Prince (manufacturing and or QA?) tolerances

As I had trouble finding retailers (and up the chain, manufacturers) that would send me at least 3 true to spec racquets, I decided to try and order a bunch myself and keep the (best) fitting ones.

The last few years, I mostly played with the 2019 Prince TeXtreme Tour 100 310g. Occasionally switching back to the trusty RF97A. Had demo'd a bunch lately including the VCORE 98 but couldn't find the (next) one.

The 2019 Tour 100 310 had felt always quite harsh to me, which was a big disappointment since the previous gen of TeXtreme had one of the nicest feels I could remember. Also e.g. on stretch shots I could feel the hoop wobble. 

The successor was supposed to address both. I had a hit with it over the summer and quite liked it. Despite the visual design :) (On this overview page, note that Prince mistakenly lists this as 300g.) 

But we're starting to get into a review here...

In regards to tolerances, here's what I was able to measure for the 9 frames at home:

Serial	Weight (g)	Balance (mm)
91795236	308	313
91784919	308	314
91780027	(309?)	(314?)
91786395	(309?)	(313?)
91780171	(310?)	(312?)
91784520	(312?)	(312?)
91780461	(306?)	(312?)
91786951	(305?)	(311?)
92076020	(305?)	(316?)

These would be "grip only". Compare to the official 310 / 310 spec.

Since I didn't want to unwrap all 9 frames, I estimated the values in () based on the following findings:

Weight

Prince cardboard 12g

Plastic grip wrap incl sticker 2g

Finishing rubber 1g

(for wrap and rubber combined, the scale sometimes goes to 4g => 3-4g)

=> -15g for grip only (no board wrap rubber)

Balance

Prince cardboard ~12g moves balance up ~7mm =>  -7mm w/o cardboard

Plastic grip wrap and finishing rubber 3-4g (without cardboard on frame) move balance down ~1mm

=> -6mm for grip only (no board wrap rubber)

So based on my sample of 9, we have very high ~7g and ~5mm spread. 

The 306 / 311 combo should be much too light feeling.

The 312 / 312, especially in comparison with 306 / 311, quite heavy.

Since I couldn't measure swing weight at home, I went by the above measures and dry-swing-feel.

So far I strung up 91795236, 91784919, 91780027, which are within +/- 1g and 1mm. 

Despite this close range they so far feel quite different to me: 1 like a sharp tournament stick, another one like a tweener power racquet, and 1 in between. Maybe that's partially due to where the weight ended up distributed in the frame. 

Once I get the chance of course I'll measure swing weight...

 

So far not enjoying this try-out, and not loving one of the racquets - but we'll see.

Again, in an ideal racquet world, one wouldn't even have to do all this work, but would get true-to-spec and/or "same-playing" racquets straight from the source. 

What do do? Looks like in terms of trusted specs, Yonex seems to have fallen too...

P.S.: Reminder that the player's goal is to find a racquet including specs that work for them, not (only) that the specs between racquets match :)

Yonex VCORE 98 review

Bought 6, sent 5 back...

But let's start at the beginning. As quickly mentioned before, I felt drawn back to the 2023 VCORE 98 when demoing racquets. 

Mostly I liked how fast it moved through the air. The frame felt like a natural match for my longer swings. 

For some time, I'd been wondering if I should move from my quite balanced 310g / 310mm Prince frame to something that would be a bit more polarized, on one end, for a bit more of a self-accelerating swing. 

On the TeXtreme Tour 100, I had put a leather grip for a while, but that ended being slightly too much of a good thing.

Also, the VCORE having that wider hoop up in the racquet and the sweet spot further up there makes sense to me, considering most people seem to hit the ball higher up in the frame. Reminds me e.g. of the Pro Kennex and Wilson tear shaped frames, just not as extreme and maybe wobbly as a result.

Although I had chosen the Wilson SixOne series for many years, I disliked that the sweet spot sat so low in the hoop. Even below the center. So most shots felt like mishits really. 

(Using an X frame could counter that, though with an extra half inch in the case of the KFactor that stick was a little too long to get around quickly and or on the run.)

For the VCORE 98, there was one particular early warning sign - already after a few shots, I felt pain shooting and building up along the whole arm. After hundreds and maybe even 1,000+ racquets that I hit with over the decades, that has only happened a handful of time. Last I remember was maybe ~15 years ago, with a set of quite harsh and metallic-feeling Tecnifibre demos.

But since I liked so much how it swung, and I had been looking for a while, and I'm used to playing with low tension, I thought I'd be able to sort this out with the string job.

As I had recently found quite high deviations between Yonex frames, and couldn't find anyone / -shop to find me 3 true-to-spec ones, I ended up ordering 6 to measure them myself. 3 turned out alright.

I strung up one frame a few times and kept going lower and lower, eventually below 20 kgs. The string bed got quite soft, but I *still* could feel the pain going up my arm.

That does not gel at all why other reviewers thought the frame was quite comfortable... Who even had likely strung the frame more tightly. So not sure what's going on there.

What also became more apparent was that the hoop didn't seem as stable on impact and would quite easily twist.

In both cases, a good amount of the energy built up by the player seemed to get misdirected...

So unfortunately, 2 no-go's for extended and / or competitive play. 

A tennis buddy has 2 VCORE 100s, and while I think that one is a bit too much of a racquet (mostly due to the wide beam), it might be the better buy. More stable, a real ripper, just not much of a finesse frame, and might do a little too much of its own thing.

Warming up against the 100 during a tournament this summer, I had to take a few steps back because the (new) balls were coming in so high hard and heavy. That has also not happened very often. So probably quite an effective frame for the modern game.

Maybe for the next gen of VCORES, something between the current 98 and 100 would be good. 

Other than that, I'm not sure why Yonex decided to make the string bed tighter in the middle section and lower down the hoop. When the racquet was designed for hitting further up in the first place. Then surely you don't need more control (and a change) further and especially far down. 

(Or reversely, why open it up further up when the frame was designed to make contact there?)

I suppose there's even a (at least) double impact then, as the head gets narrower towards the handle and with that the strings shorter, likely pulled at the same tension with constant pull against what's already strung. So the string bed should get much stiffer towards the handle, thus likely leading to a big diff in power response vertically. 

In addition, the last cross string sits very low, and in combination of all the density right above, I'm not sure if it still serves a purpose. Maybe Big Foe thought similarly on his frame, when he just kept that open...

Maybe I still have a few gaps in racquet science, so there's a chance I'm off and being unjust to Yonex here. I suppose in general I just like simple even string spacing, as e.g. on the Prince 100 16 x 18 frames. Assume I'd like that in a VCORE 98 as well - though that of course would have to get tried out.

All in all I still really want to like the frame, and kept one for testing and the collection. Def one of the more interesting racquets put together. Hope the next iteration will be it! 

P.S.: I still don't like the Yonex grip shape, plus seem to be fall between their L2 and L3 sizing. But with the right frame I'd probably manage. Or maybe put a Wilson-shape L3 pallet on it...

Yonex tolerances (e.g. VCORE 98)

Word on the courts has been that Yonex was pretty much the only brand from which you can pick up sticks off the shelf and they'd be very close to spec. Meaning also one would not have to worry about matching between them. 

I was looking at the Percept 97H, as that's pretty much the only heavy racquet on the market since the RF97A had left the show. Measured a few and was surprised and disappointed to find all of then a few grams too light and a few mm too head heavy. Sure you can get close to the 330 / 310 spec again with a slightly heavier grip, but then the fiddling around begins again...

Demoing a few other pre-selected sticks, I did like the VCORE 98 and felt drawn back to it. Although even at low tension I could feel pain in and along the whole arm, which has happened close to never in >40 years of playing at least hundreds of racquets. So not sure what's going on and why a good part of the energy needs to go in that direction...

Anyways, back to spec - in a store that only had 2 VCORE 98s, there was already a 6 (!) gram diff between them. 

Struggling still and again to find an online retailer in Europe that would find me at least 3 matching sticks, I ended up ordering 6 myself, in the hope that 3 would be closer to spec and each other. 

Turned out weight and balance were pretty close between all of them, however with 1 outlier each in weight and balance, respectively. 1 more frame that seemed close to the remaining 3 did feel a bit heavier to move around (3384900 below), despite just maybe 1 mm more head heavy balance:

Serial	Weight (g)	Balance (mm)
3384900	305	315
3384899	304	317
3384898	304	314
3384897	305	314
3384905	305	314
3384908	307	314

(Still can't measure swingweight at home, so trying to at least develop a feel for it - thinking since only feeling a diff later on court as well would be a problem....)

Also worth noting that without the ~2g plastic wrap around the handle, 5/6 racquets were moving from the 305g VCORE 98 spec towards 300 grams, which at least in terms of weight is the VCORE 100 spec... 

I do wonder a bit, why as a manufacturer, one wouldn't just put thin weight strips under the grip, to make final tweaks to get the racquets to fit.

Bottom line:

I think for players who care, one currently can not (no longer?) just go and buy Yonex off the shelf and expect true to spec material. 

(I feel somewhat comfortable making that claim as at max, 1 of the 10+ racquets I measured recently seemed true to spec, and most others were quite far off. Maybe Y has fallen victim to its own success, in that regard?)

Based on my limited samples, I'd say one would have to roughly double-purchase, to then possibly end up with half the racquets to one's liking. 

However as in my VCORE batch, one would still have to tinker around with the grip and / or handle - if one wanted to get to the spec that the racquets where developed and are advertised for. 

Still not there in 2024!

P.S.: FWIW, the cardboard and rubber bands holding it that come on Yonex racquets seem to weigh ~14 grams. So with the ~2g plastic wrap around the handle, what you pick up in the store weighs about as much as a strung VCORE 98. Though obviously, compared to a string job, with that weight distributed. String would add an extra ~2g in the head (~16g total), and removing the wrap would take ~2g off the handle. In other words, you'd have ~4g more in the head, affecting balance and swingweight.