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Yonex Anti-Vibration Technology

REDUCED VIBRATIONEvery racquet manufacturer deals with the issue of unwanted and potentially unhealthy tennis racquet vibrations in a slightly different way. However, most create a break in the kinetic chain somewhere between the string bed and the player’s arm in order to interrupt the vibrations before they get to the player’s elbow.

Babolat ™, for example, places a Cortex system above the handle and just below the throat on several of their high-end frames while Wilson ™goes even further by separating the racquet’s loop from the rest of the frame with their famous Triad technology.

The problem with this method is twofold. First, creating a physical break in the continuity of the frame creates an unpredictable flex point. Second, physical breaks in continuity can lead to a loss of racquet head feel or “touch” for some players.

With this in mind, Yonex ™ takes a different approach to vibration dampening in their Ezone Ai tennis racquets. Rather than creating a physical break in the frame’s continuity, they have adopted a variation on the “solid feel” technology built into their high-end badminton racquets.

First, Yonex places eight shockless grommets at the bottom of their tennis racquets. Then, to reduce vibrations even further, they fill the racquet handle with Quake Shut Gel. The result: a 50% reduction in vibrations compared to conventional tennis racquets.

To get an idea of how much of a difference this makes to players with tennis elbow, take a look at the video above and note the two bottles of water. The bottle on the right is experiencing fewer vibrations because it is sitting on pad made of Quake Shut Gel.

This approach to vibration dampening is not new to Yonex. All of their world class Japanese-made badminton frames feature Solid Feel Core technology which is virtually the same thing. By adapting this technology to tennis frames, Yonex has given the Yonex Ezone series of tennis racquets exceptional anti-vibration capabilities without breaking the kinetic chain and sacrificing frame stiffness.

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A First for Spain

Carolina MariAs of June 11th, Carolina Marin (NANORAY Z-SPEED, SHB-02LX) has made history by becoming the first Spanish badminton player to achieve a ranking of World No. 1.

The Spanish shuttler has several achievements to her name. Last year she won at BWF World Championships, becoming the first Spanish player to do so. In 2015 she had consecutive triumphs at the Yonex ™ All England, Malaysia Open Superseries Premier and Australian Open Superseries. With accomplishments like these, she now truly stands among the world’s elite.

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The Other Side of the Net

Tennis HandshakeIn an average year, Racquet Network staff sell racquets to more than 2000 customers. Some know exactly what they want when they walk through our doors, but most do not. Most need some help.

In order to ensure that we are connecting customers with racquets that are properly suited to their needs, we ask a series of questions that focus on frequency and style of play. The frequency questions are easy for most people. Most customers tend to have a good idea of how often they will be playing with the racquet they are buying.

The more difficult questions are those related to the customer’s style of play. Most people haven’t really thought about how they play. Are you an attacker or a defender? Are you a pounder or a placer? What are your biggest weapons: serves, serve returns, volleys, drop shots or something else?

They way you play matters. If your game is based on a big serve, you will want a racquet that helps you serve even bigger. If your game is purely defensive, you will want a racquet that enhances defensive shotmaking. Whatever your game — tennis, squash, badminton, pickleball or racquetball — the racquet you choose must fit your playing style.

An equally important consideration is the opposition you will be facing on the other side of the court. In tennis, for example, if you are playing an opponent who hits hard penetrating ground strokes or punishing first serves, you will want a stiff frame to counter with. Why? Because the last thing you want when you are playing a pounder is a soft frame that flexes on contact and sprays the ball in unintended directions.

The same is true for badminton players. You may want to play an attacking style, but if you are part of a drop-in group and half of the players are better than you, you will probably be attacking half of the time and defending the other half. In this case, you might be wise to choose a balanced racquet that allows you to play both styles. Or you might choose to have two racquets in your bag: one for attacking and one for defending.

Think of your racquet bag as a tool kit. If the only tool in your kit is a hammer, you will have to treat everything like a nail. But if you have a hammer, a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, you will be better equipped to deal with a variety of tasks.

New players tend to buy one racquet and use it for everything. The same is true for professionals who are able to impose their game on opponents regardless. In between these levels you will find some smart players and some not-so-smart players.

The not-so-smart ones buy the same racquet or the same category of racquet over and over. Look in their bags and you will often find a half dozen racquets in different colours and styles all of which do exactly the same thing.

Smart players, on the other hand, have a variety of tools in their chests. At the very least, they will have one racquet for attacking and one for defending. The smartest will have a variety of frames customized in a variety of ways to use against the opponents they play most often.

Choosing the right tool for the right job is essential for most advanced intermediate players. In games where the margin of difference is often only a couple of points, anything that gives you an advantage — or takes away an opponent’s advantage — is worth taking a look at.

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Court Shoes: Yonex vs. Adidas

YONEX SHT PRO ALL COURT GREY 2015 1Yesterday, we had a customer come into our southwest Calgary store to buy a pair of shoes. He wanted to use them for tennis, volleyball and dodgeball. He only wanted to buy one pair of shoes.

We started, of course, with questions so that we could determine his needs. Q: Where do you play tennis? A: Indoor at The Tennis Academy and outdoors on public courts. Q: What kind of floor do they have where you play volleyball? A: Hardwood. Q: What kind of floor do they have where you play dodgeball? A: Rubberized all-court surface.

So here we have a client who plays on three different surfaces: acrylic, hardwood and rubberized all-court. Normally, we would recommend carbon rubber for acrylic, natural organic rubber for hardwood and synthetic rubber for all-court. But in this case, the customer wants to buy one shoe that will work in all contexts. So what do we do?

ADIDAS BARRICADE COURT BLACK BLACK SILVERQuite simply, all we can so is offer information on the pros and cons. We cannot, in this case, make a recommendation. Carbon rubber will stand up well on acrylic, but it may be dangerously slippery on hardwood. Natural organic rubber provides excellent traction on hardwood, but will quickly be ground down by acrylic. Synthetic rubber offers the best all around compromise, but offers poor traction on hardwood and poor durability on acrylic.

In the end, the customer tried on more than a dozen pair of shoes in two sizes. Some were rejected on price. Some were rejected on colour. Some were rejected on comfort/fit. Eventually, it came down to two pair: Adidas ™ Barricade Court at $95.00 and Yonex ™ SHT PRO at $150.00. Our expectation was that he would opt for the cheaper shoes.

So what did he do? After 20 minutes of thoughtful consideration, after switching both pair back and forth, one on the left, one on the right. After much pacing and dancing around the store playing imaginary dodgeball, he chose the Yonex SHT PRO. His words: “They just feel better in every way. They just feel like a better shoe. Normally I wouldn’t bother paying the extra 50 bucks, but these just feel like they are worth more.”

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Yonex Glan Z – 3 Things We Like About It

YONEX NANORAY GLANZ 1
The Nanoray Glaz was designed for older players who need additional power from their racquet.
The “3 Things We Like About It” product review series was created to give customers a brief summary of the three most important features of new products in our southwest Calgary store. All products in this series are available in-store and online at the time of publication.


The Yonex ™ Nanorary Glan Z was released in Canada in April of 2015. It was created for doubles players who need a little help from the racquet in the power department. Specifically, it was created for older players who may not have the swing speed they once had. As a result, we expected this racquet to be a “little old ladies” doubles racquet.

Much to our surprise, however, it’s not. Instead the Glan Z turns out to be an excellent racquet for players of any age who want to improve the depth of their backhand clear shots.

Technically speaking, this racquet was created to offer power and consistency at lower swing speeds. Both the isometric shape of the head and the Vertical-A Concept grommets work to enlarge and maximize the power of the sweet spot. At the same time, the aerodynamic head shape combined with a thinner profile lower frame and a wider profile tip give the Glanz optimum repulsion, especially at lower string tensions.

VERTICAL-A CONCEPTSo when you think about it, it becomes obvious. It really doesn’t matter what level the player is at; their backhand swing speed is always slower than their forehand swing speed. That just a biomechanical reality. So when Yonex designs a racquet that offers more power at slower swing speeds, of course they end up with a racquet that improves power on the backhand.

This improvement is just one of the things that we like about the Glan Z. What we also like are the weight and the balance. Unlike many high performance racquets which are so light that they contribute to the development of tennis elbow in recreational badminton players, the Glan Z averages a sensible 83 grams. In the balance department, meanwhile, the Glan Z is head light, which makes it perfect for clearing and dropshots.

Overall, this racquet is best-suited to defensive players who need a little help on their backhand clears. Infused with the new REXIL FIBER material and built based on the Torque Power Theory, the GlanZ sends the shuttlecock even further than other racquets in the Nanoray series. It is available in Brilliant Black. Demos are available in-store right now.


Racquet Selector For a full list of racquets in this category, please check out our ONLINE RACQUET SELECTOR. You can sort by sport, gender, brand, size, weight, balance and more.