Tennis Racquet Review: Prince Warrior 100 ESP
December 10th, 2013 by Do It Tennis
Ready for Battle
3 Stars
This is the new model of Prince’s Warrior line in the Extreme String Pattern (ESP) version. The Warrior 100 ESP tennis racquet comes with a new bold look using a black, red and white color scheme. The purpose of this racquet is to have the same feel and power as the Prince EX03 Warrior 100 tennis racquet but to add more spin to a player’s game without having to change the player’s stroke.
The groundstroke play is where you see this new ESP technology in action the most. The racquet really grabs onto the ball and produces a groundstroke with more spin and higher clearance over the net without having to change your stroke at all. It was a different feel than the standard 16x19 string pattern tennis racquets but not a bad different. The groundstroke play with this Warrior 100 ESP was good not great. I like a tennis racquet with more control from the back court and the ESP technology did not help in that factor at all. Also, the fact that the ESP is a lighter version, compare with other Prince tennis racquets, does not help in the control factor either and made it harder for me to finish off points with the lack of plow through in this ESP version. I could not hit my regular full heavy groundstrokes at all with this ESP version because the ball would fly long on me every time. I had to slow down my racquet head speed and take shorter strokes at the ball in order to hold a rally and for the ESP technology to be effective.
Up at the net the racquet played well. There was a lot of pop off of the racquet on the volleys providing for some deep and penetrating volleys. Because of the extremely open string pattern I did have trouble with feel and control up at the net though. My drop volleys popped up higher and deeper than normal as well as my short control based angle volleys. Where this racquet excelled was on block volleys and finishing volleys as the frame produces good power on its own.
The story of this racquet remains the same on the serve as well. A lot of pop comes off of the racquet but there is a lack of the control factor. I also found that I could not get effective spin from the ESP technology unless I slowed down my racquet head speed way down which defeated the purpose of the ESP technology which is to create a heavier ball.
This is definitely not a racquet that I would consider using as an open level player. The Warrior 100 ESP tennis racquet is more ideal for the 4.5 NTRP level or lower who is more of a counter puncher with a shorter swing to their strokes. The ESP version of the Warrior 100 is among the best junior tennis racquets for players who are looking to develop more spin to their game.
Micah Groom
