Need help with racquets

[dartanyan]

Currently i play with these raquets:

Wilson K-Blade 104 with lux alu 16l in mains and Bobalat touch 16 in crosses both at 63lbs

Head Radical Liquid metal 104 with Lux alu 16l mains and wilson stamina 16 in crosses at both 63lbs

Well i like wilson because it has great control and a can swing fast and full without sending the ball long. But biggest issue is tension stability and power. It just does not have power. My serves are really a joke, especially when the strings start to wear out. After couple hours in this set up raquet looses feel, and makes me actually back off my swing speed. Then the balls land short etc

On the other side head is very powerful and stiff. Stiffness does not bother mei actually like it. But cant swing it as full and hard as wilson. But my serves are lot harder with head. I just dont like the lack of control it has. Like low ground stroke if i wanna pick them up by brushing behind the ball, give top spin, the ball goes out.

My question is there a set up out there that i can try to have little more power by sacrificing control. It came to a point i serve with head and receive with wilson. I am a 4.0 baseliner.

Try different raquet? or
try different string set up on any of the 2?
should i put weight on wilson?


Thanks

[Stefano]

Hi dartanyan.

The K Blade 104 is a pretty flexible racquet (57) so very low powered.
Plus, the recommended string tension is 55-63lbs.

You are stringing it at 63. This is way too high. Also, Luxilon ALU is a very stiff string and far from being powerful. And tension stability is close to none, ALU goes dead in 3-4 hours and loses up to 16lbs of tension in the first 24 hours even without hitting.

Therefore, the power of the racquet is close to zero.

What you can do is: change gauge of the string (16L is too big for a poly, I suggest to NEVER use a poly thicker than 1.25mm), lower the tension of the string (not more that 57-58lbs) and add some lead tape at 3 and 9.

But please, take 1 step at the time. It will be easier to find the right combination :)

[dartanyan]

Its strange that i did not feel any tension stability problems with poly and stamina combo. I had tension stability problem with poly and natural gut crosses. Thats why i thought poly/gut combo softening the string bed stiffness quite a bit and causing this instability earlier. If poly is causing the instability, what do yu suggest to put it in the mains. because even if i change the thickness of the poly, or drop the tension, or put more weight, i am still gonna run into tension instability problem quickly?

Thanks

[Stefano]

Even if I am pretty sure someone will disagree, I would pre-stretch the poly.
Most probably, the string will lose a tiny bit of resiliency (which - in a poly - is very low irrespective) but you will stabilise the string so the tension should remain constant a bit longer.

As for what to put in the mains, it's a matter of taste. Most of the top players put natural gut in the mains and poly in the crosses.

This increases the lifespan of the poly, but the feel is very different.