Zelm,Apacs seem to cost the same (or more) as Yonex leaving most of us confused.
I have no issues with lending out higher end rackets if a friend wants to try them out with the understanding that if they break it they replace it. Same with me if I want to borrow and try out a new racket from a friend.
