There are many views on what a tennis shoe should prioritise, and all of them have merit. This one has chosen, clearly and without apology, and I think it is only fair to say so at the outset: the Solution Speed FF 4 is built for speed and quickness above everything else.
If your preference runs to maximum stability and a heavier platform, that is an entirely reasonable position and this is not the shoe that holds it.
On the substance. The FLYTEFOAM midsole has been updated to give more cushioning and a higher energy return while staying light — those two aims are usually in tension, which is what makes the update worth mentioning.
SPEEDTRUSS is engineered to harness your connection with the court so acceleration comes out more explosively.
And then there is a small detail I admire disproportionately: a polyurethane loop at the top of the eyestay, with reinforcing tapes on the medial side, both there for the sole purpose of stopping shoelaces from snapping during abrupt movement. Somebody counted the broken laces and did something.
All courts, true to size, medium D width, and it comes in White/Black, Dark Neptune/White, White/Midnight and White/Pitch Green.
Leipzig, which has more than one story and tells them all at once. The Thomaskirche, where Bach lies buried in front of the altar and where he worked for twenty-seven years for a council that was, by every account, difficult about it.
The Nikolaikirche, its columns opening out into carved palm fronds — and it is also the church where the Monday prayer meetings of 1989 spilled into the street and became a demonstration that stayed peaceful, which was not inevitable and was decided by people in that room. Auerbachs Keller in the Madlerpassage, the wine cellar Goethe wrote straight into Faust.
And the Monument to the Battle of the Nations: five hundred steps up an enormous granite mass raised over a battlefield, and what one feels at the top rather depends on where one's great-grandfather stood.
“The columns turn into palm trees, and in 1989 the congregation walked out of the doors and changed the country. Both things are the building.”
A fast shoe and a city that rewards standing still. Balance it yourself.
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