Yonex Poly Tour Strike is the latest poly string coming out of the Japanese company. Yonex describes the string as, “For competitive players who rapidly fire attacking shots at fast swing speeds; minimal performance decline even after competitive play.” So let’s see how Yonex Poly Tour Strike played for me!
Yonex Poly Tour Strike Review: String Installation
I absolutely love to string tennis racquets, I personally find it very calming and I think there’s a certain art to restringing a tennis racquet. However, there are times that I come across a challenging tennis string to install; Yonex Poly Tour Strike was not one of those. In fact, this tennis string was very easy to install. Weaving crosses was a breeze, the coating made it very easy to run the strings against each other (potential snap-back greatness?).
I strung Yonex Poly Tour Strike at 46lbs (20.8kg) in my Yonex VCORE Duel G 97 310 thinking that would be a good middle ground for my normal tension. When I pulled it off my machine and gave it a few “bounces off the pad of my hand” it sounded nice and felt good. I was very excited to get this string out on court for a playtest.
*Side note: The coloring of the string, while not black or silver but more of a dark slate grey, is unique. It’s shiny, almost looks black at certain angles but not when up close. Looks pretty fresh.
Yonex Poly Tour Strike Review: First Impressions
Like I do with all my reviews and all my hitting sessions, I do a little mini-tennis to warm up. I do this to find my range, get a feel for how I’m seeing the ball; and gives me an opportunity to warm up the legs a little and get my footwork started.
At this point the strings definitely felt firm, I was getting a very solid response at ball impact. I was worried that this was going to cause future arm issues.
Once I got to full court tennis, Yonex Poly Tour Strike really showed its true self…and it was awesome! Hitting full strokes was great. There wasn’t a hard transition to this tennis string, it was very easy to make the switch. I had been playing with a slew of other tennis strings but there was no adjusting to Yonex Poly Tour Strike.
That firmness I felt early on in my session was still there, but it was not as bad as I had anticipated. It was less firm and more “medium firm,” which gave less shock to the arm. There was an interesting characteristic about this string, it is one of the “louder” tennis strings I’ve played with. At impact, there was a distinctive “PING!”. Even with a Luxilon Legacy Dampener, the sounds was very loud and sounded like I was crushing it!
Even with the loud sound and the medium-firm feedback, Yonex Poly Tour Strike was pretty low powered. I definitely had to give those power shots a little more effort to get that zipping winner. The lower power of the string did help with control, though. I was easily able to move the ball around the court with little issue; changing ball direction wasn’t hard either. I could really paint the lines and put the ball practically anywhere inside the court. This was quite enjoyable.
While Yonex Poly Tour Strike was low powered and had a very slick coating, it is not designed for spin. In fact, I struggled to get much spin. I definitely had to work a little harder to get some topspin. The shots that had extra topspin, didn’t really have that “kick” that other poly’s have. I felt like I was hitting much flatter than I normally do; more speed, less spin. Good thing Yonex Poly Tour Strike was low powered, any additional power and the ball would have gone out, every time. The lack of spin wasn’t a deal breaker though. I was able to find some exceptional ball pocketing that allowed me to have some great touch around the net.
Yonex Poly Tour Strike Review: Tension Stability
Out of all the characteristics of Yonex Poly Tour Strike, this is the absolute highlight of the tennis string. I had about 10 hours of play with this string before cutting it out and retesting. Every time I went out for a hit, the strings felt like it was fresh off the machine. It felt that I hadn’t lost any tension while playing. I know better than that, I knew I was losing tension, that’s just the reality of tennis strings, but I was losing far less tension than most tennis strings. The string felt very very similar every time I went out to hit. There was no sudden drop off in tension, there was no string movement and not going back into place; the tennis string had similar characteristics from when I first strung it.
There was a point where tension dropped off but it was very subtle. I didn’t notice that the tension had dropped off until the strings were all over the place. Sudden loss of control and hitting long were typical indicators of strings that needed to be replaced. It was nice to have consistent strings for as long as they lasted.
Also, I did notice that Yonex Poly Tour Strike notched the intersecting string very minimally. There wasn’t much evidence that the strings were sawing into each other. That is a good indicator of the high quality and durability of the tennis string.
Yonex Poly Tour Strike Review: Conclusion
Yonex Poly Tour Strike definitely beats out a lot of the competition. The durability, control, and feel are ideal in today’s tennis game. There are a lot of tennis strings on the market; I strongly recommend players seeking control, durable, and a firm response (without the arm pain) to try Yonex Poly Tour Strike. It’s a great string, with lots of potential even when lacking in spin.
I do recommend that you string Yonex Poly Tour Strike a couple of pounds lower than you normally string, it will balance out the lack of power the string has.
Pick up some Yonex Poly Tour Strike at Tennis-Warehouse!
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