Prince Textreme Tour 100L Racket Review

The first thing you notice about the Prince Textreme Tour 100L is the sleek paint job. Prince have blacked out their latest line of rackets but kept the range specific colour scheme on the inside of the frame. This gives the rackets an understated look that is classy but not boring.

In the case of the 100L, the throat of the racket gets an expensive looking exposed carbon look, reminding you that despite its old school feel, Prince has not skimped on modern technologies with this racket.

Looking at the specs of this racket, it is clear that it is designed for an intermediate to advanced level player that wants to access as much spin as possible and isn’t afraid to break strings! Prince’s Tour range of rackets are named as such as they are aimed at touring professionals.

This is the lightest and most accessible racket in this line, so you can expect it to be a user-friendly experience. The open string pattern and more powerful beam gives this racket a nice blend of spin and pop, so you can control the ball easily but still generate pace when you need to.

Prince rackets are traditionally pretty well damped, and the Tour 100L is no exception. It strikes a good balance of feel, precision and comfort, as it offers a plush feel on contact despite the 65 stiffness rating.

One thing you really notice when striking with this racket is just how well it pockets the ball. The frame gives a good level of energy return so you don’t have to put too much effort into your shots to get a heavy ball coming out of the string bed.

But, the racket hangs on to the ball and gives you a great sense of connection, helping you feel in control and like the racket is an extension of your arm.

One of the stand out elements of the Prince Textreme Tour 100L is that string pattern. It gives you a high launch angle out of the string bed and allows you to carve up the ball with ease.

You can really knife through the ball with your slice and whipping up the back of the ball to generate a lot of topspin seems like it’s what this racket was designed for! When you combine this with the sublime touch and feel this racket has it makes for a great combination.

You can tell that Prince has worked with their players to develop this line of rackets, as the pure feel you get on contact rewards clean ball striking.

The 100 sq in head size is a little larger than you may expect from this category of rackets, so it is pretty forgiving if you time the ball late, but this doesn’t detract too much from the precision or control that the racket offers.

This is a true all rounder that you really can’t complain too much about no matter what your playing level is. The only real downside I can see is that this is a fairly head light racket, given its 310g static weight and 314g swing weight, meaning it feels quite light to swing.

Whilst this is great for generating a lot of racket head speed and makes transitioning to the net a lot more accessible, if you are a player that likes to club the ball from the baseline and wants their racket to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to power generation, you may want to look elsewhere.

We can’t fault the Textreme Tour 100L for its feel, spin and precision, but in terms of all out plow through, the racket could do with a bit of that weight being pushed up towards the top of the frame.

Like most rackets with very open string patterns, you can get the occasional inconsistent feel when you don’t middle the ball, but this is pretty minimal compared to a lot of the 100L’s competitors that may be a little stiffer and less forgiving.

If you are looking for an all rounder racket that ticks a lot of boxes and offers above average levels of spin, this is a great option for you. Also, if you are a player that likes to slice and dice and some into the net, the maneuverability and touch that the Textreme Tour 100L offers would really suit your game.

The Prince Textreme Tour 100L is a soft feeling racket for its stiffness rating, so it does feel pretty plush and  comfortable when hitting volleys.

As we have mentioned, if you are a player that likes to come forward you’ll definitely get on with this racket, as it is soft and supple enough to give you a good connection with the ball, but still crisp enough to be able to jab volleys and make them stick.

It strikes a really good balance of comfort and precision, which is exactly what we like in rackets for volleying. It doesn’t take long to dial in with the Textreme, which is more than can be said for a stiffer rival like the Wilson Pro Staff for example.

You certainly get a great connection with the ball when serving with the Prince Textreme Tour 100L. It is nicely balanced and it doesn’t take long to gel with it and hit your spots.

It is a forgiving racket so if you are having a bad serving day you can use the racket to get out of trouble, as the softness and larger head size gives you a bigger sweet spot to play with.

The open string pattern all delivers a lot of bite on your spin serves, so second serves can be fired down with a lot of confidence and this racket really rewards fast racket head speed when you’re looking to carve around the side of the ball.

One thing that held it back slightly was the distribution of the weight however. It was not the most powerful racket in the world on serve, and although this is great for avoiding fatigue, you do sometimes feel it is lacking slightly when you need a bit of extra pop.

Again, a little bit of lead tape added to the tip of the racket could make a big difference here and make the racket feel even more solid.

Whilst the softness is a great asset for touch shots, it does feel a little mushy from time to time on serve. It’s not an unpleasant feeling by any means, but there are other, more power focussed rackets like the Babolat Pure Drive for example that are better suited to ramping up the pace on serve.

Again, this Prince stick doesn’t take long to get used to thanks to its sublime feel, so getting used to it on returns wasn’t much of an ask. You can definitely carve up the court with the backhand slice with this racket, so blocking back chipped backhand returns was the game plan.

This is one of the areas that the racket really feels great on, thanks to the open string pattern, so it makes sense to use this to your advantage.

Whilst the racket is very manoeuvrable and does allow you to generate a lot of racket head speed, again it could have done with a touch more swing weight for my liking just to enhance the plow through and add a bit more stability.

Other than the ease of slicing the ball, there wasn’t one area that the Textreme stood out in on returns, as it lived up to its all rounder credentials yet again.

Overall, the Prince Textreme Tour 100L is a great racket to hit with. Whilst it could do with a little more weight in the hoop to give it that extra bit of pop, the feel is outstanding and it really harks back to some of the old school rackets of the past thanks to its thin beam and plush layup.

This racket is definitely aimed at an intermediate player that wants a good level of stability and above all touch from a racket that is spin friendly, forgiving and ticks a lot of boxes. If you are still not sure which racket is right for you, give our custom fitting service a try, we take the stress out of finding your next stick!