Case notes on the Extreme Elite 2024. Subject: a racquet that arrives strung and ready, which in my experience means it is aimed at someone who has better things to do than negotiate with a stringer. Prime suspects: the beginner and the improving intermediate. Motive: to get on court this week, not next month.
I ran the construction. Full graphite, which is what gives it the all-round playability and the comfort — no aluminium harshness coming back up the arm. Light in the hand and easy to handle, which is the whole point of the frame; a heavy racquet in an unformed swing does not build a swing, it builds a habit.
Midplus hoop with an open string pattern, which is the combination that lets the strings move and grip and put spin on a ball, and the Extreme series has always been the spin family in this range. And here is the detail I noticed that nobody advertises loudly: Innegra in the layup.
Extremely light, extremely durable fibre, worked into the structure to improve stability and soak up shock. That is a material choice with an alibi — it is there for the arm, not for the marketing.
Raipur is where the trail leads. Down at Swami Vivekananda Sarovar — the old Budha Talab tank — the whole city comes out in the evening, and if you want to know what a place is actually like, you do not read the museum plaque, you watch who turns up at the water at six o'clock. I noticed that years ago.
It has never once been wrong.
"Innegra in the layup. That is a material choice with an alibi."
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