Pre-Stretched Syn Gut/Poly Hybrid

The pre-stretched poly played much better than expected. (link) In total, it lasted about 12 hours before a main snapped. It was truly good till the last hit. Not something I would expect from full poly.

Since I had about half-set of that poly leftover, I used it in the crosses with syn gut mains. Both pre-stretched, of course.

Tension holding and the initial tension drop was similar to the fullbed of poly. After the overnight and initial hits drop, it stabilized.

With syn gut mains, the feel and power was much nicer. I felt I could "load" the strings better for more of my usual shots without trying to crank it up.

Although softer than full poly, control remained more than enough. There was no "mis-behaved" shots that I could attribute directly to the strings. The fault was mine.

The "fast strings" feel was more apparent in this setup. There was more power, more pace. Even serves attempted just after 20 minutes of light use felt good. The stringbed was powerful and responsive enough for me.

With a different partner testing this out with me, I could not tell for sure if spin was better than the pre-stretched full poly. However, it was enough for me, when my partner called the ball in several times, just when I thought it was going long. From that, I deduced the topspin had to be more than my usual, since I interpreted it should have gone long.

My greatest satisfaction from this setup comes from the impeccable stringbed consistency. Over two hours of play, the difference in feel between the first few hits and the last shots was so minute compared to strings without pre-stretch. All along, this was something I could only enjoy with natural gut. Now no longer.

Tension loss, measured through frequency in hertz:
Overnight after strung --> dropped 7.8 hz
After 1 hour play --> dropped 3.1 hz
After 2 hours play --> dropped 0.2 hz

How's that for tension maintenance?