The Babolat Aero Junior 26. Yes, it's styled after the Pure Aero, the racquet the pros swing, because nothing sells a kid a racquet like the vague promise of becoming famous. That said — and it pains me — the thing is genuinely well made. 100 square inch head. 26 inches long.

240 grams unstrung, about 9.1 ounces strung, balanced at 315mm with a swingweight of 215, which means a developing player can actually get it around instead of being wielded by it. Graphite composite construction over an aluminum head: light where it should be light, forgiving where kids need forgiving, which is everywhere.

The 16×17 string pattern is open enough to teach topspin — real topspin, the kind that wins points, not the kind parents film vertically. Stiffness rating of 55, comes strung and ready, sized for players around 140 to 150 cm tall, roughly ages 9 to 13. It'll survive being flung into a fence exactly as often as you'd expect, which with juniors is a spec worth having.

It hails from Tsalka, Georgia, up on a volcanic plateau at 1,460 meters, a town whose two headline achievements are a reservoir that's the largest in the country — created in 1946, and several villages are at the bottom of it, but nobody puts that on the postcard — and a glass bridge over a canyon, installed in 2021 so tourists could feel mortality and call it content.

The canyon itself, mind you, is spectacular and took the Khrami river actual millennia of honest work. The river didn't even get a plaque. Typical.

Still, the frame goes everywhere from a windblown court at 1,460 metres to whatever passes for an indoor hall out here, and by the way, it is also perfect for the walk to the canyon rim, where the ground simply stops and nobody has thought to put up a sign.

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