HEAD Speed Pro 2024 Review

This was one of my favorite racquets of 2022. Time for the Auxetic 2.0 version. Here is my HEAD Speed Pro 2024 Review.

The HEAD Speed Pro is one of HEAD’s heaviest racquets at 310 grams unstrung and has a hefty swing weight of around 300 (330 with strings). You need to like this type of racquet to enjoy it. But if you do, it brings a very solid feel and a good balance of power and control thanks to the 23 mm beam and 18/20 string pattern. The only thing that did not impress in this review was perhaps the cosmetic…

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Specifications

The mold is the same. What is new is Auxetic 2.0 instead of 1.0. They have used the technology more in this racquet overall and you feel that on impact with a slightly more comfortable and dampened response. Our demo racquet had the following strung specs with HEAD Lynx 1.25 at 51 lbs or 23 kg: 334 grams, 32.4 cm balance (5 pts HL) and 335 swing weight. It does play a bit lighter than the specs suggest, but you need to be sure you can handle that type of swing weight to consider this racquet.

Cosmetic

We rarely give this category its own headline as it is such a subjective topic, but it came up in our HEAD Speed Pro video review multiple times. The type of paint they have used for this racquet has a quite specific feel. Kind of like velvet. It reminds me of the paint they used on the Diadem Elevate V3, which I thought felt pretty cool at the time of the review but later on did not find so enjoyable. I tend to prefer a simple, glossy paint overall. The design, as such, was neither bad nor good, which is kind of to be expected. I think the best-looking Speed racquet is still the blacked-out HEAD Speed MP.

Playability

If you have used the HEAD Speed Pro of 2022, you won’t be surprised by this racquet. They are quite similar except for perhaps that slightly more dampened and comfortable feel from the Auxetic 2.0. I might be imagining things, but the sweet spot does feel a bit bigger, but this could also be due to the relatively high swing weight of the racquet.

The 18/20 string pattern is very much felt with this racquet. The ball has a laser-like trajectory. You can feel like the king on flatter shots, but I struggled to generate height over the net since the swing weight does not easily allow you to manipulate the racquet head. That would be my pet peeve with this racquet, a slightly more open string pattern like 16/20 or 18/19 could have helped have a slightly higher launch angle.

But you get good court penetration and power if you really go for your flatter shots. It suits my style pretty well, because I was never much of a top spinner, but on shots where you need to quickly adjust the racquet, the HEAD Speed Pro 2024 does not help much.

I felt like the racquet is better suited to aggressive players that stay close to the baseline and take the ball early. Think of Aslan Karatsev or Andrey Rublev as good examples of that. If you are that type of player and don’t mind the weight, I think you will enjoy the Speed Pro a lot.

Summary

No racquet is perfect, and neither is the new Speed Pro, but it ticks many boxes for me personally and is jumping onto the list of racquets I will consider switching to in 2024 for my tournament and match play. It is ultra stable, has good touch, can hit laser-like winners and the serve potential is not bad either. The downside is the top spin generation and the low launch. Also, if you are unlucky in terms of quality control, you can get one that is even higher in spec than mine and that might be tough to wield.

This is my favorite HEAD racquet of the current line-up. The one that works best for my game is in a close battle with the Radical MP. But the Speed is more solid and powerful, which helps when I play hard hitters like I did in this video review.

You can check out the new HEAD Speed Pro 2024 from Tennis Warehouse, Tennis Warehouse Europe and Tennis Only.