Racquet Review: Prince Tour 100T

May 13th, 2014

I suppose that those who may read this tennis racquet review will think that I have some kind of issue with Prince or am down on their products. That could hardly be further from the truth. I have never been a huge fan of Prince tennis racquets; but there have been specific Prince frames that I liked quite a bit. My basic issue with Prince, as with most of the major tennis racquet brands, is that they make too many racquets, the differences between the offerings are either great or hard to discern and that they name and market the products in a way that makes it impossible, for even a knowledgeable consumer to track what is going on. The Prince Tour 100T falls right into this category. It may be a much better racquet than it seems to me, it may be a wonderful tool in the hands of the right player, but what really makes it different from ten other racquets produced by Prince or any other company. The Tour 100T is the standard 27 inches long and weighs 10.7 ounces strung. It has a 100 square inch head, which plays smaller than one would think it would, and also is a little of an optical illusion. There were times that I was hitting with this frame, or just swinging it where it seemed to be more like a standard Yonex shaped head. The frame is the standard Prince metallic matte finish, black and some shade of golden orange. I like how the frame looks and once again Prince has made a frame with a leaner squarer handle that makes it easier to grip the thing and to fit your grips. That is pretty much the good news. I really did not like this frame. It had a very thin feel on groundstrokes, I had issue with direction and control and spin right away. For sure it has enough power. It is graded 850 on the Prince meter, which basically means it is a launch pad. It has an 18 x 16 string bed, which should emphasize control, but I really had a hard time controlling my groundstrokes with this racquet. The ball was just sailing. Volleys and serves were pretty much the same. A lot of power, not much luck spinning the ball with this frame, and not a very feel friendly frame either. I think that this is a powerful frame, but also a dead one with regard to feel. I just hated how the ball came off the strings. It felt as though every shot was falling. There is a thought by the Prince promotional people, that 4.0+ players might find this a useful racquet. That may well be true. I think that some players will pick this racquet up and love the feel and just go for it. I would think that the market for this racquet would be 4.0-4.5 players who are looking for extra pop and who can produce some fairly consistent levels of spin by themselves. But I am for sure wondering how big a market that will be.