VT Advantec: First Impressions
VT Advantec offers a series of tennis products all containing their patent-pending Smart Layer Technology. The material as developed by VT Advantec’s parent company, Votsch. Their mission is to decrease the vibration caused by the impact of the tennis ball on the string bed. The idea is that it can save you for injury due to stress caused by vibration. For this, there offer two main products: strips and grips.
I’ve logged about 10 hours of play, on clay and hard, with both the grips and the strips. First, I tested the grip on its own against a stock frame, and then the grip on its own against a 2-strip setup, with a normal leather grip.
The Strips
The Grips
Full disclosure, VT Advantec did send me these products for free. However, they never asked me to review these items, they will not see my opinions before they are posted and they have not asked for anything in return. VT Advantec sent these to me because they want to develop relationships within the tennis community.
Quantitative Change in Feel
Describing “feel” in the context of tennis racquets is incredibly ambiguous. I will do my best to breakdown the concept of feel, separating it from any changes in performance. This is a challenge, because most things that change feel (strings, racquets) also affect performance. First, let’s begin with the magnitude of the change in feel. What is the quantitative change?
First, some baselines for quantitative changes in feel. Different racquets with completely different specs and molds will have very large quantitative changes in feel (eg. Yonex VCore Pro HD vs. Weed 135). Changing strings materials will have a moderate quantitative change in feel (eg. Poly to Nylon). Changing type of strings, but holding material constant, results in a small quantitative change in feel (eg. ALU Power vs RPM Blast). You may be thinking, ALU Power feels NOTHING like RPM Blast! Typically, more advanced players will be more sensitive to small quantitative changes in feel. This means they will easily be able to feel the difference between different types of polyester strings. On the other hand, less advanced players may struggle to feel the difference between string types, and even racquets. Just go down to your public courts and ask the athletic couple playing singles if they care about your natural gut strings.
The VT Advantec Leather grip feels like a moderate change in feel. It reminded me of changing from a full polyester set up, to the time I playtested Tecnifibre Triax. This is because the change in feel was relatively significant, but the change in performance wasn’t that big. I’d say the magnitude of the change in feel similar to the magnitude of change in feel that comes from switching string materials. The change should be detectible for most players NRTP 3.5 and up.
The strips offer a more tuneable change in feel. So far I have only experimented with a 2-strip setup. VT Advantec also recommends a 4 strip setup for a more significant change in feel. The magnitude of this change was more minor, about 1/3-1/2 of the change generate by the VT Advantec leather grip. It’s similar to going from a full bed string setup to a hybrid set up.
qualitative change in feel
I had some concerns about the Smart Layer Technology causing the complete dissipation of connection to the ball. I feared the feedback on impact would become so muted that I’d completed lose the ball in stringbed. Can you blame me? Haven’t we all been disappointed by other vibration dampening tech before? Looking at you, Wilson Counterveil and Babolat Cortex. All that happens ins your wrist still hurts from the stiff racquet and you the racquets feel disconnected and muted.
Fortunately, this is not the case with the VT Advantec products. The best way I can describe the change in the qualitative sensations in that in if feels like there is an increase in ball pocketing. If feels like the ball stays on the strings longer and the impact feels much plusher. The unusual part is that there is little-to-no change in what happens to the ball after impact. Spin is the same. Launch angle is the same. Power is the same. Control is the same.
Usually when you change strings, racquets or tensions, there is a change in performance accompanied with the change in feel. With the Smart Layer Tech, I was getting the same VCORE 95 performance that I know and love, while getting an enhanced ball pocketing sensation.
Additionally, it is still very easy to locate the ball on the strings. This is something I often struggle with when playing with overly muted racquets. There still seems to be feedback sent from the stringbed to the hand, but the feedback feels richer and plusher.
Further Experimentation is needed
So far I’ve only tried putting the strips at 6 o’clock. This is probably stupid, but I wanted to minimize the change in swingweight while keeping the strips close to the stringbed. I noticed that when I impacted the ball lower in the stringbed that there was a greater change in the magnitude of feel. There were very intense pocketing and muting sensations, as if I’d hit the ball with a string tensions of 20lbs. I’d like to try some different configurations with the strips to see how location changes feel. VT Advantec recommend their 2-strip setups with a 3 and 9 o’clock placement. Of course I need to test the strips on different racquets as well.
I have recently committed to switching from the VCORE 95 to the new Head Extreme Tour. I have not extensively tested the VT Advantec products on this racquet yet, because I all still getting to know the new sticks. Sadly, I am experiences some mild wrist soreness after the switch. This will be a perfect opportunity to see if the VT Advantec products do what they claim, prevent injury.
Interview incoming
VT Advantec has graciously agreed to an interview with the Slice. Stay tuned to for its release in the coming weeks.
