Soft Shaped-Poly Hybrid Test in MFil300

Quite a few of my playing partners use this string and shared good reviews. When I tried their rackets, I was pleasantly surprised at how soft, yet firm this poly played.

A friend whom I string for asked if anything could be done to add a little more "finesse" and pocketing for touch shots like volleys or mid-court put aways. A little more power would be nice too.

From his reel, he cut out about 24 metres and asked me to "play around" with them, then share my findings. To prevent bianess, brand was withheld.

Some simple string test results I did revealed interesting differences from earlier poly strings. 

This third/fourth generation poly string:
- has a much softer material composition that could be dented with my fingernails with some effort,
- appears to have a stiff inner core,
- has an inelastic elongation component only about half of some of my second generation poly strings,
- has its overall elasticity reduced slightly as well.

Since he wanted more pocketing and touch, the best way was to hybrid with a softer string. In this case, a syn gut in the crosses.

With its soft outer layer (not a coating), the poly was easy to string compared with traditional polys. Touch wise, it reminded me a little of pvc coated garden wire.

Playtest:
- Even though we played about 48 hours after stringing, the first few shots felt a little uncomfortable. A muted kind.
- It was not harsh. There was definitely some "cushioning" in the stringbed but insufficient. Somewhat like jogging on a concrete path with a very old pair of running shoes?
- Since I was not a poly lover, I handed it over to another partner to do the breaking-in, and to let me know his opinion only after the entire session.
- After about an hour, I resumed testing.
- The "harshness" was almost completely gone. It started to feel more like a fullbed of stiff and crisp syn gut.
- The "loading" of this hybrid was interesting. The stringbed felt tight for both low and high powered shots. 
- Taps and blocks sometimes felt like it was not enough to load the string. That was fair. Yet, full swings conveyed a "not enough pocketing" kind of feedback sometimes.
- Middle of the range shots produced the best results. Those 60-70% smooth swings elicited soft, controlled feedback with spinny balls. It was very enjoyable and made me want to just rally that way forever.
- Low powered shots were slightly lower powered than other polys. All-out swings were also lower powered than other polys. Smooth swings yielded the closest to "normal" kind of power compared to other strings.
- This advantage was, power control could be delegated to the stringbed with less variation in our swings. We could swing away more freely.
- It also made me think, could this be the string company's attempt to market poly to "softer hitters"?