Playtest:
- This played nice and tight. The comfort and power felt like something between a gut/poly and multi/poly setup.
- Accuracy was as good as I expected it to be. No surprise as this is half poly after all.
- Spin was good when I stepped it up. I could distinctly hear the strings "crackling" as it slided during ball contact. But when I inspected the strings, there was no need to straighten them at all. There was full snapback. So that's a great plus!
- Comfort and pocketing was very good. I have no hesitations recommending this to my friends even if they have arm pain.
- The stringbed cushioned well enough and yet maintained a similar rebound angle as normal tennis strings done in the 60+ lbs.
- One variable that intrigued me was how linear the pocketing and rebound power was. Soft hits pocketed shallow, medium hits pocketed medium-deep and hard hits pocketed deep.
- And the rebound power from the stringbed correlated very proportionately with the intensity of hits. This is not something I've felt with all other strings except natural gut. All other tight stringbeds I've tried usually felt a little dead with light hits and livened up with full swings.
- The next thing to monitor is tension and string durability.
- Below pic was after an hour of hits. Strings were not straightened.
25Oct2013 update:
- Pocketing has deepened slightly. I would attribute it to the poly losing some tension and stretching. But the rebound was still very fast and consistent.
- The very heavy pre-stretching helped a lot in tension holding for the fishing line. It played as tight as it did the first session. Full snapback again.
- Some light notching was observed on the fishing line mains.
- I rotated three rackets to give me a better comparison of how each played. These last few stringings I did was each optimized either for spin (link), power (link) or control (this fishing / poly). Although I have been playing like crap, I liked both the spin and control setups more.
30Oct2013 update:
- Notching remains very slight after play today.
- Despite the notching, the mains were still able to slide freely. I still did not have to adjust the strings at all after play.
- Spin and power are both still very good and consistent.
- During an overhead smash near the net today, I heard a very loud "thwack" when I hit the ball. I thought the strings burst but it did not. So it seems this combination of strings generated a very loud bursting sound during smashes.
- Just to reset my feel, I brought my kevlar / syn gut PSC6.1 (link) to compare with this fishing / poly setup. I am pleasantly surprised that both spin and control were very similar for both!
02Nov2013 update:
- Fishing line has a very narrow useful range of play. Above that range, it plays exceptionally harsh (worse than kevlar). Below that, it cannot hold tension at all. I believe I found that range now. It plays really nice, comfortable, spinny and controllable.
- Tension holding is impeccable! From frequency tests, despite having clocked about 6 hours of play, total tension loss was less than 6 lbs compared to immediately off the stringing machine! All that pre-stretch helped.
- String movement was still very low despite the better than average spin levels.
- Notching was only very slightly deeper than previously.
16Nov2013 update:
- The consistency of this setup really impressed me. After this session of play, this would have clocked more than 8 hours of use.
- Despite that, tension holding was excellent! The drop was only about 5hz (approximately 0.5 lbs) after today's game.
- Spin, power and comfort remained as good as it did when the strings were fresh. In fact, I could not even tell any difference between the 1st and the 8th hour of use.- String movement was very minimal. Even when I whipped the racket with loud crackling sounds of the strings moving, they still snapped back on their own. (See pic below)
- Notching has only gotten very slightly deeper.
- This setup is a keeper!
20Jan2014 update:
- I lost count how many hours of play I had with these strings.
- Tension holding and playability ranks among the best. Not once did I feel any sense of loss of control or spin. It performed as well as it did on the first hit till the last.
- I played with a very hard hitting chap today named "D". When he got into position early, his forehand came across as powerful as the national/state players I had rallied with. Full swings were needed to return his hard shots. Anything less and my racket would be thrown backwards upon ball contact. And we were both standing about 1.5 metres behind the baseline!
- The notched mains could not last the torture...
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