Saturday, July 14, 2012

Badminton Racket First Impressions: Mizuno Tetracross 700

I'm a big Mizuno fan. I've got a tonne of their shirts, and I've converted to using their shoes because they're so light weight and fast.

Now I've got my hand on a Tetracross 700, in all its green, green glory, and went out to the courts to test it out. 

Before that I've done some juggling in the room with the racket. It felt fast and very even-balanced. I got the sensation with the Yonex ArcSaber 10PG, and that's always a good sign since I'm very comfortable with the AS10.

But experience in the court proved to be very different. The TC700 lacked the power that came with the AS10, and it puzzled me why I wasn't able to send the shuttles to the back of the court. 

After two games, the Mizuno Tetracross 700 had to be switched out to the more comfortable Carlton Fireblade FX8.

It's fast and all - a good defensive racket - but the lack of ability to send the shuttle as far as I wanted to really kills it.

More to come.


7 comments:

Unknown said...

The TC700 is one of the most difficult racquet to generate power but if you can get it right, it produces one of the hardest smashes I have ever experienced.

For the money, you cannot get any better quality than the TC700 as it really uses high quality graphite. My TC700 has been around for 4 years and despite clashing with partner's racquet on the shaft and with the racquet even flying off my hand a few times, the racquet is still going strong !

The only problem for me (and I think a major one) is the grommets. You cannot get the grommets anywhere as they are not the usual size.

Mizuno really make quality stuff, other than TC700, the Luminasonic 9 is great stuff also though that racquet doesn't pack the pack but it is extremely fast.

Arthur said...

4 years! That's longer than I've played the game of badminton.

but I know what you mean about the smashes though. The TC700 can deliver quite the smash when called for, and it has the speed in defense to boot.

But when it comes to rating a good racket, I'm looking for how it will improve my all round game, and the TC700 just doesn't quite deliver in ease of use.

I'd love to try out some more mizuno rackets, but they're not available in Singapore I think.

Unknown said...

Mizuno racquets used to be available a long time ago. But now the distributor doesn't want to bring in the racquets and hence it isn't available in Singapore.

So far, all the Mizuno racquets I bought is from HK and the price is very good !

The thing about the TC700 is that you need to be able to bend the shaft but one you can do that, the power generated is amazing.

Other than the TC700 that has such special shaft, the other would be Victor Spiral 21, Head Helix and some with shaft from famous manufacturer that supply shaft to golf companies i.e Carlton Powerblade 9909, Gosen Ryoga series and Kumpoo F3700 series (with Fujikura shaft). So far, I have tried a few with shaft from golf supplier and it didn't work out well at all. The feel is kinda weird and I feel you are better off with the regular shaft.

Anonymous said...

hi...first im very sorry if my english are very bad
i just wanna know from what gen(generation) is you guys TC700 are...coz from wwhat i know there is 1st gen 2nd gen and if im not wrong they are going to release the 3rd gen

Arthur said...

No idea which gen the TC700 is. I've since let the racket go to another user.

I hope he's having more fun with it than I did :)

Anonymous said...

well..mine is gen 2 and for me this racket suit me perfectly have great power and speed..the minus point is just the ovalshape frame,makes misshit a lot if not get used to it..before using TC700 gen 2 im using AS10(red)3u5 AT900P 3u5 and VTZR 3u5
and now TC700 is my main racket to play

Arthur said...

Great stuff! It's nice to find a racket that you like and stick to it.

You'll noticed your games getting better and the quality of shots improving.