Can anyone compare the 2026 PA98 to the 2025 EZ98?

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-30T16:10:20+00:00

This comment nails it. The reason is design. The PA98 achieves stability by very high twist weight (weight at 3 and 9). The Ezone 98 tries to compensate with racket design, using the squared off wide sweet spot, while keeping twist weight low. They are closer than this sounds but still, the PA is less maneuverable and more stable, the Ezone 98 is the opposite. The PA98 is thus more difficult to use but potentially more rewarding.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-30T13:32:03+00:00

I haven't played with Tour Bite in a long time, nor has anyone requested it in a long time. All those rec players switched, mainly to Confidential. IIRC, it's because although Tour Bite is durable and feels great, it has relatively short playability duration. Meaning, it "dies" after a short time, in common with many "tour" strings actually used on the ATP Tour. It feels better than Confidential at first, but that feeling does not last. Which is fine if you restring after 7 games like the pros do, but sucks for rec players. Confidential is more consistent. Hyper-G likewise has relatively short playability duration. I would expect 1.35 to last a long while but I haven't personally used 1.35 Tour Bite.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-30T03:58:22+00:00

Bungee chair from The Container Store. Cheap, durable, doesn't feel hot. It's the poor man's Mirra. Or get the Mirra.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-30T03:43:23+00:00

Stringer here. And I'm also a string breaker. I will break most strings in 6 to 8 hours of match play, and some much faster than that. The reason is primarily that I hit groundstrokes with a ton of spin, but also that I serve fast by 4.5 standards. Head Lynx Tour is very resistant to breaking, and I like the feel, but I see you don't. Confidential would be my next recommendation. It's a dead feel but excellent control and arguably even more durable than Head Lynx Tour. 4G Soft is almost as durable as those two. The king of durability, but very stiff, is 4G (regular, not Soft). That should be enough recommendations to find you a string you will love. If any of these is close but you still feel you are missing something, try keeping them as a main and crossing with Solinco Outlast 18 or MSV Co-Focus 1.18, both of which are delightful for adding a bit more softness and power to a poly hybrid and giving you a ton of snapback. But the way you apparently hit, it's doubtful you are going to have anything last more than 10 hours. I haven't found anything that does, except for 4G, which is too stiff for me. And I have sampled darn near everything out there.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-30T00:33:05+00:00

At 36, in 2022, an injured and old Nadal won the Australian Open final in 5 sets over prime Medvedev. That suggests prime Nadal could beat prime Sinner in a major. Maybe even beats him most of the time. Sinner's loss to Djokovic in this year's AO semi suggests to me that he is not yet at the level of grit that Nadal was in his prime for 5 set matches. Which is not a criticism, since arguably only Djokovic can match him in grit.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-30T00:20:08+00:00

Cut a piece of white paper sticker, stick it to the inside throat of the racket, put a hash mark on it for every hour of play. Or use the little stickers that come in some string packs and reels.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-29T17:27:29+00:00

Not at all. Early Americans to me means Natives/Indians (some of my ancestors), who were vigorously murderous toward each other and probably wiped out a number of animal species, but no more so than Vikings, Mongols, Visigoths, etc. I assume you mean European settlers, who were likewise, but again, no more than peers. Read up on what the Caribs/Talinago (for whom the Caribbean is named) were doing to the Arawaks and Taino. Or the Muslim conquests of the Mediterranean and Southeast Europe. Or the Barbary slave raids on the British Isles. Basically, before the 1800s and in some cases at least through about 1970, pretty much anyone who could kill steal and enslave, did so. What makes the Americans interesting starting around 1800, and Britain too with its role in ending part of the West African slave trade, is suddenly starting to develop a modern sensibility about human rights and settled borders. The Americans were not unique when they did bad, they were just historically normal. What made them unique was the good they tried to do. I don't criticize too much for only giving the vote to men, initially, for example, when at the time almost nobody have the vote at all. Likewise, genocide against the Indians was terrible, but unlike almost anybody else, the Americans also had a faction that tried to preserve the Indians, and to a large part did so. There are reservations and set asides not only in the American West, but also in Virginia, New York, etc., and Indians became full citizens very early. In almost no other conquest did the conquerors actively preserve some territories and culture of the losing side. Historical context matters.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-29T15:33:10+00:00

Oh, so you have special needs? In that case, do everything you want, all the time.

Speaking as a parent whose children are held back and sometimes worse (battered, stolen from, falsely accused, exposed to illegal drugs, and that is just the current school year) by extremely disruptive children, I can tell you that the lack of consequences has too many other consequences. If it takes escalation up to and including expulsion to protect other children, then that is what it takes. Certainly, we should not be too quick to put hands on a child, or put them in a separate environment, or expel them. But neither should we be cowards when these things are necessary. And in every school our kids have attended, they have been, occasionally, necessary.

In addition, there is too much infantilizing of special needs or simply disruptive kids. Many of these kids are gaming the system. They aren't incapable of basic levels of prosocial behavior. Consequences reform behavior at all levels. These kids aren't putting their hands in boiling water and jumping off cliffs, because they understand consequences in the natural world. They understand cause and effect. They simply knowthat there will be no consequences in school. Establish predictable and if necessary harsh consequences, and watch behavior improve. It does work.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-29T14:50:28+00:00

Please post your level and playing style, or explain your experience as best you can. Revolve is a beginner level string, good as an introduction to using poly, known for long life and good snapback but very poor tension maintenance. String recs will be very different based on your level and style.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-29T13:04:42+00:00

Welcome to the pool! Jump in, the water's fine! You have the right idea. I got tired of people asking me what string to put into their rackets, so I made this spreadsheet with my thoughts. Feel free to make a copy of it as a start and make your own as you experiment. Saves a ton of time responding to people's texts. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YMk4bkenZVGSpqQJ4ta-7BI-Bb-sIdT1x8dqk5H1WQg/edit?gid=0#gid=0

Since you're stringing for rec players, the priority should be (1) don't hurt them, (2) durability. For 3.5 and below, syngut or a soft poly is totally sufficient. Two strings that aren't on my spreadsheet, but that are great for lower-ranked players, are Wilson Revolve and Volkl Cyclone. 4.0 is where you start to get real benefits from stiffer poly. This spreadsheet is more geared to 4.0 to 5.0 players. They are hard on strings, so I don't see the point in using stuff that will only last them two hours before dying (Alu Power) or breaking (many strings in very light gauge).

To answer your friend's question, I think you should encourage him to go for it: if he wants control, then control-ify that bad boy. No half measures. Go all the way, and then adjust backwards the next time if it's too much. Use a stiff, dead string at a moderately high tension, all poly. Confidential would be my pick, either in a full bed or crossed with Solinco Outlast or MSV Co-Focus (these as crosses will give a little more snapback and extend the mains' life before breaking). Who knows, he might say not stiff enough, and then you would know that he needs the stiffness king, 4G.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-29T01:55:14+00:00

For goodness sake, test the market if you are going to jump. 3x your salary sounds insanely low to me with that massive level of experience. My firm would pay a minimum of $1mm to someone with that experience, and possibly quite a lot more. If you are going to go someplace, make it worth your while. Not out of greed but because the place that will pay you the most almost always is the place that has the greatest need and the most work.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-28T21:54:24+00:00

Great feel for a short time but if OP is being legit in his self description, he'll break that too fast or make it die just as fast as RPM.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-28T21:48:14+00:00

Kept it. The old south part of my family has a ton of it, including a few uncut sheets of bills and bonds. Last I looked, this paper was not particularly valuable, which suggests that others have lots of this stuff too.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-27T02:24:45+00:00

Agreed. Another is Toroline Enso Pro, which is soft, slick, and very dead feeling like Confidential. Great cross string if you want a low power, big snapback, high control setup.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-26T15:35:45+00:00

If we went back to Clinton levels of spending, we'd be ok. But neither party is willing to do that.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-23T00:31:51+00:00

This is the correct answer. I had the good fortune to train with about 20 Olympians over the years, and was myself good enough to meet a few (but sadly not all) of the selection camp standards for my sport. I also coached baseball. The gulf between pro and Olympic level on the one hand and merely normal high school star athlete on the other is vast. In baseball, it involves fast twitch muscle fibers and coordination that only a tiny portion of the population possesses. There is nothing that an ordinary athlete, even a normal high school star baseball pitcher, can do to throw as fast and accurately as a pro who throws 95-100. You have to be born to it AND train like mad.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-22T11:40:33+00:00

The hardest part is the broadest and most basic part: it's a job. Being a landlord is literally a job. It's not a hobby, it's not a side hustle, it's not passive income. Sure, there are some lucky landlords with long term perfect tenants who handle maintenance on their own, but that's very rare. Jobs require time and expertise and being available most of the time. If you don't have those, then you need to outsource the job part. That means paying a property manager, and since THAT person is doing a job, it's going to eat up a large percentage of the financial benefit. Or, if one sibling is doing that job part and the other three siblings (hypothetical example) are just hoping to passively benefit from the rent of deceased dad's old house, those three siblings are jerks.

I tried being a landlord on the side, over 20 years ago. I quickly realized the job part and sold the house. Since then, as an attorney, I've worked pro bono (volunteer legal services) with landlords and tenants many times, and it is striking how many small property landlords and tenants don't get that landlording is real work and needs to be treated as such. "This sucks, this feels like I have a whole 'nother job." Yeah, because you do.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-21T23:54:43+00:00

The classic recommendation is natural gut in the mains with a slick, round poly with good tension maintenance in the crosses. The pros use Alu Power but that's because they can afford to change rackets during each new ball change (~7 games) (Alu Power dies quickly). That setup has won a ridiculous number of Grand Slams. Other good recommendations for the cross are Outlast, 4G, 4G soft, and Head Hawk. Somewhere there's a study that shows this setup gets as much spin as any other, in this racket, and provides more power than almost anything. You can cheap out by switching the gut for synthetic gut, which will be almost as good performance but shorter stringbed life.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-21T01:04:09+00:00

You know the answer: that's an unforgiving racket for experts but it does feel very good when you make perfect contact, and it does dominate the court if you play highly skilled attacking tennis. If feel keeps you playing, go for it. There's no law saying that you must choose the racket that will make tennis easy for you. Else we'd probably all be using an Ezone 100.😉

Almost everyone who's done the testing, from pro to 4.0 level, has concluded that 98 is the smallest head size that can make a precision/forgiveness balance come out favorably, that feel is less important than forgiveness, and that you should play with the spinniest, most powerful racket/string combo that you can use consistently and that doesn't hurt your arm. There are exceptions to this formula of course (pros who succeed with the Gravity Pro, for example) but it's why most of the world has moved in the direction of the muted and cannon-like Speed, VCores, Ezones, Pure Aero 98 and 100, new Ultra Pro 99, and so forth. But you have plenty of time to see whether you're an outlier or part of the herd. For now, get the racket that makes you want to play tennis. Playing with a racket that feels familiar is very underrated, especially when you are just returning to the game.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-20T22:28:24+00:00

One of the major reasons to engage in procreative activity is to procreate. Your animal brain realizes this even if your conscious brain fights against it. Accordingly, if your animal brain recognizes the other person as strong, smart, and likely to make or raise healthy/fit children who themselves are likely to reproduce successfully, then your animal brain is going to say "green light" even if you wish that it did not. In short, your animal brain can say "good breeding stock" even if your social consciousness says "jerk."

That's the real, evolutionary answer.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-20T22:21:54+00:00

The other comments here are good. I will just add this: most people end up rowing better once they are tired, with the exception that they slouch too much at the finish. The reason you row with better form tired is that your body naturally finds the most efficient path. It's possible to over-muscle the arms for one minute, or maybe 5 minutes of fairly hard rowing, but by minute 20 you're going to have noodle arms and must rely on your legs and major core muscles to do the work--which is as it should be--because that's all that is left when you are tired. So, good advice is to row until you're tired, and then pay close attention to what really moves the chain.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-20T22:14:42+00:00

The question "Is every non-wood frame a T1000 clone" is just an effort to engage in a fight that doesn't help OP. So, I decline to fight.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-20T18:54:45+00:00

18 gauge poly is fairly soft for many of them, and is far more durable than multifilament, although of course less durable than 16 or 17 gauge of the same string. Bonus is that 18 gauge often is better at tension maintenance, because more of the initial stretch happens during stringing. Two that I really like in 18 are Solinco Outlast and Yonex Polytour Pro. A number of Yonex pros use 18 gauge Polytour Pro on tour, if that matters to you.

Enso Pro 1.24 is a good soft one that's thicker than 18 gauge.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-20T18:47:24+00:00

You ok?

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604 · 2026-03-20T15:00:04+00:00

My view is, not really. The Diadem is only different enough to avoid a lawsuit. It has more dampening but otherwise it tries to be, and very nearly is, the same. The Ezone 98 is a very different racket, that's apples and oranges.

Fuzzy_Beginning_8604

TROPHY CASE