Posted on

Customer Advisory – Yonex BG66

Yonex BG66 Badminton String
Yonex BG66 Badminton String
CUSTOMER ADVISORY – YONEX BG66

[Calgary] Racquet Network has issued a Customer Advisory regarding Yonex ™ BG66 badminton string following a series of complaints from customers regarding durability.

There are three strings in the series — BG66, BG66 ULTIMAX and BG66 POWER — all of which were created by Yonex to serve customers who want more power. All three strings are exceptionally thin. BG66, the original, is just 0.66 mm thick while the others are even thinner at 0.65 mm.

“Over the past six months, more than a dozen customers using BG66 have returned re-strung racquets to our Calgary store complaining about premature breakage,” says Racquet’s Network’s owner Brent Johner. “Several of these customers claimed that the strings broke the first time they used them.”

A recent inquiry to Yonex Canada resulted in this response by email: “BG66U [BG66 ULTIMAX] is definitely not for everyone. Its a very thin gauge for high response. It will break sooner than other strings.”

“In this particular case,” says Johner, “the issue appears to be one of customer education. Therefore we will be taking steps to ensure that customers purchasing BG66 are aware of the string’s design and intended use.”

Strings in the BG66 series appear to be designed for use with feather shuttlecocks. Because they are exceptionally thin, these strings should not be used with nylon shuttles. Contact with the skirts of nylon shuttles during smashes may nick the string causing it to break at that moment or during a later stroke.

The BG66 series also does not appear to be suitable for strong players who smash a lot. Rather, it is a thin string intended to help juniors, women and smaller players who need additional help from their string bed.

“Every single complaint we have had about this string over the past six months has come from an adult male,” notes Johner. “At this point it appears to us to be a classic case of ‘power greed’.”

Men tend to be attracted to anything that promises more power, notes Johner, even though they don’t actually need it. In this case, strong male players appear to be overpowering the structural integrity of this string causing it to fail.

Effective immediately, Racquet Network is advising adult male badminton players using nylon shuttles to stay away from the BG66 series. However, staff will still be recommending the string to juniors and women who genuinely need more powerful string beds.

About Customer Advisories

Racquet Network is committed to maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction. Products that do not meet high standards of customer satisfaction are removed from store shelves and company websites.

Customer Advisories are issued following a series of customer complaints. Sometimes the source of these complaints is improper usage of products by customers. Sometimes it is a genuine decline in the quality of the product.

Products for which Racquet Network has issued Customer Advisories are monitored closely for 12 months. Those that continue to fail to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction are discontinued.

Posted on

Yonex Arcsaber 11 Racquet Review

YONEX ARCSABER 11
This racquet is right for me right now. Six months from now, who knows?
As my readers already know, I have returned to badminton recently after a break of several years. Over the first month, I experimented with an number of Yonex ™ badminton racquets before finally settling on the Nanoray GlanZ as the best frame for my game at that moment.

That decision was made a month ago. At the time, the GlanZ offered me exactly what I needed. After a long break, my timing was off and I was not hitting the shuttle directly in the center of the string bed. Since the GlanZ is a forgiving racquet with a large sweet spot, it was perfectly suited to my game at the time.

Now, a month later, my game has progressed and it is time for a new frame. So last week, I tried a variety of Yonex frames including the Arcsaber Flash Boost, the Voltric Z-Force II and the Nanoray Z-Speed.


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.

The Flash Boost I tried was a 5U weight, which was far too light for me. The Nanoray Z-Speed was heavier (4U), but still wasn’t heavy enough. As with the GlanZ, my clears with both of these racquets were not deep enough to push my opponents back. Instead, they were dropping five to six feet inside the court, which was setting up too many successful smashes for my opponents.

My experience with the Voltric Z-Force II was the opposite. Instead of dropping inside of the court, I was actually hitting the shuttle out the back and sides of the court. (To be fair, the Z-Force II I played with was a 3U, which is quite heavy and which may be the reason I was hitting out. I did not try the 4U or the 5U.) The head heaviness of the frame coupled with the 3U weight was just too much for my stroke. This racquet is too powerful for me right now.

Much to my surprise, the Arcsaber 11 turned out to be perfectly suited to my game at this moment. While it is a 3U like the Z-Force II I was using, it is not head heavy. In fact, it is evenly balanced. Strung at the bottom of the tension range (for maximum power), my clears with this racquet were dropping about four inches inside the baseline whenever I hit them cleanly. My drops and net shots were exactly how I like them and the racquet was much better for smashing than the lighter GlanZ.

One of the major features of the Arcsaber series is versatility. I am playing in a drop-in group where some of the players are better than me and some are not as good. So every game is a little different. Sometimes I am on the attack; sometimes I am on the defensive. The Arcsaber series is designed for exactly this scenario. While the Voltric series is designed primarily for offence and the Nanoray series is designed primarily for defence, the Arcsaber series is balanced. It is a compromise that allows for a little bit of both.

Right now, given the state of my game, the Arcsaber 11 is the perfect frame for me.


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.
Posted on

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.