Have just ordered one but have to wait till April for my friend to bring it over. How agonising... Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
I have very good experience with LDF (4U G5, 25lbs BG66 ultimax) and I think I'd need to train more to unleash its full potential!
The racket that vanished as mysteriously as it appeared. Do keep in mind that this was the only racket that Yonex released as a player model. There was no generic version.
Interesting to see with what model Lin Dan will play now.people want to buy racket LD plays, and that racket is not on web (I know he really plays zf2).so that means he will return to promote zf2 and hold not painted zf2?
Maybe Yonex is preparing another exclusive line for Lin Dan. They must have removed the racket from the current location on the website to include it in the new exclusive page that might come in the future.
Glad I bought it before they stopped selling the racket. This guy could be a valuable artifact in the future.
Aye, noticed that too. It's still on sale at Central Sports though, and still listed on the Yonex UK website. Very enigmatic...
Given the positive reaction to this racquet, it would seem crazy if Yonex don't repaint and rebrand the model. As I said in another post, LDF seems pretty much a reincarnation of VT80, a huge seller in its day. Given that other top sellers like VT7 have been receiving an annual repainting for years now, surely this is a classic case of 'ain't broken, don't fix'?
Couple of things that screwed this LDF over, IMO: -LD not having any major public appearances outside of China after his worst OG in over a decade; won nothing and yet still took a post-OG break, -No close reference point to anything else on the lineup; people wondered what they were in for before they bought it, and it makes me wonder- repainting a frame to player version aka ZF2LD and D10LCW actually drove more sales because the player who likes the plain jane version actually got more of the normal if they tested the player version and didn't like it, and/or they would buy a player version to finish the collection if they did (or just to support their favorite player). -Finally, and I think this didn't help AT ALL even if it didn't screw the LDF further, was our Dan the Man's derailment/affair. This isn't a celebrity circle thing where any good/bad news is PR, and people shunned the frame to a certain extent. As good the SC6 gold was a looker the general consensus here was that it didn't sell as well as the previous colors and I believe this stretches as well to the frame by extension. It just won't do the LDF any favors. To be frank the fourth quarter of 2016 was a awkward time IMO for Yonex, not dropping LD because he just got reunited (and also they just can't, the great 4 would be gone to 2 if they dropped LCW for his drug test and LD for his affair) Just look at how sponsors ran amok after Tiger Wood's and Maria Sharapova's news; shows again how small badminton really is.
I think it was just that they tried to milk the cow too hard. They launched 3 colors of zf2 for him (one he did not even use once), and then proceed to release another one that everyone knows he is not using. So instead of having the hype there was when he first joined again yonex, everyone was like "meh, the monthly LD product". And the name is kind of lame too.
LD not winning was probably the main reason, it was an 'olympic racket' and he won no medal. The affair probably wasn't a big deal, most people in china actually reacted positively to his return. Meister's explanation I also like. LD uses like 50 million types of gear in one year makes it lack the star power.
Too many LD edition rackets, I don't remember li Ning being this zealous, they slapped him on a lot of shoes but I think yonex might have outdone them there too
All good points. But as Paul Stewart said earlier in this thread, surely the main thing is that the racquet feels right, regardless of decals/ pro's name on shaft? I know that the marketing reality is different, but I suspect this racquet would sell shed-loads if it was repainted/ renamed VT 80 Neo or something. A 'Jocky Wilson' ZF2 in Exorcist-vomit lime would still be a ZF2, after all.
