Racquets: Head Microgel Prestige/Dunlop Aerogel 2Hundred

The newest trend in racquets appear to be this really odd space-age (is space-age now even a modern term?) material called "aerogels". An aerogel is noted for being very "airy". You can literally put a blowtorch underneath it, and put something above it, and it won't catch fire. It dissipates heat very well.

How this helps with a tennis racquet, I have no idea, and how they even use it in the racquet, I have no idea. I think they just like the name. The tennis racquet industry loves to use new materials, and the popularity of the racquets always seems to reduce the cost of the material (thus, graphite is a lot cheaper now because racquets are mass-produced).

I rented out these two racquets. The problem with many racquets in a company, is that a whole series of racquets sound alike, and most companies make over a dozen models of the racquet. So, there's the Head Microgel Prestige, and there's a Prestige Pro, and there is an Microgel Extreme. You really have to pay attention to find out which is which.

Both these racquets are in the 11 ounce range. They are both densely strung (16 by 19 patterns). Ravi tried them out, and noticed they have more weight in the head than the racquet he was using (a Dunlop M-Fil 2Hundred Plus), which is one of those in-between racquets (it uses the same color scheme as the 2Hundred).

The grips on both are similar, in that they are a touch short (not as bad as Wilson's racquets) for two-handed play. I found them both to be fine racquets, though I'm beginning to suspect that good strings can make a difference. These racquets are priced similarly to mine, but didn't feel nearly as good.

The Head Microgel Prestige had a more "rectangular" grip, which seems typical of Head racquets. By rectangular, I mean that its width and height are not the same. It feels strange, but I managed. I liked it somewhat better on serves when trying to spin it. Neither seemed to hit particularly hard, at least, nothing different from the racquet I currently use (RDS 001).

Overall, either racquet is decent. I think I prefer the Prestige, but only mildly so. It wasn't as awful as the one Prince racquet I tried earlier on, and felt a bit similar to the Wilson racquets. I'd only go against the Wilsons because their short grips bother me too much.

So far, the racquets with the best two-handed grips are the Babolats, probably because the top two pros using it (Nadal and Roddick) use two hands on their backhands.