From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.tennis
Subject: Trying out the Donnay Pro One Limited Midsize
Date: 14 Aug 92 22:11:08 GMT
Reply-To: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles C. Lin)
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity of Uniland, College Park


   Well, I just got my flashy Agassi racquet.   Everything about
this racquet seems to scream cheap, flashy racquet.  The grommet
strips look cheap, there's no real vibration dampening system
(not that I care that much), and the grip is still made of
leather.   And of course, I love it.   Hah, I could never find
that perfect a racquet.

   I tested the oversized once, and felt that it was just a bit
big, so I took the risk of getting the super midsize (95 square inches
or about 680 sq. cm) instead.  The first thing I noticed was that
toward the top of the head, it was a little "pinched off" making
the head of that racquet look egg-shaped.  So, it isn't
exactly just a smaller version of the oversized.

   Fortunately, it plays pretty close to the oversized without
feeling so large (and unwieldy).   This racquet reminded
me a lot of the old Borg Pro, only a little bigger and
a lot brighter.  This shouldn't be so surprising since
Donnay made the Borg Pro, too.   For a conventional
sized racquet, it's rather powerful.  I found it somewhat
difficult to keep the ball from flying long.  I can
spin the ball pretty well, and the medium flex makes it
feel a lot less unforgiving than the stiffer widebodies.
I have a few problems hitting a hard slice backhand.

   The racquet volleys all right, though I'm not such
a great volleyer.  The Heads seemed to do a better job.
It's still not bad, just not wonderful either.   Serving
seems OK as well.

   The funny thing I discovered, and I'm wondering if this
is due to the medium flex is that some of the vibrations
bothered me (not the noise, but the rattling), and this
happened a lot worse with the Revelation 95.  I would think
a stiffer racquet would bother me more, but it seems like
this is not the case.

   All in all, a very nice racquet.  Decent power. Decent
feel. Decent spin.  Could be a little better in the volleying
dept. but at least I'm happy with this one.  Of course,
all of this is IMHO, and as they say, your mileage may vary.
Test out racquets for yourself and find what you like.

   On a related point, I sometimes wonder whether the racquet
dictates how well one plays.  For example, was Arias just
a poor volleyer or was it that the Borg Pro wasn't a good
volleying racquet?   Of course, one person's perfect racquet
for volleying might be another's nightmare, and so this
can be quite subjective.

   On grips
--------------

   Seems like alt.tennis is still around, keeping most
of their articles on the technical side.  I have been
trying various overgrips myself.   So far, the best
one I've ever had was Softgrip, and I can't seem to
find it.  I tried Prince's cushion overgrip, but
the grip seemed to slide when I played with it.
I went to What-a-Grip, but it was too slick (actually
playing it inside out helps in that respect) and seemed
to do some damage to my grip.  alt.tennis folks like it.
It is expensive though.  

    I am now trying Prince again, with the super dry grip.
This grip appears (like Tournagrip) to stick to itself
which is great as this would prevent the grip from sliding
around.  It has a decent, kind of matted feel to it.  I also
tried Dunlop and was unhappy with that as it felt like
felt or some cheap kind of cloth.  I used to have Tournagrip
Thin, but that stuff had a surface that rubbed off within
one or two playings.  Not very nice.  Tournagrip is OK.
I have yet to try the Babolat overgrip which looks a bit
rubbery to me.

--
Charles Lin
clin@eng.umd.edu
Newsgroups: rec.sport.tennis