Tennis Racquet Review: Wilson Steam 105 S

September 9th, 2013

The Wilson Steam 105 S tennis racquet is a sleeper. I had it in a stack of tennis racquet demos for a few days before I finally hit with it. It felt comfortable, and it was way easy to spin the ball with the thing, but I just put it down and went on to something else. I had a junior player getting ready for high school tennis season, and she for sure needed to switch tennis racquets. She had more or less fallen in love with the Babolat AeroPro Drive Plus, she really hit well with that frame, every shot across the board was improved.

Her inclination was to just get the Babolat AeroPro Drive Plus, but IO wasn’t comfortable having a player just demo two racquets, even when the outcome seemed self evident. So I handed her the Wilson Steam 105 S and she hit the ball with more power, more spin and more control. Her game is a little flat and her favorite shot is the inside out forehand, she particularly likes to move around kick serves on the ad side and rip the inside out forehand. With the Wilson Steam 105 S what was merely a good offensive shot, became the basis of her game.

She does have really good feet and hands. But this tennis racquet immediately amplified the spin arc in her game, gave her a bigger margin for error and made average shots good, and good shots often became clean winners and\or unreturnable balls.

The frame weighs 11 ounces and has an unusual 16 (mains) X 15 (crosses) string pattern. This combined with the extra half inch of length and the slightly larger head (105 square inches) and no shared holes with regard to stringing, results in a firm but flexible string bed. The ball just rolls\flies off the strings. I understand that the Wilson Steam 99 S tennis racquet is way popular, but I have to wonder if Wilson knows what it has with this frame.

The company says that this tennis racquet is designed for 4.0 players, and that seems about right. But it may be the perfect transitional racquet for junior players, especially those who are slight in build. The open string pattern allows access to easy power and control on groundstrokes, serves and volleys. For sure club players should take a very serious look at this frame.

Marc Pinckney