Prince Textreme Tour 95 Racket Review

I quickly found that I was really enjoying the differences between the Tour 100 and the Tour 95.

The best part for me was the slightly dampened feel of the frame.

This stick has a nice thick beam which feels really solid and comfortable to play with and for me the feel was perfect.

I know I might be in the minority, here, because most people seem to prefer a slightly more involved feel, but I think players looking for a 95 sq. inch frame might share similar views to me in this regard.

It gives you that easy swing speed and solid power without the feeling of an explosion happening on our racket at contact point.

It’s not like a Pure Drive Tour, where you feel every movement of the string, but more like a Head Prestige Pro with better manoeuvrability.

This combination worked out especially well for me on the backhand side, where I was able to drive through the ball and keep a really good length of shot.

The head light balance makes it easy to swing through despite the extra weight of the racket, but the 16 x 19 string pattern gives you enough “oomph” to turn the racket head speed into power and spin.

If I had one slight complaint, it would still be about the launch angle of the 16 x 19 string pattern.

I find it just means you need to add more topspin to get the ball back down and that’s not something I need to be encouraged to do.

This showed up much more on the forehand side than the backhand, but to be honest, it wasn’t a massive downside.

That’s because I was hitting some vicious shots of the forehand wing.

I love a racket where you can swing for the hills and know you’ve got all the tools you need to keep the ball in.

The balance of this racket allowed me to generate huge racket head speed, but most importantly, the control was there to keep the ball in.

The result was a vicious mixture of spin and power that made my forehand a no-go-area for my opponent Larry.

It didn’t take him long to realize that every ball needed to go to my backhand, but even off my weaker side, I was able to make life very difficult for him.

I had heard that the Tour 95 has quite a dampened feel and I wondered whether I should string it up a little looser than normal, perhaps at 48 lbs.

I needn’t have worried though, as I think I got it about spot on for how I play. I couldn’t have asked for much more on the day.

I gave the Prince Textreme Tour 95 a 9 out of 10 for groundstrokes.

I may have been playing very well on the day, but the Tour 95 certainly helped.

There’s not much I would change about this racket. Would I like to see an 18 x 20 version, though? Yes, please!

I compared the Tour 95 to the Head Prestige Pro in the groundstroke portion of this review and the similarities continued at the net.

That’s a good thing for the Textreme Tour because the Prestige is one of my favorite volleying rackets.

The Tour 95’s combination of manoeuvrability and control worked a treat at the net and ensured that I could do whatever I wanted with my volleys.

It didn’t matter how hard the ball came at me, I felt like I had the stability to absorb the power and redirect the ball where I wanted it.

I found it to be particularly good when the ball came quickly to my feet.

I was able to get the racket into position very quickly and block the ball back without fear of it pinging on me.

This is my one qualm with my Pure Strike – that sometimes when I think I’ve hit a volley perfectly, it sails just long.

The Prince Textreme Tour 95 has that extra little bit of mass though and is able to absorb the power better.

The Textreme is also very useful when you’re trying to put an easy floater away.

The 16 x 19 string pattern is more than capable of injecting some power into your volleys and overheads and this is a big help when the ball is coming at you with no pace on it.

Sometimes you can get a racket that is so control oriented that it makes it hard to put the ball away, but that’s not the case with this stick.

I had great fun on the volleying part of this playtest with the Prince Textreme Tour 95 and was mightily impressed.

Another great performance gave the Tour 95 a score of 8.5 out of 10; just behind the Prestige Pro that I loved so much.

You can’t have everything!

Precision and power don’t normally go hand in hand, and I did find the Textreme Tour 95 was a little bit down on power on the serve.

This is fairly normal for these types of racket, but someone with a big serve will still be able to extract a huge amount from this stick.

Those are the trade-offs you make when choosing and fine tuning your rackets, but I’d rather take a little hit on my serve to get that extra control on the groundstrokes.

I was expecting just a little bit more power from the Textreme Tour 95 based on the excellent performance of the Tour 100 and the fact that it is a manoeuvrable racket.

However, I think how I strung it up (high tension) might have been my downfall on this occasion.

What I did get from the Tour 95 was great precision and decent spin.

I built up a lot of confidence on my second serve and was able to focus hard on hitting my targets.

The extra topspin I was generating also helped me to stop my opponent from getting on the front foot early in the rally.

All in all, it was a pretty good performance from the Textreme Tour 95, but I would say it was the weakest part of the playtest.

I could see this racket in the hands of players with much bigger serve than my own though, and I don’t think the racket’s slight lack of power would worry them.

If you’re a natural big hitter, then the Tour 95 is going to perform very well for you, and you will be able to maximize your shots with its manoeuvrability and excellent control.

For those of you who struggle a bit on the serve, though, I would look more towards the Tour 100.

I gave the Prince Textreme Tour 95 an 8 out of 10 on the serve.

It was just a tad underpowered, which I think could be an issue for players who already struggle a little bit in this area.

However, if you hit a big ball and look for control from your racket, you should be extremely interested in this stick.

I think it’s pretty clear that I really enjoyed the Textreme Tour 95!

For a guy who loves a blend of manoeuvrability and control, this is an ideal stick and one that would suit most playing styles.

I think it’s best suited to more advanced players whose strokes are going to be able to extract a bit more power and spin, but it could also work for strong intermediates.

Everything clicked for me with this racket from the minute I started hitting from the back of the court.

It had the blend of control, power, and speed that I look for with a nice dampened feel, allowing me to focus on the important parts.

I did find the 16 x 19 string pattern to play a little “loopier” on groundstrokes than I would normally like, but as I focused on flattening the ball out, I started to get very good results.

At the net, there wasn’t much more I could have asked for from the Textreme Tour 95.

It got into position easily and was able to absorb power when the ball was coming at me fast and supply power when it was floating to me.

If you play a lot of doubles then I think this is an excellent racket to look at because it does so well at the net, but also plays great from the back and on returns.

The only area where I didn’t gel perfectly with the Prince Textreme Tour 95 was on the serve, as I felt it was a little bit underpowered.

If you’re not a big server then perhaps this could be an issue for you, but it does offer plenty of control to make up for that.

Overall, I found the Textreme Tour 95 to be an exceedingly good racket and one that I would highly recommend.

As someone who loves to control the point from the baseline, there aren’t many rackets that I have found to suit my game better.