Mayami Tour Hex Evaluation – peRFect Tennis

After reviewing Mayami Huge Spin, the second string I playtested from the Ukrainian model is Mayami Tour Hex. 

Mayami Tour Hex is a hexagonal polyester and sits within the lineup as their defacto management string.

Alongside Kateryna Bondarenko, it’s endorsed by former French Open finalist and one of some gamers with a successful H2H file vs Roger Federer, Andrei Medvedev.

It is available in two gauges, 1.23mm and 1.28mm and is a really fashionable blue color that compliments particular racket paint jobs and court docket surfaces very properly.

However unbelievable cosmetics and endorsements apart, how does Mayami Tour Hex play? Discover out on this full playtest and overview.

Mayami Tour Hex Specification

MAYAMI TOUR HEX is a Monofilament hexagonal polyester string that deserves distinctive empathy for gamers who have to take their sport to a different propelled degree with a lot appreciation for the sport. Modestly intense, with phenomenal management and a unbelievable capability to pivot the ball, this string will enable you information your strokes at an alarming tempo. That is really the world’s finest tennis string concerning price and high quality. Mayami’s Tour Hex Pitch

Fortuitously, we do not price strings on their copywriting as this wants some work!

String Specs

Racket Setup for Testing

For this playtest, I used the Wilson Professional Workers 97 v13, which weighs 334g strung and is a headlight, management oriented racket. I used to be going to make use of the Blade 98, however I’ve nonetheless received Mayami Huge Spin in and do not wish to minimize it out but 😁

Just like the Huge Spin, I used my transportable Mi Stringer for a two-piece string job, however this time, I used a pressure of 48lbs (21.7kg).

Upon opening the packet, I used to be greeted with a really cool blue wanting string. I uncoiled it, minimize it in two and started stringing the mains.

Immediately you’ll be able to inform it’s a a lot stiffer string than Huge Spin, and it has a way more inflexible feeling when stringing. The mains aren’t any drawback, however the crosses are a bit harsher on the fingers when weaving.

Fortuitously or sadly, relying on the way you have a look at it, the Mi Stringer design makes conventional weaving a lot tougher, so I exploit a few helper instruments they provide to get it carried out and, on the similar time, saves my fingertips.

For stringers on the market, it is corresponding to most different stiffer polyesters, and for me, should you just like the cosmetics/design of a string, it is typically ‘simpler’ to string with (not less than on your rackets). Since I am a fan of the blue, I loved seeing the racket come collectively to get the completed article.

I additionally discover the Professional Workers 97 a little bit of a ache to string (Wilson’s official tie-off holes are completely different from the stringers digest, for instance), however a stiff poly could make some tighter grommets simpler.

Mayami Tour Hex Playtest

So how did Mayami Tour Hex carry out? Let’s have a look.

Preliminary Ideas and How It Felt

Just like the Mayami Huge Spin overview, my hit with Tour Hex was on a quick, slick indoor court docket. Nevertheless, this time round, I used to be coming in off a couple of extra hitting periods and knew what to anticipate from the floor.

I’ve used a number of hexagonal strings through the years, resembling Head Tour Lynx and MSV Focus HEX and all the opposite shapes in between, like Solinco Confidential (pentagonal) and Babolat RPM Blast (octagonal).

If you happen to learn my Huge Spin overview, my preconception of the way it seemed within the packet was that it will play just like RPM Blast, which turned out to be utterly mistaken. 

With Tour Hex, my preconceived thought was that it will be just like Solinco Confidential. This time I used to be proper, and after 10 minutes of hitting, it gave me a really related feeling.

Solinco Confidential wants a little bit of a break-in interval earlier than it reaches what I would name optimum playability, and Mayami Tour Hex additionally performs it finest after quarter-hour or so of hitting. Nevertheless, it does not really feel as board like as Confidential from the outset.

I did my traditional quick court docket warm-up within the service field. Adopted by some cross-court service field hitting to get the ft shifting, I appreciated how the string behaved off the string mattress for ‘massaged’ kind management/really feel pictures.

How It Performed

As soon as the quick court docket sport was over, I moved again to the baseline and rallied from the baseline with the purpose of excessive internet clearance and never making one another do an excessive amount of operating.

From there, the tempo progressively elevated to hand-fed level play, the place you get a significantly better really feel of the string.

I’m not an enormous topspin participant, so I have a tendency to evaluate poly strings by how assured I really feel in my shot placement and the way the ball reacts from the stringbed. Not by how a lot internet clearance I may give the ball and nonetheless see it land throughout the baseline.

Tour Hex delivered simply the type of feeling I used to be after and provided a constant response from the stringbed, so that you get that feeling of predictability.

In that regard, it performs extra like a spherical polyester however with the advantage of that hexagonal form to impart spin (which has not been conclusively confirmed to take action, however there appears to be sufficient anecdotal proof from gamers that formed polys supply extra spin).

My backhand slice is a necessary shot in my sport, and it is the shot I exploit to resolve if I like a string rapidly. You get some strings the place the ball can balloon off, sitting up within the court docket and others the place it produces a flatter, skimming trajectory ball that causes your opponent all kinds of issues.

Tour Hex delivers extra of the latter; the thinner 1.23mm offers launch angle, so the ball lands deep within the court docket, however there’s loads of management to get a superb form on the ball.

When hitting the forehand on the run, that’s the place I received a style of some spin potential. It produces a flatter trajectory spin when paired with the Professional Workers 97 v13, which has a grommet layup to slender the sample across the candy spot, and I believe Tour Hex is properly suited to the management kind frames.

After returning to the courts for a second time, Tour Hex picked up the place it left off; it felt an identical in traits and saved that predictable feeling in the course of one other 90 minute hit.

My takeaway from hitting is that Tour Hex is a low powered string however has good pocketing, plenty of management and a really predictable response permitting gamers to measure their pictures.

Sturdiness and Worth

At $9.90 for a single packet or $109 for a 200m reel, Mayami Tour Hex affords glorious worth for cash. 

At simply $0.90 greater than Volkl Cyclone, which has at all times been one of many benchmarks for worth, you’re getting top quality however extra snug, longer-lasting tennis string for an nearly an identical value.

I’m not a string breaker, so I’ll hardly ever snap a polyester, however durability-wise, it appears corresponding to every other monofilament string. Severe gamers will get anyplace from 12-15 hours of playtime earlier than plasticisation begins to set in, which is a few hours greater than among the rivals like Babolat RPM Blast and Solinco Confidential.

Tour Hex additionally has very spectacular pressure upkeep, and it will provide you with an honest interval of consistency with no actual change in the way it performs.

I examined it with the TennisTension app, and it holds pressure very properly; the drop off after my first 90-minute hit was solely ~1.5lbs decrease than the earlier measurement.

Strung at 48lbs as per the Mi Stringer, pressure recorded at 46lbs after it got here off the machine, pressure recorded at 42lbs earlier than taking part in, pressure measured at 40.5lbs after 1 hours play.

I’ll do one other spherical of testing utilizing my MSV MiniSTT device after I string Mayami Tour Hex once more.

Who Is This String For?

Tour Hex is designed for high-level gamers that demand management. If you happen to swing quick sufficient and hit the ball sufficiently big, this string is exactly what you can be searching for – management and spin.

For gamers who use a extra open string sample body like a Babolat Pure Aero or a Yonex VCORE 100, I would suggest utilizing the upper gauge 1.28mm model of Tour Hex, as you’ll get extra sturdiness and extra management.

Suppose you’re searching for a string that can assist you out with energy. In that case, Tour Hex is not going to be one thing that may supply it (though it’s one to contemplate placing in a hybrid with a softer string like a pure intestine, Head Velocity MLT or Tecnifibre Multifeel and so on.)

In order with all polyester strings, it’s not fitted to youthful children or these simply beginning to play the sport.

Comparable Strings

Mayami Tour Hex is just like the next strings, and should you like all of them, you may in all probability like Tour Hex too:

How does Tour Hex evaluate to different Mayami Strings?

Closing Ideas

Because the title suggests, Mayami Tour Hex is suited to gamers that hit with a tour-level sport and has all of the properties that these competing at a high-level search for in a string.

Whereas it is debatable whether or not my sport can genuinely realise the advantages of polyester, I do worth a predictable string mattress that makes me really feel like I can land my sliced backhand on a sixpence, and Tour Hex affords that.

Total, I describe Tour Hex as a low powered, medium-stiff string that’s nonetheless snug, with above-average ball pocketing and above-average spin and management. A fairly good mixture, and I can see why this string has loads of optimistic suggestions on StringForum.

Seen as if Solinco Confidential has been one among my favorite strings of the final 12 months, and Tour Hex mirrors it in each division. It will get high marks from me.

I’m reluctant to say it is higher based mostly on simply a few hitting periods vs the 30+ I’ve had with a full mattress of Confidential, however they’re on a close to equal footing.

So at $3 cheaper per pack, should you’re a aggressive participant searching for a playable poly, I would give Tour Hex a attempt, and also you would possibly end up sticking with it.

One different advantage of Mayami is like Angell Strings (which I plan to overview quickly); they provide a pattern pack with all their strings in so you’ll be able to take a look at all of them.

That is what I bought, so I’ve Magic Twist, Hepta Energy and Hit Professional to overview within the coming weeks. I am going to then choose a favorite and do an general comparability publish.

Professionals

Cons

Have you ever tried Mayami Tour Hex? What did you consider it? Let me know within the feedback.