It’s his last season on tour due to wrist issues, and we are all sad about that. But what is Dominic Thiem’s new racquet?
Dominic Thiem has played with many different racquets throughout his career. They have all been focused on control since he is adept at generating lots of power himself through great technique and physique. But in the last couple of years he has struggled with a wrist injury and the time has come to change up the racquet a bit.
Before, Thiem used a Babolat Pure Strike 18/20 with the following specs as published by Babolat:
A note on the string as he has been using RPM Power for the last couple of years. I am not sure why he didn’t try mixing it up with a natural gut hybrid at some point like so many pros to improve comfort and power, but perhaps he just doesn’t like it.
Thiem’s racquet history
Thiem used a lighter Wilson Six One 95 Team as a junior. Most likely customized. After Wilson he moved over to HEAD and the Prestige MP. Both the Wilson and the HEAD with 18/20 string patterns as so many other pros back then (now string patterns are more varied with 18/19, 16/19 and 16/20 competing with 18/20.
In 2014 or so, Thiem became the face of the Babolat Pure Strike and that was a great move by Babolat. Thiem got more power from the Strike over the Prestige and had a great career with the Babolat in his hand. He won 17 titles, including the famous US Open final 2020, where he lifted that illustrious Grand Slam title.
Thiem’s new racquet
In recent pics from the French Open qualifying, he has been seen using a Pure Strike with a 16/19 pattern without lead placement at 3 and 9, which used to be his standard customization. My assumption is that he wanted more free power/depth and perhaps a lighter racquet to save his wrist a bit.
I don’t know the exact specs of his racquet, but it is probably not too far different from what he used before. But 16/19 over 18/20 makes a lot of sense to me, considering his current form and issues to generate power the same way he did before. We are seeing a trend with professional tennis player (especially from the slightly older generation that are almost all used to control racquets) switching to more powerful racquets. The most recent example is Andy Murray forsaking his old racquet for the powerful Yonex Ezone 100.
Let’s hope Dominic can finish his career in a nice way and we wish him all the best on and off the court!
Ps. If you want to purchase Dominic Thiem’s tennis gear, check out my affiliates Tennis Warehouse, Tennis Warehouse Europe or Tennis Only (AUS). If you buy anything through my links, Tennisnerd gets a small commission. DS.
1 comment
One of the advantages of the Pure Strike is that in its central part the grommets structure is identical. So if we talk about perfectly centered shots, the racket behaves very stable. The bad thing is when you hit away from the center. That open pattern helps the amateur, but I think it drives too much for a professional. I would have switched to the Pure Aero 98, since for many it is the child that would be born from a Pure Aero 100 and a Pure Strike 18/20. Whenever I see players with one-handed backhands, they have difficulty on the backhand with open patterns. It is possible to play comfortably with a 16/19 with a 95 head, but if we raise it there will be stability problems. The same thing happens with heads of 98 or 100, for those better 20 in the crosses.
A 16/19 of 97 would be at the limit, just like Federer did.