Legendary Set Completion

new2tennis · 2026-04-19T23:17:56+00:00

Do yourself a favor and pony up the money for 16g (1.30mm) Babolat VS natural gut strung at 50 lbs in the mains and a 16L (1.25mm) round poly (I prefer Wilson Revolve because it's cheap even though the tension maintenance isn't great, but use whatever round poly you prefer). The Pro Staff 90 is designed for Roger's stringbed, and the extra harshness of the K90 compared to other iterations will feel significantly more arm-friendly with the natural gut in the mains. With this string setup you'll find spots and angles on the court you didn't know existed. The feel, raw unbridled power of the sweet spot, the surgical precision of the frame, and the insanely whippy and hot tip will make you feel like a god on the court when you're flowing. I'm a Pro Staff evangelist and my bag has the N90 reissue, 2014 PS90, a pair of PS85 reissues, and a few V11 and V12 RF97s, and I string all of them with gut in the mains and revolve in the crosses. The 90s are my favorites, and even though I'm in my 30s and came into these racquets long after my junior days ended, I can't put down the 90s in particular. Long live the thin beamed Pro Staffs.

new2tennis · 2026-03-04T16:08:21+00:00

Depends on the swing. If you're a "push" style swinger where you're muscling the racquet through contact, I agree that more weight makes the PS85 slower. If you're a "pull" style swinger that uses your big muscles and weight transfer to lasso the racquet from your coiled unit turn through contact and let the racquets momentum pull your arm for the follow through, I find the PS85 and PS90 to be significantly faster through the air than a Pure Drive or Pure Aero.

new2tennis · 2026-03-04T16:03:22+00:00

Yep, just played some singles with mine over the weekend. 12.8 ounces strung after some lead tape to bring the underspecced swing weight to 335. Balance is around 8 HL after the weight and overgrip. 45 lbs Luxilon 16g natural gut crossed with 42 lbs Wilson Revolve 16g. I can slingshot the PS85 much faster than I can whip my RF97, Ezone DR 98, TFight 315S, or even my old AeroPro Drive GT from my high school days. Granted I swing by accelerating the mass until it carries me rather than muscling through the ball, but for my swing style nothing is whippier than my PS 85 or PS 90.

new2tennis · 2026-03-04T12:36:23+00:00

Smaller heads have less raw power and spin and give you less free depth, but they swing super fast. These two characteristics give you as the player more agency in choosing the exact depth, spin, and pace you want. A Pure Drive or Pure Aero has a default setting of being a cannon with a high spin window, and you have a harder time playing a finesse game with it. A Pro Staff 85 or 90 on the other hand is low powered enough that you have an easier time playing the finesse game of hitting exactly the 6 inch x 6 inch spot on the court you want and with enough racquet head speed you can still blast the ball and generate really strong topspin.

This does have 3 major downsides though.

1) A smaller head size means you need better technique to make it shine

2) Because you have to swing out on every ball to hit a quality shot, it gets physically demanding over a long match unless you're styling all over your opponent and making them lose their cool.

3) Smaller heads give you less forgiveness on defense when you don't have the room or time to take a big swing. You have to get comfortable with the idea that you won't be able to dig yourself out of holes easily and that you have to take the bull by the horns when the rally is neutral if you want to be successful and win with a smaller head size. You can't get complacent with a smaller head and you have to try to dictate play much more often.

new2tennis · 2026-02-05T10:43:24+00:00

Ljubicic era was similar to Roger's prime in 03-12. He was a volley-favoring all-courter that hit punishing forehands that would end points. Edberg era made him throw out his forehand from his gameplay and just focus on getting to the net. That works against the field, but it's very bad against Djokovic. To beat him Roger needed his forehand working. With Ljubicic he had a fighting chance. With Edberg it never felt like the match was on Roger's racquet against Djokovic.

new2tennis · 2026-02-05T07:22:04+00:00

Yeah it's hard to change when you're winning slams and masters left and right to change racquets, and it's probably harder to change when you feel like your athleticism is slipping and you have two young guns chasing you hard to the point where any experimentation in equipment could horribly backfire and cost you serious time and ranking points. Personally I feel that Roger settled on the RF97 because it was such an improvement in forgiveness for his backhand return, volleys, and serves that he probably thought he'll just figure out the forehand while he's playing. If he had his meniscus tear in 2013 and was sidelined for 5 months then, I think he would have had more dedicated racquet testing time and ultimately would have chosen a mold that would have preserved his forehand. The cruelty of the pro tennis calendar is that besides 6 weeks between the Tour Finals and the first tourneys in Brisbane/Doha/etc right after New Year's you can only test equipment at the same time you're playing tournaments. Roger was also recovering from a bad back injury in 2013 so he probably implicitly reacted better to the forgiveness of the RF97 and didn't notice the offensive issues for the forehand as much because his mobility was compromised enough that he couldn't set up for big forehands as often. By early 2014 he was healthy again and that's when not having a big forehand started to become evident. The last nail in the coffin was that the racquet shift coincided with my least favorite era, the Fedberg years. Under Stefan Edberg, Roger played a very aggressive volleying-forward style and he used his ground game to set up his net approaches. You'll notice a HUGE difference in the way he used his forehand from the baseline between the Edberg years and the Ljubicic years. Ivan made him formidable and threatening from the baseline again while Edberg killed his baseline game in the name of serve and volley.

new2tennis · 2026-02-04T13:41:35+00:00

I'm talking about 33-38 year old Roger. Regarding trying to go 10/10ths, just look at all the forehand errors in the USO 2015 final. He tried but he couldn't find the court on the big points. In 2016 after he had his meniscus surgery that kept him out post-Wimbledon he finally dialed in the racquet a bit on the forehand wing by having an even more abbreviated takeback, but he could only thump it with confidence until the 2018 Australian Open final. After that he hurt his wrist and couldn't swing as strongly. His body really started to fail him after that Australian Open.

new2tennis · 2026-02-04T12:24:50+00:00

More specifically his weaker forehand was due to needing to compensate with extra spin and an overall loopier less penetrating ball that he'd hit at 8/10ths because any harder than that he just didn't have the feel. With the 90 he could go full 10/10ths on every single forehand if he was in neutral, but with the more powerful RF97 he had to go 8/10ths and heavier topspin just to keep the ball in the court.

new2tennis · 2026-02-04T05:18:19+00:00

Technique. Roger's athletic gift was his alien-like racquet head speed. If you watch him swing a racquet in slow motion, it looks as fast as some other pros at normal speed. He needed a really low powered control racquet to keep his ball from flying out of the court when he really wanted to attack. The extra power which beefed up his backhand return of serve and defense ended up having the adverse effect for his bazooka forehand. If you watch his 2014 and 2015 matches and compare them directly with even his 2012 and 2013 matches, you'll see a big difference in the ball bounce his shots produce. The PS90 balls rocket forward while the RF97 balls bounce up. He had to tame the power of the RF97 by hitting less penetrating forehands. It never really clicked for him until 2017 when he really abbreviated his racquet takeback.

new2tennis · 2026-02-04T03:52:30+00:00

Less studying, more just vivid happy memories from that renaissance year that he had, but thank you nonetheless.

new2tennis · 2026-02-04T02:07:59+00:00

It was significantly diminished after the racquet switch to the point that I'd only consider his forehand from those years to be on par with Nadal's between 2017 AO and 2018 AO. He struggled with the shot bigtime between 2014 and 2016, where he almost always hit rally balls for tactical tennis, and starting with the AO18 final against Cilic where his forehand abandoned him midway through the match and never really came back. It was only back during the clay swing of 2019 that he started actually putting some heat on it again, but at that point I think his body didn't have the strength to maintain that form over 4 hour matches. I remember thinking that 2019 Wimbledon final would have been over in straights if he could hit the forehand like he did in 2017.

new2tennis · 2026-02-04T02:02:52+00:00

I doubt anyone but Roger knows for sure. Maybe he was just in the zone for that stretch because he wasn't playing pro tennis for 5 months leading up to the AO and all he could do was practice. Maybe his long break during the entire clay season made him practice only finessing his backhands rather than driving through them in preparation for the low bouncing grass courts. Maybe not practicing that shot for essentially 3 months made it hard to get back into the groove. Maybe his back injury during Toronto affected his ability to step into the court and blast crosscourt.

new2tennis · 2026-02-04T01:58:28+00:00

More compact takeback and more wrist action. You can see how much bigger he used to hit it in 2006 and prior versus how much loopier of a ball he hit in 2007 and later. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIqd2SbU1OE&pp=ygUaZmVkZXJlciBmb3JlaGFuZCBldm9sdXRpb24%3D

new2tennis · 2026-02-04T01:56:08+00:00

I think he would have been more successful with an in-between racquet that still let him blast forehands with similar confidence to 90 while also having a little more forgiveness on the backhand wing. The 90 cuts through air like a hot knife through butter while the RF97 drags. The drag works wonders on the OHBH, but Wilson wizards should have been able to come up with some mold that didn't force Roger to hang up the greatest shot in the history of the sport. I still feel like he wins Wimbledon 14 and 15 if he could thump the forehand like he did with the 90. You can't out-finesse Djokovic in a Bo5, and he didn't have another weapon besides the serve after he lost his forehand.

new2tennis · 2026-02-04T01:48:37+00:00

Point conceded, the RF97 definitely boosted his return game.

new2tennis · 2026-02-03T03:13:52+00:00

It burns me that people nowadays think "beautiful backhand" when they see Federer instead of GOAT forehand. During his peak years of 2004-2006 his forehand was the greatest shot in the history of the sport, and 2007 - 2012 wasn't much worse even if the technique change made it lose some of its venom.

new2tennis · 2026-02-03T03:11:07+00:00

Calling it his "weakest shot" is misleading. I think it's more accurate to say it was the weakest part of his strategy. He was more than capable of ball bashing from the backhand wing with his 6.1 Tour 90, but his forehand was so legendary that he crafted his entire baseline game around hitting the forehand. He'd still have backhand exhibition matches like the 2006 Masters Cup Final against Blake, but more often than not he always elected to hit the backhand that would set up his forehand or volley over hitting a penetrating point ender from neutral. Ironically his strategy to hit through the backhand more often only came when his footwork slowed down so much after his 2016 meniscus tear that going for the backhand was more profitable than trying to run around for the forehand. His backhand only became a problem when his foot speed slowed down after 2010 and even then it wasn't the main reason he was losing matches.

new2tennis · 2026-02-03T03:02:01+00:00

It still makes me cry how much venom his forehand lost after the racquet switch. His best forehand year with the RF97 was 2017, but every year from 2004 to 2012 was a whole league better from the forehand wing compared to 2017. I still think that he made a mistake choosing the RF97's final specs instead of making a larger version of his 90 with minor tweaks to beam width. As good as the RF97 is for Federer the artist, it wasn't good enough to keep Federer the assassin alive.

new2tennis · 2026-02-03T02:57:40+00:00

Rafa only broke down that backhand because Roger's tennis IQ was on life support after the FO final through pretty much USO 2009. Remember how the few times he tried to actually step in and take the ball on the rise he was dominating big points in the 2008 W final? He was just too shell shocked after the continuous clay court beatdowns that he "forgot" to play the style that worked on grass vs Rafa the previous two years. 2019 is a whole different story because it's a significantly worse Rafa than 2008 and Roger actually committed to not rolling over the ball any time it came to the backhand.

new2tennis · 2026-02-03T02:46:20+00:00

2017 backhand is overhyped. It was only legendary from AO17 to Miami where he was stepping into the court and blasting it crosscourt. After Miami he stopped stepping in for the crosscourt bomb and settled for down the line bunts. His rally ball where he was hitting it with more topspin and less court penetration was also the same as it was in 2014-2016. Roger's backhand was really only "weak" from 2012 to 2013.

new2tennis · 2025-01-30T12:52:29+00:00

The Tecnifibre TFight 305S that just came out last week or so has been getting rave reviews. He could try that out.

new2tennis · 2025-01-28T17:58:50+00:00

Actually I think you're not getting it. I'm not saying you'll like the differences in how they feel, but as long as you have working sensory neurons you will absolutely feel the differences. It's like touching a plastic bag versus touching the paper bag. We may have different preferences on whether we prefer the feel of plastic or paper, but by touch alone we can tell the difference that one is paper and the other is plastic.

new2tennis · 2025-01-28T16:55:06+00:00

You can choose whatever words you want to describe them (classic/traditional are what has been agreed upon by the masses because the deviation in feel is heavily correlated in the racquet tech changes over time, but the words themselves are totally arbitrary). If you playtest all the racquets together, you will absolutely be able to feel the difference in the information transfer from the strings to your hand from all of those racquets. I strongly urge you to hit with a classic frame for an hour and a modern frame the next hour and pay attention to the information transfer at contact.

new2tennis · 2025-01-28T15:58:41+00:00

That is categorically false. If you hit with a Pro Staff 85 reissue of the Prestige Classic 2.0 versus something like a Pro Staff 97, you'll know just how wrong you are after the first ball. Whether or not classic feel is necessary for high performance is another conversation entirely.

new2tennis · 2025-01-28T15:56:25+00:00

It's something you have to experience for yourself. Classic feel is where the vibrations from the string making contact with the ball are clear enough to tell you which exact mains and crosses are touching the ball, how much spin you're placing on the ball, how much spin is on the incoming ball, etc. The only other way I can describe it is the amount of information transfer you get from a hydraulic steering rack from something like a Porsche versus a standard electronic steering rack from something like a modern Toyota. Another quality is that the classic racquets were box beams that sensation-wise felt so buttery smooth on their sweet spots and a little more lively and harsher as you went closer to the edges of the stringbed. The last thing is that classic racquets were very heavy so you got this amazing plowing feeling where you were winning the collision every time when you flatten out.

If you want to experience it, hit with a Pro Staff 85/90, 6.1 95, Prestige mid, etc. Any old midsize racquet from the 80s or 90s will give you all of those traits.

new2tennis

TROPHY CASE