Racket release overkill - who can still follow?

Everyone. Even a cricket bat flexes. The question is how and how much. controlling how it flexes could make a very stiff racket feel more flexible, but in reality it isn’t flexing more functionally that older “stiff” rackets.

look, the original point is, there aren’t too many rackets. The complaint about all rackets getting softer or expensive rackets being softer is only partially true. It’s not like the Voltric 70 was as stiff as the 80.

For a point of reference I have played tennis more than 3 decades longer than Badminton. About 4 years ago I set out to buy a new tennis racket to replace my 2 late 90s Prince Precision Response Ti, I played with those since middle school, almost regardless of string, I know what that racket is going to do, I have strong preference for certain strings but it didn’t matter when I had to get Poly on one in stead of Nat Gut or Syn Gut or the hybrid which is my preference and was a long time ago when people thought I was nuts. I tried 20 rackets or so. Clearly newer with better properties, in all rational thought better and more refined, more powerful. But I decided I knew mine and I didn’t have the time or inclination beyond the testing period to figure out fully a new racket. Maybe as I age and my physique can no longer provide the power and swing speed it did at 13-18 I might change to something easier to use, but it wasn’t it. That also didn’t make those new rackets less good or mine better.

 

Maybe they aren't lying. Maybe they simply not know that they get cherry picked models, maybe they misunderstand the interviewer, maybe they simply not know what they use. I guess you mean Higashino? Watanabe also said he used 4U, while some forumer confirmed that he uses 3U. There is also evidence here that his Halbertec 9000 is a repainted Axforce 80 frame. I don't want to say that they all lie, but I guess that every top 20 player is important enough that a brand will give them a custom one. A player is also a brand ambassador and if they will say that the rackets they use you can't buy what should be the gains for the brand?

Just a small portion about pros and their rackets which got confirmed in this forum:

Ahsan used a 3U Arc FB. Lin Dans VTLDF was a repainted ZFII. Their is also a company (IIRC @Rob3rt mentioned it) which is specialized to repaint rackets. The whole KRP, MYP discussion and the ridiculous heavy AX99 batch and also e1981 sells very old Li-Ning CP rackets at high price I skip here. So IMO this is enough to have doubts that all use commercial ones. To which amount players use custom ones I can't tell you and you also can't tell me that all use commercial ones. We can only disagree here, because we don't know what is true.

Simply could also not know. They have contracts, are ambassadors and maybe could have NDAs. Maybe some use really the commercial ones (Top 300 ore something). I just want simply say that your pro player argument don't work here well, because we simply don't know who use commercial ones and who use customized, cherry picked etc.

It is, see above.

 

I am lost aswell.
I went for the Auraspeed 70k, liked it and bought several of them.
That was almost 4 years ago.
If i wanted to replace them, i wouldnt even know what would be similar in Victor's lineup.
My only reference points are "Even Balanced", "Quite Stiff" and "4U".
That is what i revolve around. But i came to accept that there is some guesswork to chosing a racket.
Best option is to just try someone else's racket and trust in your ability to eventually adapt to a different one.

 

Most of product exist nowdays are always like that. How much an Iphone actually cost? Probably around 30% of the price actually, the rest goes to RnD, investment new tech, adds, & warranty.
But im more into the value for money the product offer. I mean like Namd by Yonex or Pyrofil by Victor. Im sure Pyrofil is developed by Mitsubishi, Victor is just do trial & error incorporating Pyrofil to their product. Or freecore. Im also believe the cost is in investing an plastic injection machine & moulding, or maybe sub it to other plastic manufacturer.
With today fast new release & price hike, i doubt the new tech really worth the money.

 

Sapsiree/Dechapol.

and Yuta was on an Aeronaut 9000C before, which tells me that it’s a 3U since it the C designates that. Whatever racket he uses, he may not know it’s 3U, but I doubt he changed, unless the AxForce was just a bit too much headweight.

I think more likely players don’t even know what they play, since in interviews they often don’t know, sometimes even the model. I tend to think people are not disingenuous, unless they show otherwise. There is really no reason for Viktor Axelsen to flat out address the question, AND LIE. He could’ve ignored it. Marin was free to say so. In tennis they can say it’s customized for them, and companies ALWAYS leave that disclaimer. But generally it’s close. The exceptions include Rafa, who has even mentioned he used different rackets for different surfaces, different swing weights, none of which are available. And there is no way those pros, even if using a 2U, are altering the swing weight of their rackets by 60 kgcm2 like Rafa does from Basic stock current Babolat model. The tennis market is $6b+ globally, Badminton, $3.6b, why would some of the same companies (Yonex) allow one set to speak about it and not another?

this wraps nicely back to my point. You’re wrong and right. We don’t know for sure, but it doesn’t matter. If someone says they used a customized ArcSaber 7 with 7 grams added to racket balanced between handle, t joint and racket head, someone STILL needs to buy the racket to get this modification. Even if it’s a lie. It’s too much conspiracy theory for me.
And there still aren’t that many rackets out if one keeps up with it.

 

@SaxoProf It's really hard to follow you when you jump from player to player and even switch the kind of sports. You made this statement which disturbed me:

My 2 cents to this: We simply don't know if they used the commercial version or a special one, but 2 players made the statement in an interview that they use not a commercial one. So there could be even more players, we don't know, so argumentations with pro players is a bad reference, since in the past there were also repaints and also weight versions which never got sold. What is wrong with that? You think nobody would ever lie. The truth is that we got fooled in the past and what is your evidence that this fooling has stopped?

So know I really confused. We talked about 5U NF700 and a videos series by ckyew. In this series we get the information by Seo and Marin that they don't use commercial ones. Higashino said in this video that she uses a 5U NF700 and Yuta said he use a 4U Axforce 80. Funny side fact: He said all the same like before but changed the racket. Forumer got informations from stringers that he use a 3U version. So it's here quite fishy. If he lies, it's a language issue, he don't know, we also not know, but this is evidence that we get faulty informations, informations which you use to argue:

You are not up to date, jump forth and back, so I don't see here any chance to have a serious discussion. So this will be my last reply to this.

Yeah, I also wouldn't question that a player use a heavy, stiff racket. I would question the choices of players if they really use the medium fly swatters which is a NF700 5U indeed. I simply don't know what they use. You don't know what they use, so don't use pro players as reference and spread it as the absolute truth, that they use what they say, or what you see, because there were to many exceptions in the past that they used something different. That's not a conspiracy, this happend in the past quite regular at the very top players and also some of these rackets find the way into the market.

IMO we should bring this thread back to topic and the OP question and away from tennis, cricket, underwater chess for dissabled people, Michael Jordan and Lionel Messi. Shaft stiffness explained thread and pro players choice threads also existed, so everybody can post there. Maybe @Cheung can move this offtopic posts to the specific threads? So we can focus on the initial question. @s_mair sorry for these offtopic text walls.

 

Honestly, I get the impression that the majority of professional players care way less about racket specs and tech than the average "all the gear, no idea" type of recreational player / tech geek who frequents internet forums like this, and goes out and buys every new flagship racket that gets released. Half of the pros, when interviewed (especially the women, for whatever reason), don't even seem to be sure what racket or string they're using - some of them have to pull the racket out of their bag to read the name off the shaft! I'd bet the ones who request a special version are in a very tiny minority.
And then you get people like Toh Ee Wei, who has only just switched from the Voltric Z-Force Ltd Edition (from 12 years ago!), because presumably it worked for her, and she saw no reason to change.
I suspect players are encouraged by manufacturers (though probably not contractually obliged) to change rackets often, in order to promote the latest model, but would be perfectly happy not to. Actually, I even wonder if Yonex chose the colour scheme of the new Astrox 88 just to please Toh Ee Wei - the teal perfectly matches the logo on her clothing, of her sponsor, Petronas, and the silver matches her hair (sometimes).

 

I didn't say that though

I'm simply observing the latest innovations which "add flex" to a stiff racket. I'm not going to go out and spend £200 on a third generation of a racket and dump the second version because the superior upgraded version has a bit more flex. They are phasing out popular rackets that badminton players all over the World have gotten used to before they get a decent shelf life out of it, on the premise that a bit more flex is better. Maybe it's not better for me, as the whole point is the racket is of a certain stiffness which is right for me. It makes it an altogether different racket from the one I'm used to.

How about manufacturers just keep producing the already decent version for a while longer, make it cheaper, and come up with a different racket at a later date which has a tangible innovation to it. That would be much better for those of us who don't want to spend a fortune on rackets because when we break one a couple of years on we can't easily find a replacement and the next generation has a different flexion point.

It feels like manufacturers have gotten to a point where they can't innovate much anymore and are turning backwards on themselves just to keep themselves distinguished from the competition by coming up with marketing gimmicks which devalue the utility value of high end rackets by giving them a short shelf life. We need less manufacturers and innovation and rackets, and we need solid, and well defined rackets which last for years. It's not an equipment sport like motor racing and I'm frustrated that both the manufacturers (driven by profit margins) and some of the community keep trying to turn it into one by trying to justify these changes as if they make a major difference to anyone's game.

What would make a difference is if you didn't feel compelled to change your expensive racket for many years because it's that good they couldn't do much better until a much later date. These rackets can't be much good if they keep changing the specs of them frequently.

 

To discover if we really have a release overkill I link here the YY catalogues for 2014 and 2024:

https://issuu.com/yonex-ger/docs/yy_badminton-katalog_2014_e_issuu

https://www.yonex.com/media/wysiwyg/2024-Yonex-Badminton-Catalog.pdf

If I counted correctly by ignoring the weight, colour and grip variants, the kids rackets and aluminium and training rackets the amount of rackets in 2024 doubled compared to 2014. In 2024 the list is around 50 rackets.

The oldest Victor catalogue I can find is from 2016, but Victor was always a brand with 60+ different rackets and chaotic naming:

https://www.victorsport.com/file.php?f=2016010517493667735.pdf&type=file&id=2783

On their current website the have 173 rackets listed:

https://www.victorsport.com/product/rackets

Even when we take a third of them by ignoring aluminium frames, kids versions, discountinued ones this is a pretty high number.

This is a 2015 catalogue from Li-Ning I found:

http://www.badmintonvir.us/sites/de...-catalogue-2015-lithuania-badminton-virus.pdf

2024:

https://www.shopnings.com/pub/media/descriptions/2024ss.pdf

Li-Ning is also with close to 60 models in the market.

All in all it leaves the impression that each of the 3 big brands release twice as much rackets nowadays. This leads to more confusing, more minor differences and make it even more difficult to make a decision.

There was some time where you could recommend male teenagers and players with a smaller budget the Voltric 7 as a sure shot. I also recommended many beginner and hobby female players the Voltric 5fx sucessful. I feel the same like the OP that nowadays I wouldn't have any clue what racket is the Voltric 7/5FX nowadays.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20021123021324/http://yonex.com/

Here's the yonex rackets from when this forum began in 2002

Muscle Power-88
Muscle Power-100
Muscle Power-77
Muscle Power-55
Ti-7 Light
Isometric Ti Swing Power
Isometric-90 VFS
Isometric-62 MF Light
Isometric-23
Isometric-20
Carbonex-20 Muscle
Carbonex-23
Carbonex-8200 Light
B-560 DF
B-460

 

I'm voting for babolat...
If you ignore their origin value ranges, their satellite and x feel ranges have remained the same for many years with possible incremental improvements every year/cycle. But saying that they've not done it for their new x-feel range with new unique names...

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

 

And I was about to mention Babolat again here. It seems like they have some new models not to replace the ones I know, but they kept essentially the same models for a decade or so.

I think that when we're at a point that the variance between different batches of the same model are bigger than the difference between different rackets, it's definitely too much.

 

But they had 3 different logos within a decade.

 

Sounds good. And for the record, I aware he WAS on aeronaut and not now. The thing that gets me. You refer to the NF700 as a flyswatter, except where I play it is extremely popular, and I had one and no problem with power. And even among pretty hard smashers. So the fact that you convinced people are always lying jsut tells me the forum is apparently filled with people not strong or skilled enough to use it.

bye.

and no. Not too many rackets. And to the point I made earlier. Most people try to play with rackets pros use, and they can’t or shouldn’t. They are weak and not fit.

 

Or you just don’t need to change, even if they offer other things. The same things have been said for a very long time. Even if it’s faster, yo don’t need to upgrade if you’re happy. So what’s the difference if they or pros or anyone else thinks its better.

 

Funny things happened to Victor though. Ryuga 2 was heavily marketed as LZJ choice of racquet but he is so not used to the racket and switched back to Ryuga 1. Victor could have repainted the Ryuga 1 with Ryuga 2 design but decided not to. Same thing happened with ARS 90k II with Antonsen.