Tourney Prep PT 2

All right so this is part 2 of my search for a tournament paddle for the men's 4.5 tournament I'm playing with Jacob from All Drive No Drop. So based on the last few play sessions, the elongated pick I'm going to go with is going to be the Honolulu Pickleball Company's J6NF and the J6FC+ being the backup option. This is the top end level of pop and power I felt I could manage to dial in before the tournament and it was helpful that the J6 shape has more stability than most elongated paddles.

With my elongated picks out of the way, I still wanted to experiment more with standard and widebody shapes to see if my game would benefit from more maneuverability and stability in the paddles. For the hybrid options I tested, I went with the obvious choice of the J2NF LH and J2FC+ LH, while for the widebodies I opted not to use the J3 because I wasn't a big fan of that square shape. The last time I hit the J3 it felt too poppy with a high launch angle and I personally think that the J2 LH shape is superior to the J3.

Instead the widebodies I hit were the Chorus Phoenix SX, Vatic V-sol Pro Bloom, Bread & butter Loco S, 11Six24 Alpha Pegasus Power, and the Friday Fever 102.

The J2LH paddles I hit only for a few games and immediately just went back to the J6NF. At least with these two shape differences, I still felt more comfortable with the J6 and there weren't aspects of the J2 where I thought I was playing better than my J6 gameplay. Moving on, I spent a few play sessions with the different widebody paddles. With this shape, I enjoy combining the high stability and fast hands with a model that provides higher pop and firepower which is why I only opted for gen 3 and gen 4 power paddles here. Immediately I was reminded why I enjoy this shape a lot, my midcourt game, specifically my mid court resets, improved significantly and I felt more confident on my dinks because I had more room for error. While my serves and drives weren't as powerful and lacked depth, this actually gave me the unintentional benefit of having more effective drives. Because my shots weren't as powerful, my consistency actually improved and the height of my drives were lower and closer to the net which gave my opponents more trouble. Obviously this is something I can improve on my drives with elongated paddles but for how I was hitting at that time, it made the widebodies more appealing.

But of course, there are always downsides to switching and the main issue was at the kitchen. The shot I struggled with the most was my two handed backhand top spin dink. The shorter shape really affected my contact point on that shot. On normal slice dinks and my forehand topspin dink I adjusted pretty easily but there's less room for error on the twoey topspin dink, especially when I'm trying to go for a really aggressive roll and i found myself clipping the top of the paddle quite frequently. The other downsides are pretty obvious but one was the putaway power in my shots and the second was the overall reach I had in the kitchen. With the elongated paddles my overheads had more firepower but I did think with me using the poppier and more powerful widebodies, I didn't lose out too much in this area and still felt I had enough for my game. The reach was the bigger issue however since dinks and flicks I could normally take out of the air weren't working for me. This was definitely the biggest struggle to adjust to as right now in my game I'm terrible at backing out of that shot. Oftentimes I'll go for a dink out of the air and just commit and reach for it instead of backing up and letting it bounce.

Out of the widebodies I did prefer the Gen 4s over the Gen 3s. The gen 3 paddles all felt okay, the ones I picked were on the stiffer and lighter side. The Phoenix was the lightest feeling and I also didn't like the shorter length it had. The Fever didn't have the best sweet spot compared to the others and the Pegasus I held onto as my safe option. I played well with it but I was also hoping for a bit more firepower.

Now the two gen 4s were the Bloom and Loco S. The Boomstik I did consider bringing out but I dislike that the MOI tuning is at the 9 and 3 positions on a widebody and I personally like my weight at 10 and 2 because I like a higher balance on the shorter shape. I started with the bloom first because it has a longer handle than the Loco S and is the better shape my opinion. The bloom i enjoyed a lot, it had a bit more pop than the j6NF and more of a hollow feedback. I thought this was going to be the frontrunner until I gave the Loco S another shot. While I didn't like the shorter handle here, I preferred the feel of the Loco and connected more with that extra fiberglass pop it had.

It was a toss up between the two but I ended up choosing the better feel of the Loco over the shape of the Bloom. In my last few practice games, I liked the extra firepower I had in hands battles with the Loco and my feel for my shots just felt more comfortable with it as well.

Now between the Loco and the J6NF, this basically became a battle of the shapes. With the J6 I had better reach, more aggression at the kitchen, a higher power ceiling, and more comfort using my two handed back hand dink. With the Loco S I had better mid court resets, more consistency at the kitchen, and more room for error on my shots overall. So with the J6 I was sacrificing consistency while with the Loco SI was sacrificing my two handed dink and aggressive kitchen play. At least with my experiences I didn't think I was sacrificing putaway power with the Loco S because I was able to generate enough on my own and with the J6 I didn't find myself being too slow in the maneuverability department in firefights so that was also not a feature in the comparison.

It was honestly a very tough choice and I ended up going back and forth but the paddle I ended up choosing was the Loco S. My reasoning was that consistency would be more important and when I've got nerves in a tournament, especially when I haven't competed in a long time, I'm going to want to go with the shape that gives me more room for error. My partner Jacob is 6 foot 4 so even if we do stack, it would make sense to put him on the left side because of his reach so I didn't think the two handed backhand dink would be that useful to me so I was okay sacrificing that shot for some more consistency. The reach and aggression at the kitchen was going to be the big blow but I was more afraid of missing a few routine dinks in the tourney and having my confidence plummet and affect my game that I felt consistency was going to be the most important aspect.

So there you have it, that's how I ended up picking the Bread & Butter Loco S for the tournament!