Comments on Regentville Tennis Singapore: Fake Babolat Aero Pro Drive Tennis Racquet

Good and accurate article. I bought a Babolat APD ...

2011-07-07T19:30:09.692+08:00

Good and accurate article. I bought a Babolat APD GT racquet from a Chinese seller through IOFFER. The moment I got it in my hands I got suspicious, and after checking your article and taking it to an experienced tennis player I found out that it was a fake racquet. I then put a good! string but nothing changed, after 1 game I noticed a crack in the outside frame and grommets! So I send it back to China and I;m now expecting a refund from PayPal. So, avoid buying cheap raqcuets from China..

Thanks for the fascinating article. My son (a hig...

2010-10-01T00:01:36.758+08:00

Thanks for the fascinating article. My son (a high school Varsity player) has what appear to be two genuine Babolat Aero Pro Drive racquets purchased from Tennis Warehouse in the U.S. In under four months (and not even during the high school tennis season) both racquets have developed cracks on the inside of the frame near the top. I wonder if others have had a similar experience. I also wonder if perhaps Babolat is unwittingly compromising quality on this racquet due to increased production to satisfy a very high level of demand. Now we are dealing with the Babolat warranty consideration process. Rumor has it that Babolat only honors 10% of warranty claims. I certainly hope we've been misinformed because that's a staggeringly low and ridiculous claim percentage number and not a nice way to do business. Perhaps it's time to start demo'ing a few Wilsons.

I almost got one at ebay. they all said its real. ...

2010-09-10T08:45:39.786+08:00

I almost got one at ebay. they all said its real. once i found out they ship from china, I know its fake.
I actually ask if its a real one. the vendor said it top of the class copy. THEY ARE ALL FAKE..

MY 2 CENTS ON NON GENUINE RACQUETS. Yes, they are...

2010-04-05T08:12:06.245+08:00

MY 2 CENTS ON NON GENUINE RACQUETS. Yes, they are bad and not good for everyone. I use genuine Babolat stuff and unless something major changes, ill use them the rest of my life. Im an itn2 player (not sure of usa rating system but I know its over 5.0) and have a close friend who plays in tournaments with me who gets great results consistantly, and money is no object to him whatsoever. Not meaning to ramble, just setting credibility in his statements! Money being no issue to him he has a number of genuine racquets (he uses the apd gt as opposed to me using the pd roddick), but its not actually the apd gt he uses..... His racquets are very heavily customized with lead, but he states openly that no matter what changes he makes to the apd gt (genuine) he can not make it feel as good as his knock offs. I think rather than comparing knock off racquets to the one they are imitating, people need to look at them as a completely DIFFERENT racquet... For my friend, maybe Babolat is not the best racquet for him... I can imagine there are alot of people out there who love certain "brands" or looks of different racquets like he does the apd, yet its just not the perfect racquet... Not saying everyone should go out and buy a fake (I certainly wont be) but for SOME people who like a very flexy, heavier racquet (always going to be heavier as you need to add ALOT of tape to the handle) fake ones, certainly in the case of Babolat can actually work! My girlfriend, not exactly your next womens no. 1, but still a confident club level player is in a similar position, however we have done no customization to hers whatsoever, she can barely use a genuine apd/pd however ive bought her countless amounts of different racquets, but after trying a stock fake racquet of my friends she loves them....

NOTE FROM MY FRIEND: If you do want to experiment with fakes dont use one and decide its no good... For him to get 12 suitable referance racquets to customize and match he would buy over 30 fake racquets as quality control is so poor stiffness varies by as much as 10%!!! He also said if youre a serious player do not try fake racquets in the hope of saving money, youll need to buy 3 racquets for every 1 you play with, also need to replace gromments, and if you hit hard enough you will break them from time to time...

My 2 cents.... Id imagine due to the nature of this blog my comments wont last here very long LOL, but to those who do read them, all the best.

What a great article this is. I think most of the ...

2010-04-01T00:45:52.240+08:00

What a great article this is. I think most of the players does not mnow that they playing with fake babolat racket. thanks for sharing.

Hi 2Room1217Daystomakeadifference, Nope I don'...

2010-02-27T12:06:17.399+08:00

Hi 2Room1217Daystomakeadifference, Nope I don't think it would make a difference at all as the fake racquet has a different weight, balance and composite altogether. It would not play like the genuine Babolat Aero Pro Drive Cortex. Go with the real stuff mate. You'll appreciate it more ;)

very informative! Thanks!

2010-02-15T23:05:05.733+08:00

very informative! Thanks!

Hello, what if you purchase the racquet unstrung a...

2010-01-15T15:13:18.473+08:00

Hello, what if you purchase the racquet unstrung and string it with good strings. Would this make a difference?

Thanks,

What if you purchase the racquet unstrung and stri...

2010-01-15T15:12:00.608+08:00

What if you purchase the racquet unstrung and string it with good strings in your own country?

Hi Nigel, I am not sure where you're based. B...

2009-11-25T09:01:58.324+08:00

Hi Nigel,

I am not sure where you're based. But a friend of mine who recently got a Fake Babolat Aero Pro Drive from eBay managed to get a full refund (he is based out of Singapore by the way).

What you have to do is go to the local Babolat distributor in your Country/State office and get them to write a letter confirming that the racquet is a Fake. Send this letter with the information of your eBay transaction to eBay and hopefully you can get a full refund on this. I have NOT personally done this myself, so I suggest you call or email eBay directly to see if this is the actual process. Hope this helps.

Nawin

Hi Mircea Gusa, In response to your questions: Y...

2009-11-25T08:56:17.465+08:00

Hi Mircea Gusa,

In response to your questions:

Yes, differences in quality control issues and batch manufacturing will be prevalent and I totally agree with this. If you had a chance to read my previous articles about the K61 95 and KPro Staff 88 they highlight these issues and problems found with the quality control and balance.

http://www.regentville.com/2007/08/wilson-k-six-one-95-differences.html

http://www.regentville.com/2009/03/wilson-k-pro-staff-88-review-issues.html

My take on fake racquets however is that you WILL NOT be able to replicate the same feel and stiffness that the original Babolat Aero Pro Drive (Cortex) will have. So you can immediately tell the difference when you're playing with a fake racquet.

Although the balance is out, in the genuine racquet, you can easily customize the racquet with weights to get them to the same feel as the composites and manufacturing materials on the racquet are generally the same, this CANNOT be done with a fake. Also the manufacturing composites are different, as you can see from my posting the frame cracks easily on stringing this is has never been an issue with the genuine racquet unless of course if you abuse them or string them at an extremely high/non recommended tension.

So my overall conclusion to this is that fakes will generally play and feel differently even if you add weights to balance it out. Even assuming you can get the same balance due to customization with weights, the total static swing weight of the racquet might be totally out. Different composites and materials might not give you the exact feel of a genuine APD and you might also end up cracking the frame as the build quality of the Fake Babolat APD is relatively poor. So stringing and playing at higher tensions will not be possible. I also doubt that the fakes have any shock damping technology applied to them compared to the genuine APD which has the patented Woofer and Cortex technology. Hope this helps.

Nawin

Hey, useful article. Determined immediately the ba...

2009-11-24T03:22:18.513+08:00

Hey, useful article. Determined immediately the babolat APD i got from ebay is fake. Exhibited EVERY SINGLE flaw you pointed out. Nevertheless, seeing as i am not likely to get a refund or anything, should i continue playing with this racquet? I'm a beginner, will the head-heavy help? Or is it too severely head-heavy to be playable at all?

2009-11-17T21:45:24.053+08:00

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Great Article!! I have been following your site f...

2009-10-10T02:57:10.003+08:00

Great Article!!

I have been following your site for a few weeks now and I think it's great. I run a similar blog http://blog.flexibletennisleague.com which covers latest Tennis news and the news from our tennis league. I was hoping that you might be interested in exchanging links between our sites. I think our players from the league and blog readers will find your content very informative.

Please let me know.

Thank you,

Dave Schmidt