What Works
Few recent racquet releases have been as eagerly anticipated as the RF 01 Pro. The marketing pitch is certainly alluring: It’s the racquet Federer custom made for his final days on tour, made available to the general public. Having the legend himself spearheading the promotion campaign only added to the fervor. But rest-assured the racquet isn’t just hype.
Federer wanted to evolve from his previous RF 97 Autograph into something more modern and user-friendly. And to that end, the racquet hits its target, essentially for two reasons. The most basic is it’s 20g lighter than the RF 97, making it easier to whip through the hitting zone, as well as manage over the course of a match. A 340g frame is a dinosaur in today’s game; even at the pro level, players typically balk at such heft.
The second is the slightly bigger head size, and slightly thicker, variable beam both give the user a bit more margin for error. The sweet spot isn’t quite as exacting, and there’s more help when contact is just outside of it. Yet, the response remains highly predictable, and you can expect to get out of the shot exactly what you put into it.
The racquet’s composition gives it a firm, solid and connected feel at contact. Users of the RF 97 may find it different from the straight box beam and perimeter weighting of that racquet, but it’s still a pretty direct approach. Wilson has been manipulating the bending properties of many of its recent offerings to address a frame’s stability and response, but the RF 01 Pro is more traditional in this regard. There’s also no special dampening technology—just good old foam filling. So feedback is clean with a good appreciation of where the ball is on the string bed.
