Prince EXO3 Tour Team 100 Racquet Review
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The Prince EXO3 Tour Team 100 is the newest racquet to join the Prince EXO3 family. This racquet is the lightest in the line of Prince’s EXO3 control racquets, with hopes that it will reach a larger player’s demographic. I’ve now been using the Prince EXO3 regularly for three weeks now, and I think that this is a decent beginner’s racquet. I liked the open pattern of the strings; it allowed me to “feel” the ball when I came in contact. The weight of the racquet was mostly in the head, which produces a faster swing, but ironically lacks in control. Prince’s website claims that the EXO3 Tour Team 100 has a larger “sweet spot” and will generate up to 25% more top spin, but for me their claim didn’t have any validity on the court.
Serve
This racquet allowed me to hit some wicked serves, though most of them were flat. I almost always serve with a lot of top spin, but surprisingly enough I was unable to generate a lot of top spin with this racquet. Although this racquet is lighter than my normal racquet, it is still rather head heavy, which allowed me to snap my wrist with ease and watch my ball go down the line. I did this consistently on the court, and even the people that I usually hit with commented on the consistency of my serves.
Ground strokes
I was able to control the ball with ease and little effort on the forehand returns, but I had to be very careful on short ball returns. The combination of the lighter frame and heavier head produced a faster swing, and with a little power I would see my ball hit the fence. One of my favorite strokes is the top spin lob on the baseline, but with this racquet, it never happened. Some people call it lack of skill; I prefer to blame a non talking racquet ;).
Volleys
The Prince EXO3 performed the best on volleys. I was able to place it down the line with little effort. Over head volleys were a joy as well. All I had to do was lightly touch and snap my wrist and boom – game over. I struggled a lot on my hard slices and drop shots with the Prince EXO3. The pop was never there, and I would often hit it deeper than I wanted on the drop shot. One thing that did bother me considerably with this racquet was that I felt every vibration of a hit down my forearm. My arm actually felt sore after playing for a couple of weeks, which was something that I hadn’t felt with any other racquets before.
Overall
I would definitely recommend this racquet to a player hitting at a 2.5 – 4.0 level. The Prince EXO3 definitely helped me control and handle the ball much better on my volleys, but the trade off was that I felt like this racquet did not handle well with top spins or deep court ball placements.
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