There really is not a lot of talk about the Isospeed Pulse 17 tennis string. I tried it purely out of curiosity; I have tried other Isopeed tennis string before, though it was a long time ago. I could not recall if I liked the string I played with or not, so I decided to give it another go. I had this string stored away for several months, I must have forgotten that I had it in my stock of tennis strings.
Isospeed Pulse 17 tennis string review
Let me start with the stringing process of this Petrol colored tennis string. In my hands the Isospeed Pulse 17 felt fairly soft and malleable enough to give nice feel when hitting. The one aspect of stringing the Isospeed Pulse 17 that stood out to me was the stretch of the string when pulling tension. I did not pull a very high tension, only 45 pounds on my constant pull machine. The Isospeed Pulse 17 would take a long time to reach the desired tension, something that bothered me immensely. I already didn’t like the string.
When I got around to getting some tennis in, I struggled with the Isospeed Pulse 17. It was almost too soft, it really felt overly spongy and could not get power from my groundstrokes. I tried, to hit harder and yes, the ball came off the stringbed harder, though the result at the other end of the court was nothing special. My common winning groundies would be played and returned with ease, my topspin and slice were weak, and my confidence fizzled. No matter what I tried from the baseline, I struggled.
Even though the Isospeed Pulse 17 lacked power and spin, it excelled with touch shots at net. Because the Isospeed Pulse 17 is so overly soft, anything that was hit at me with pace was easy to drop on the other side of the net. Having the ability to absorb the pace from a passing shot and leave the ball virtually anywhere on the court was really nice; however, I am not much of doubles player and I don’t spend much time at net. This string was essentially useless to me.
I did give the Isospeed Pulse 17 another chance the following day, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give it one more go. Again, I was disappointed. The tension had dropped off the ledge, I was somewhere in the mid 30’s. The Isospeed Pulse 17 performed poorly, lack of feel, little power, and very little spin coming off the stringbed. I could not take it anymore.
Isospeed Pulse 17 final thoughts
I opted to cut out the Isospeed Pulse 17 as soon as I got home after hitting for an hour. I was done. I don’t recommended this string to players looking for spin, as the labeling suggests. I would say that players who are looking for an extremely soft polyester tennis string to consider this string. I would go one step further and say to only use Isospeed Pulse 17 in the mains as a hybrid with a multifilament or natural gut in the crosses…at a higher tension (50+ lbs). This string would probably be ideal for an older tennis player, easier on the joints. Though, that’s just my opinion.
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