Yonex Grip Powder
About Fujairah
This city is the capital of the only emirate with a coastline on the Gulf of Oman rather than the Persian Gulf. Separated from the rest of the country by the Hajar Mountains, it has grown around its port, oil storage, and the sea route that avoids the Strait of Hormuz.
THE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW
Yonex Grip Powder, catalogue reference AC470, is a 20 gram tub of hand powder made in Japan and formulated specifically for tennis rather than borrowed from another sport.
The formulation is the specification. It is a blend of magnesium carbonate and calcium carbonate with pine resin, eggshell and zeolite, and it is made to be water resistant — the distinction that matters, because ordinary chalk absorbs moisture and then becomes the slippery layer it was applied to prevent.
The pine resin adds tack rather than only dryness, so the hand holds the handle instead of merely not sliding on it.
It is designed for use with a towelling grip, which is where a slick handle causes the most trouble: towelling absorbs well and then saturates, and once saturated it offers nothing.
A dab before going out and another at the changeover is the intended pattern of use.
Fujairah sits between the Gulf of Oman and the Hajar mountains, humid on the coast and dry inland, and the coastal humidity is exactly the condition in which a towelling grip gives up and powder becomes the difference.
Specifications
| Type | Grip powder |
|---|---|
| Model | AC470 |
| Weight | 20 g tub |
| Composition | Magnesium carbonate, calcium carbonate, pine resin, eggshell, zeolite |
| Property | Water resistant |
| Intended for | Use with a towelling grip |
| Made in | Japan |
| Brand | Yonex |
A tub of this size is a season’s supply for one player, because the correct quantity per application is small.
LET Yonex Grip Powder SHOW YOU Fujairah
Grip: Push on through the date gardens — mind the dust, I am the cure for dust — and there, on a rocky knoll, quite unknown to me until this morning: Fujairah Fort. Seventeenth century, and among the oldest and most important forts in the United Arab Emirates. Local stone, mudbrick and plaster, a cluster of towers roped together by high walls. Residence of the ruling family, redoubt of the only emirate lying wholly east of the Hajar mountains. British naval forces shelled it in the early twentieth century during disputes with the sheikhdom, and the scars entered local lore. Restored around the millennium. I claim nothing. But I found it.
Grip: North of the city, beyond the watchtowers, I stumbled upon — and I use the word advisedly, there is a car park — the oldest known mosque in the United Arab Emirates. Archaeologists date Al Bidya to around the mid-fifteenth century. Stone and mud plaster, four low pointed domes carried on a single central pillar, a structure unique in the region, and no minaret whatsoever; the call to prayer went up from the rise behind, where the old watchtowers still stand. Digging around it turned up settlement traces reaching far further back, this small bay having long worked the Indian Ocean trade coast. Conserved, and still in use for prayer.
Grip: Expedition rule — when the terrain defeats you, go where somebody has already dug. The Fujairah Museum, beside the old fort, holds the emirate's archaeological and ethnographic memory: finds from Qidfa, Bithnah and other sites of these mountains and this coast. Bronze-age and iron-age pottery, metalwork and grave goods, thousands of years of settlement on a shore where the monsoon trade tied Arabia to India and East Africa. There is a bowl carved from an ostrich egg. An ostrich egg! Then the recent past — pearling and fishing gear, weaponry, silver jewellery, household life before oil. I have discovered a display case and I regret nothing.
Grip: Into the Wadi Hayl now, southwest of the city, deep among the bare slopes of the Hajar — a short drive, but let us not dwell on that. Al Hayl Castle is a fortified residence built around the early twentieth century for the ruling Al Sharqi family: tower, majlis and dwelling quarters, a mountain seat and lookout controlling the wadi routes through the range, counted among the best-preserved traditional fortified architecture in the emirate. Around it lie the old Hayl village, its falaj channels and terraced gardens, and petroglyphs pecked into the boulders by people who came through here long before either of us.
Jackson Phillips here. Owner of TTT. We are working hard every day to bring you the most useful product reviews in the business. Our goal is putting the right product in every hand. If you have time, shoot me an email at jacksonphillips@thetennistactician.com and tell me exactly what you think of your purchase. The more feedback we get, the better we can serve. Thank you for your patronage. And Burn, Laugh, and Learn.