This user has no status.
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
🏆 Top 1% Commenter
Well-Known Member
Well-Known Member
This user has no status.
Has anyone heard anything about Azxi Pro?
I had the chance to hold a Xiom’s sample at a local store a few months ago and now they told me Axzi Pro is now offically released. I’m waiting for one with the right weight for me (86-88gr)
I’ve been using Azxi for 2 years and the fact that an upgrade version is out gives me chills 🥶
I had the chance to hold a Xiom’s sample at a local store a few months ago and now they told me Axzi Pro is now offically released. I’m waiting for one with the right weight for me (86-88gr)
I’ve been using Azxi for 2 years and the fact that an upgrade version is out gives me chills 🥶
This user has no status.
New Member
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
🏆 Top 1% Commenter
Well-Known Member
Well-Known Member
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
Member
I have seen an Instagram post about it but no pictures, if you have any I would be most grateful
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
🏆 Top 1% Commenter
Well-Known Member
Well-Known Member
I have both the pro and orange ice cream blades. Only the alc.material is different from the regular blades. The pro versions are from their stocks for their pro sponsored players so the quality is higher.
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
🏆 Top 1% Commenter
Well-Known Member
Well-Known Member
Recently I picked up the Joola Trinity blade I have and it is a really fantastic blade. And I got thinking: I have an Ice Cream AZX that I used during most of 2019 and in hindsight I achieved my biggest feats with it. I started using it right from the beginning of my transtion to Chinese like rubbers.
Initially I used it with a Big Dipper + Haifu Shark I think. It was really solid until my Haifu Shark got bubbled up and I changed it to a H3-50 35deg. That 3-50 was also excellent with it. Since I liked it so much I changed the Big Dipper to a 3-50 on FH too and I remember in the whole 2019 spring season I didn't lose a single match until I had a wrist injury, and I played like that and even like that I only lost 1 match because of that and because we played on the opponents turf and they used some weird ball. Then I changed the 3-50 on FH on to a 729 Battle 2 provincial version. Also a very good combo with this blade. So like Konrad Bak mentioned before it really paris great with sticky rubbers on the ALC side.
Since then I used a few blades, more than I care to admit and used D09c, Tibhar K2, H8-80, H3 BS, H3 orange, 729 B2 golden sponge. Tried most on Joola Trinity blade too and some others but Trinity is also very good with these sticky rubbers but man the AZX is a killer.
Okay let's step back a bit. My Ice Cream AZX is from a very early production unit, not sure if all of them have jointless kiri core, Xiom is not advertising it, but their higher end blades seem to have it.(same with Trinity)
My blade is at 90g dead on. Construction quality I would argue is even better than Butterfly. That South Korean factory makes excellent quality blades judging from the 2 that I own.
My only gripe is the handle, it is thin for me. So what I did is have some kinesio tape and I just stuck on a layer of that on the handle, now it is great. (protip: you can play with the weight and balance with this, and if you stretch the kinesio tape it will add less weight than if you don't stretch it)
So I glued on the blade 2 sheets of H8-80 since I find it quite compareble to D09c which I was mainly using on my FH. On the FH side (ALC) I had a black 38deg H-80, on ZLC side a red 37deg H8-80.
FH side was freaking insanely good. I actually find the H8-80 in many regards superior to D09c. For blocking, over tha table flat hitting, touch play it is just so much better. Where D09c usually wins is that it has more speed and catapult effect. But this blade is very fast in fact.
AZX measures around 1550hz on the frequency test. A normal Viscaria is around 1420-1450hz, Joola Trinity around 1400hz, Innerforce ZLC 1350hz, Mizutani SZLC 1500-1550hz... So you can imagine it is a very fast blade at 1550hz.
So the H8-80 on forehand felt like gold. Great speed, obviously great spin, and high and fast arc, I don't think I ever seen this crazy fast arc anywhere else before. Blocking was fast, controlled and so stable, much more stable than with Dignics 09c. I'm so impressed and this is not even the most crazy stuff.
Even the lowest and meanest backspin could be loop killed. I am completely impressed by this.
BH side with the H8-80 37 deg was just fine. It didn't click like the forehand, not at all. Okay I've been lately using Rozena on the BH and the H8-80 is quite different but I can interchange between D64 and H3N on BH very comfortably. H8-80 on BH has very high block angle, it is super fast on high speed balls, and quite dead when you want to open up. I'm sure I could adjust to it and this deadness has several advantages, but I feel a H3N would be even better as it further exaggerates both the deadness and the speed. But not all is bad and mediocore with it, chiquita was quite stable, just a push receive was very spinny and controlled, if you set your mind to a spinny open up to pivot FH finish is really nice. And loop killing on BH is also quite possible but you need to be there. I think it could work out quite well with practice and adjustment. It just didn't click with me for the first time. My other shortcoming was the 5th ball or 3rd ball finishing potential on BH. So if I did a spinny open up and it came back rather hight, if I didn't commit fully to the pivot FH kill and wanted to do the moneyshot on BH it was a bit of a gamble. It lacked the finishing potential or straight off missed. Please note these are my inner feelings and these are super subjective. I played like 45 minutes of warm up yesterday and 2 hours of matches and I destroyed 4 of my teammates uttery several times even like this. But I feel the moneyshot power is lacking on BH.
I am reporting this because if you are having a tight match, or you feel pressured or even scared a bit even if you can normally do a full commiting shot from BH but the pressure and stress can get to you. It can get to me too and if it's so much that you don't even dare to commit to a full powerful swing but shake and chicken out you are a goner...
So I am not goint to stick with H8-80 on BH, I am going to change it to the Double Fish Qiji "spin" rubber which if you want to know more you can search on this forum. The thread name is Double Fish Quji review or something misspelled but I wrote my honest opinion of that rubber. My thinking is that rubber will be more suited on this blade than H8-80. I will keep updating this thread on my findings, I also have Rozena, MX-P, and D64 lined up + the old trusted H3-50 or even H3N 37 deg national. If the Double Fish Qiji doesn't work out I will go to MX-P next and honestly I have some ideas that I do not have the material for. I am insanely interested in Mizuno Q Quality for BH. I really hope TT11 will carry it soon so I can buy it. If they don't I actually don't mind buying the Q4 or Q5 for my BH. The Mizuno Q series are such a polite rubbers with better controll than Rozena that I am kinda rooting for that all other rubbers fail and I can try them. They are not cheap tho, so my team's wallet is rooting for some chinese rubber or Rozena
. I also really adore Rozena for BH. I think it is not fluke that Zhu Yuling used it extremely sucessfully on her backhand during her "prime". From my bottom of my heart I wish her the best of luck in her fight for recovery, stay strong Sichuan girl.
I apologise for not actually talking about the blade that much but about the rubbers used with it. I believe the racket is a combination of the baseplate (blade), glue, and the rubber (with or w/o sponge). So for me it is very difficult to talk about just the blade itself. It is a combination of several characteristics.
However the Xiom Ice Cream AZX is a very solid blade with a basically Viscaria/Zhang Jike SZLC/Lin-Jun-Yu SZLC speed target, or attributes in mind that might surpass the Butterfly counterparts. In fact I have huge issues with recently manufactured Butterfly blades with ALC, ZLC, SZLC: namely on flat hits they make a weird sound and totally drop the ball, no it's not the rubber, it is coming from the blade. The Xiom AZX doesn't do this so in this regards it is superiour, but so are man Chinese clones.
I will be back with updates.
Initially I used it with a Big Dipper + Haifu Shark I think. It was really solid until my Haifu Shark got bubbled up and I changed it to a H3-50 35deg. That 3-50 was also excellent with it. Since I liked it so much I changed the Big Dipper to a 3-50 on FH too and I remember in the whole 2019 spring season I didn't lose a single match until I had a wrist injury, and I played like that and even like that I only lost 1 match because of that and because we played on the opponents turf and they used some weird ball. Then I changed the 3-50 on FH on to a 729 Battle 2 provincial version. Also a very good combo with this blade. So like Konrad Bak mentioned before it really paris great with sticky rubbers on the ALC side.
Since then I used a few blades, more than I care to admit and used D09c, Tibhar K2, H8-80, H3 BS, H3 orange, 729 B2 golden sponge. Tried most on Joola Trinity blade too and some others but Trinity is also very good with these sticky rubbers but man the AZX is a killer.
Okay let's step back a bit. My Ice Cream AZX is from a very early production unit, not sure if all of them have jointless kiri core, Xiom is not advertising it, but their higher end blades seem to have it.(same with Trinity)
My blade is at 90g dead on. Construction quality I would argue is even better than Butterfly. That South Korean factory makes excellent quality blades judging from the 2 that I own.
My only gripe is the handle, it is thin for me. So what I did is have some kinesio tape and I just stuck on a layer of that on the handle, now it is great. (protip: you can play with the weight and balance with this, and if you stretch the kinesio tape it will add less weight than if you don't stretch it)
So I glued on the blade 2 sheets of H8-80 since I find it quite compareble to D09c which I was mainly using on my FH. On the FH side (ALC) I had a black 38deg H-80, on ZLC side a red 37deg H8-80.
FH side was freaking insanely good. I actually find the H8-80 in many regards superior to D09c. For blocking, over tha table flat hitting, touch play it is just so much better. Where D09c usually wins is that it has more speed and catapult effect. But this blade is very fast in fact.
AZX measures around 1550hz on the frequency test. A normal Viscaria is around 1420-1450hz, Joola Trinity around 1400hz, Innerforce ZLC 1350hz, Mizutani SZLC 1500-1550hz... So you can imagine it is a very fast blade at 1550hz.
So the H8-80 on forehand felt like gold. Great speed, obviously great spin, and high and fast arc, I don't think I ever seen this crazy fast arc anywhere else before. Blocking was fast, controlled and so stable, much more stable than with Dignics 09c. I'm so impressed and this is not even the most crazy stuff.
Even the lowest and meanest backspin could be loop killed. I am completely impressed by this.
BH side with the H8-80 37 deg was just fine. It didn't click like the forehand, not at all. Okay I've been lately using Rozena on the BH and the H8-80 is quite different but I can interchange between D64 and H3N on BH very comfortably. H8-80 on BH has very high block angle, it is super fast on high speed balls, and quite dead when you want to open up. I'm sure I could adjust to it and this deadness has several advantages, but I feel a H3N would be even better as it further exaggerates both the deadness and the speed. But not all is bad and mediocore with it, chiquita was quite stable, just a push receive was very spinny and controlled, if you set your mind to a spinny open up to pivot FH finish is really nice. And loop killing on BH is also quite possible but you need to be there. I think it could work out quite well with practice and adjustment. It just didn't click with me for the first time. My other shortcoming was the 5th ball or 3rd ball finishing potential on BH. So if I did a spinny open up and it came back rather hight, if I didn't commit fully to the pivot FH kill and wanted to do the moneyshot on BH it was a bit of a gamble. It lacked the finishing potential or straight off missed. Please note these are my inner feelings and these are super subjective. I played like 45 minutes of warm up yesterday and 2 hours of matches and I destroyed 4 of my teammates uttery several times even like this. But I feel the moneyshot power is lacking on BH.
I am reporting this because if you are having a tight match, or you feel pressured or even scared a bit even if you can normally do a full commiting shot from BH but the pressure and stress can get to you. It can get to me too and if it's so much that you don't even dare to commit to a full powerful swing but shake and chicken out you are a goner...
So I am not goint to stick with H8-80 on BH, I am going to change it to the Double Fish Qiji "spin" rubber which if you want to know more you can search on this forum. The thread name is Double Fish Quji review or something misspelled but I wrote my honest opinion of that rubber. My thinking is that rubber will be more suited on this blade than H8-80. I will keep updating this thread on my findings, I also have Rozena, MX-P, and D64 lined up + the old trusted H3-50 or even H3N 37 deg national. If the Double Fish Qiji doesn't work out I will go to MX-P next and honestly I have some ideas that I do not have the material for. I am insanely interested in Mizuno Q Quality for BH. I really hope TT11 will carry it soon so I can buy it. If they don't I actually don't mind buying the Q4 or Q5 for my BH. The Mizuno Q series are such a polite rubbers with better controll than Rozena that I am kinda rooting for that all other rubbers fail and I can try them. They are not cheap tho, so my team's wallet is rooting for some chinese rubber or Rozena
. I also really adore Rozena for BH. I think it is not fluke that Zhu Yuling used it extremely sucessfully on her backhand during her "prime". From my bottom of my heart I wish her the best of luck in her fight for recovery, stay strong Sichuan girl.I apologise for not actually talking about the blade that much but about the rubbers used with it. I believe the racket is a combination of the baseplate (blade), glue, and the rubber (with or w/o sponge). So for me it is very difficult to talk about just the blade itself. It is a combination of several characteristics.
However the Xiom Ice Cream AZX is a very solid blade with a basically Viscaria/Zhang Jike SZLC/Lin-Jun-Yu SZLC speed target, or attributes in mind that might surpass the Butterfly counterparts. In fact I have huge issues with recently manufactured Butterfly blades with ALC, ZLC, SZLC: namely on flat hits they make a weird sound and totally drop the ball, no it's not the rubber, it is coming from the blade. The Xiom AZX doesn't do this so in this regards it is superiour, but so are man Chinese clones.
I will be back with updates.
Recently I picked up the Joola Trinity blade I have and it is a really fantastic blade. And I got thinking: I have an Ice Cream AZX that I used during most of 2019 and in hindsight I achieved my biggest feats with it. I started using it right from the beginning of my transtion to Chinese like rubbers.
Initially I used it with a Big Dipper + Haifu Shark I think. It was really solid until my Haifu Shark got bubbled up and I changed it to a H3-50 35deg. That 3-50 was also excellent with it. Since I liked it so much I changed the Big Dipper to a 3-50 on FH too and I remember in the whole 2019 spring season I didn't lose a single match until I had a wrist injury, and I played like that and even like that I only lost 1 match because of that and because we played on the opponents turf and they used some weird ball. Then I changed the 3-50 on FH on to a 729 Battle 2 provincial version. Also a very good combo with this blade. So like Konrad Bak mentioned before it really paris great with sticky rubbers on the ALC side.
Since then I used a few blades, more than I care to admit and used D09c, Tibhar K2, H8-80, H3 BS, H3 orange, 729 B2 golden sponge. Tried most on Joola Trinity blade too and some others but Trinity is also very good with these sticky rubbers but man the AZX is a killer.
Okay let's step back a bit. My Ice Cream AZX is from a very early production unit, not sure if all of them have jointless kiri core, Xiom is not advertising it, but their higher end blades seem to have it.(same with Trinity)
My blade is at 90g dead on. Construction quality I would argue is even better than Butterfly. That South Korean factory makes excellent quality blades judging from the 2 that I own.
My only gripe is the handle, it is thin for me. So what I did is have some kinesio tape and I just stuck on a layer of that on the handle, now it is great. (protip: you can play with the weight and balance with this, and if you stretch the kinesio tape it will add less weight than if you don't stretch it)
So I glued on the blade 2 sheets of H8-80 since I find it quite compareble to D09c which I was mainly using on my FH. On the FH side (ALC) I had a black 38deg H-80, on ZLC side a red 37deg H8-80.
FH side was freaking insanely good. I actually find the H8-80 in many regards superior to D09c. For blocking, over tha table flat hitting, touch play it is just so much better. Where D09c usually wins is that it has more speed and catapult effect. But this blade is very fast in fact.
AZX measures around 1550hz on the frequency test. A normal Viscaria is around 1420-1450hz, Joola Trinity around 1400hz, Innerforce ZLC 1350hz, Mizutani SZLC 1500-1550hz... So you can imagine it is a very fast blade at 1550hz.
So the H8-80 on forehand felt like gold. Great speed, obviously great spin, and high and fast arc, I don't think I ever seen this crazy fast arc anywhere else before. Blocking was fast, controlled and so stable, much more stable than with Dignics 09c. I'm so impressed and this is not even the most crazy stuff.
Even the lowest and meanest backspin could be loop killed. I am completely impressed by this.
BH side with the H8-80 37 deg was just fine. It didn't click like the forehand, not at all. Okay I've been lately using Rozena on the BH and the H8-80 is quite different but I can interchange between D64 and H3N on BH very comfortably. H8-80 on BH has very high block angle, it is super fast on high speed balls, and quite dead when you want to open up. I'm sure I could adjust to it and this deadness has several advantages, but I feel a H3N would be even better as it further exaggerates both the deadness and the speed. But not all is bad and mediocore with it, chiquita was quite stable, just a push receive was very spinny and controlled, if you set your mind to a spinny open up to pivot FH finish is really nice. And loop killing on BH is also quite possible but you need to be there. I think it could work out quite well with practice and adjustment. It just didn't click with me for the first time. My other shortcoming was the 5th ball or 3rd ball finishing potential on BH. So if I did a spinny open up and it came back rather hight, if I didn't commit fully to the pivot FH kill and wanted to do the moneyshot on BH it was a bit of a gamble. It lacked the finishing potential or straight off missed. Please note these are my inner feelings and these are super subjective. I played like 45 minutes of warm up yesterday and 2 hours of matches and I destroyed 4 of my teammates uttery several times even like this. But I feel the moneyshot power is lacking on BH.
I am reporting this because if you are having a tight match, or you feel pressured or even scared a bit even if you can normally do a full commiting shot from BH but the pressure and stress can get to you. It can get to me too and if it's so much that you don't even dare to commit to a full powerful swing but shake and chicken out you are a goner...
So I am not goint to stick with H8-80 on BH, I am going to change it to the Double Fish Qiji "spin" rubber which if you want to know more you can search on this forum. The thread name is Double Fish Quji review or something misspelled but I wrote my honest opinion of that rubber. My thinking is that rubber will be more suited on this blade than H8-80. I will keep updating this thread on my findings, I also have Rozena, MX-P, and D64 lined up + the old trusted H3-50 or even H3N 37 deg national. If the Double Fish Qiji doesn't work out I will go to MX-P next and honestly I have some ideas that I do not have the material for. I am insanely interested in Mizuno Q Quality for BH. I really hope TT11 will carry it soon so I can buy it. If they don't I actually don't mind buying the Q4 or Q5 for my BH. The Mizuno Q series are such a polite rubbers with better controll than Rozena that I am kinda rooting for that all other rubbers fail and I can try them. They are not cheap tho, so my team's wallet is rooting for some chinese rubber or Rozena
I apologise for not actually talking about the blade that much but about the rubbers used with it. I believe the racket is a combination of the baseplate (blade), glue, and the rubber (with or w/o sponge). So for me it is very difficult to talk about just the blade itself. It is a combination of several characteristics.
However the Xiom Ice Cream AZX is a very solid blade with a basically Viscaria/Zhang Jike SZLC/Lin-Jun-Yu SZLC speed target, or attributes in mind that might surpass the Butterfly counterparts. In fact I have huge issues with recently manufactured Butterfly blades with ALC, ZLC, SZLC: namely on flat hits they make a weird sound and totally drop the ball, no it's not the rubber, it is coming from the blade. The Xiom AZX doesn't do this so in this regards it is superiour, but so are man Chinese clones.
I will be back with updates.
Do you think Xiom blades are something like value for money compare to BTY and other brands by the way? I do see them that way. Even their premium blades due to being more or less lower in cost than that of BTY, and so on.
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
🏆 Top 1% Commenter
Well-Known Member
Well-Known Member
Well not really value for money, since they are quite expensive too. The IC AZX is quite well priced, but for example the Trinity from Joola is way too expensive at around 250EUR. That I would say is more expensive than BTY. Again the AZXi seems too pricey and so are the Calderano blades, they are on BTY levels of expensive.
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
Member
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
Member
Since I dont wanna read the whole thread:
What would be good rubber pairings for the AZXi?
How does it compare to other inner fiber blades?
+ What cheap, easy to get and use grip tape can you guys recommend?
I have a AZXi in ST to test,
I cant play with Straight handle, its just too uncomfortable and unnatural, so I wanna make it FL but I have never used grip tape before.
Edit: I was thinking of Jupiter 3 37 and some sort of chinese rubber, either R9 / Battle 3 or my Pin Yi Cui Feng rubber which I have laying around, it is barely tacky, more on the grippy side and plays more like a fast hybrid.
2nd Edit: How do the 2 sides compare to each other?
What would be good rubber pairings for the AZXi?
How does it compare to other inner fiber blades?
+ What cheap, easy to get and use grip tape can you guys recommend?
I have a AZXi in ST to test,
I cant play with Straight handle, its just too uncomfortable and unnatural, so I wanna make it FL but I have never used grip tape before.
Edit: I was thinking of Jupiter 3 37 and some sort of chinese rubber, either R9 / Battle 3 or my Pin Yi Cui Feng rubber which I have laying around, it is barely tacky, more on the grippy side and plays more like a fast hybrid.
2nd Edit: How do the 2 sides compare to each other?
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
Member
Glued it with Jupiter 3 37 on the Z side and Pin Yi rubber on A side.
Bounce and spin test seems promising so far.
Will update after I get to test it out.
Bounce and spin test seems promising so far.
Will update after I get to test it out.
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
🏆 Top 1% Commenter
Well-Known Member
Well-Known Member
I got myself an Ice Cream AZX pro mainly because I fear this blade will go extinct soon and it is a good blade, and I've been enjoying the larger head size of Stiga Inspira Plus or the Cybershape. My biggest issue with the original Ice Cream AZX was its handle, it was too skinny. Thankfully the pro version fixed this and the handle is quite nice and fat, similar to Chinese FL handles, definitely fatter than the fatter Butterfly handles.
Actually the head shape at 160x152mm is probably similar to old W968 tho the blade is quite different of course.
When I got it I have to say I wasn't that impressed since it didn't look particularly beautiful, near the edge of the racket I can see how the CNC bit milled the head out. Not like it's a big deal or I care much, but the first AZX I got in 2019 looked as good as Butterfly blades if not better. But the construction still looks better than the average DHS W968 and I can accept DHS so I won't bitch about it too much.
First time playing with it I had a used Glayzer which was cut to W968 and after air boosting it a bit fit on the blade, but barely. and I glued a used Quanshibao F1 on FH. Like this the racket is 187g which ain't bad at all. The blade is 87g naked btw.
Since I'm a lefty I start with BH warmup and not gonna the Glayzer on the BH side clicked immediately. Before I played with the Inspira Plus which is like a VIS so it's not too different tbh but the ZLC side is quite soft, I was expecting something hard and bit more difficult to handle but quite the contrary, it's super well controlled, dare I say more so than the Inspira plus. Maybe the little bit stretched Glayzer or the extra speed of the blade made it easier for me to use. And I could do banana flicks, open ups, pushes etc etc more controlled, and now after my 3rd training with it I'm still extremely impressed how easy it is. Also blocking is great even super spinny balls can be handled with ease, I never been so relaxed.
The FH side the ALC side was very rough at first for me. It felt soooo hard compared to the Inspira Plus, I was like damn I might not make this work on FH. Also maybe the balance was a bit wonky too so I couldn't hit the balls properly, I have this thing when I switch to Cybershape after not using it for long, I just can't hit the ball properly at first. So I didn't really give up but I was worried as hell since it was feeling very hard and stiff too.
On my 2nd training I honest didn't play much better which made me even more worried since I can usually adjust so fast, just need a good sleep after training and next day I'm dialed in, but this time I still felt the blade to be very very hard. It's a fast blade too, faster than Inspira Plus or Viscaria so I overshot a lot of balls too. So I was going home from training feeling like maybe I really can't make this work and I was gloomy about it since on BH it's nice and the handle and weight is right...
Today I had my 3rd training and finally I felt like my FH is getting dialed in. The blade is still quite hard but I didn't make any shitty mistakes and could land my hard shots well and I was feeling in the groove and could even risk to do some quite great shots with crazy angles. It's also possible the blade is breaking in a bit and getting a bit flexier and softer and ofc I'm adjusting during sleep too. But anyway today I've left training quite happy that I'm getting somewhere.
The blade hadles power so well, it is asking for harder and harder hits, it scales up well and now I'm not even overshooting anymore. The speed is there very much and as I hit harder it feels like the blade grips the ball more. This is quite promising for 2nd, 3rd ball killing, especially 3rd balls which I love to do.
That's not to say it's bad at weaker shots, but it's not very exceptional then. Tho blocking is very good with it on both sides.
As I said it's fast blade but somehow I have no trouble over the table at least I have less trouble than with Inspira Plus which I would say is quite good for me for such a fast blade.
Another excellent property of it is over the table countering, sometimes I feel if I get heavy topspins and I'm close the spin can overwhelm me with the Inspira plus, I tend to overshoot a lot. With AZX Pro I felt this shot is much easier to land on the table, the blade is not getting overwhelmed and even when I missed it was very close.
The Inspira Plus still much easier to use, that is a comfort blade compared to this one. That is a very nice blade and would recommend that to anyone over Viscaria and similar any day, since I think it performs better.
The AZX Pro however is very demanding to use well I think, it's more demanding than W968 for me but at least the output of the blade is more. So there are rewards to be had for sure, but one needs to be on the edge in one hand and at the same time can be relaxed too. Quite the bipolar blade... Maybe will become a bit easier to use with a bit more break in. I'm really not sure.
I think for pro players this blade is actually a pretty solid buy since it's not very expensive especially if I compare it to W968 prov or national or some higher end Yinhe blades it's actually cheap and is on par with Butterfly ALC blades in pricing. If someone wants to get pro Butterfly blade it will cost waaaaaaaay more.
I'm quite happy now that I got this over the Donic Zhang Jike blade since they were the same price.
Actually the head shape at 160x152mm is probably similar to old W968 tho the blade is quite different of course.
When I got it I have to say I wasn't that impressed since it didn't look particularly beautiful, near the edge of the racket I can see how the CNC bit milled the head out. Not like it's a big deal or I care much, but the first AZX I got in 2019 looked as good as Butterfly blades if not better. But the construction still looks better than the average DHS W968 and I can accept DHS so I won't bitch about it too much.
First time playing with it I had a used Glayzer which was cut to W968 and after air boosting it a bit fit on the blade, but barely. and I glued a used Quanshibao F1 on FH. Like this the racket is 187g which ain't bad at all. The blade is 87g naked btw.
Since I'm a lefty I start with BH warmup and not gonna the Glayzer on the BH side clicked immediately. Before I played with the Inspira Plus which is like a VIS so it's not too different tbh but the ZLC side is quite soft, I was expecting something hard and bit more difficult to handle but quite the contrary, it's super well controlled, dare I say more so than the Inspira plus. Maybe the little bit stretched Glayzer or the extra speed of the blade made it easier for me to use. And I could do banana flicks, open ups, pushes etc etc more controlled, and now after my 3rd training with it I'm still extremely impressed how easy it is. Also blocking is great even super spinny balls can be handled with ease, I never been so relaxed.
The FH side the ALC side was very rough at first for me. It felt soooo hard compared to the Inspira Plus, I was like damn I might not make this work on FH. Also maybe the balance was a bit wonky too so I couldn't hit the balls properly, I have this thing when I switch to Cybershape after not using it for long, I just can't hit the ball properly at first. So I didn't really give up but I was worried as hell since it was feeling very hard and stiff too.
On my 2nd training I honest didn't play much better which made me even more worried since I can usually adjust so fast, just need a good sleep after training and next day I'm dialed in, but this time I still felt the blade to be very very hard. It's a fast blade too, faster than Inspira Plus or Viscaria so I overshot a lot of balls too. So I was going home from training feeling like maybe I really can't make this work and I was gloomy about it since on BH it's nice and the handle and weight is right...
Today I had my 3rd training and finally I felt like my FH is getting dialed in. The blade is still quite hard but I didn't make any shitty mistakes and could land my hard shots well and I was feeling in the groove and could even risk to do some quite great shots with crazy angles. It's also possible the blade is breaking in a bit and getting a bit flexier and softer and ofc I'm adjusting during sleep too. But anyway today I've left training quite happy that I'm getting somewhere.
The blade hadles power so well, it is asking for harder and harder hits, it scales up well and now I'm not even overshooting anymore. The speed is there very much and as I hit harder it feels like the blade grips the ball more. This is quite promising for 2nd, 3rd ball killing, especially 3rd balls which I love to do.
That's not to say it's bad at weaker shots, but it's not very exceptional then. Tho blocking is very good with it on both sides.
As I said it's fast blade but somehow I have no trouble over the table at least I have less trouble than with Inspira Plus which I would say is quite good for me for such a fast blade.
Another excellent property of it is over the table countering, sometimes I feel if I get heavy topspins and I'm close the spin can overwhelm me with the Inspira plus, I tend to overshoot a lot. With AZX Pro I felt this shot is much easier to land on the table, the blade is not getting overwhelmed and even when I missed it was very close.
The Inspira Plus still much easier to use, that is a comfort blade compared to this one. That is a very nice blade and would recommend that to anyone over Viscaria and similar any day, since I think it performs better.
The AZX Pro however is very demanding to use well I think, it's more demanding than W968 for me but at least the output of the blade is more. So there are rewards to be had for sure, but one needs to be on the edge in one hand and at the same time can be relaxed too. Quite the bipolar blade... Maybe will become a bit easier to use with a bit more break in. I'm really not sure.
I think for pro players this blade is actually a pretty solid buy since it's not very expensive especially if I compare it to W968 prov or national or some higher end Yinhe blades it's actually cheap and is on par with Butterfly ALC blades in pricing. If someone wants to get pro Butterfly blade it will cost waaaaaaaay more.
I'm quite happy now that I got this over the Donic Zhang Jike blade since they were the same price.
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
🏆 Top 1% Commenter
Well-Known Member
Well-Known Member
I think I was talking that AZX Pro is demanding and I am 100% sure that is right since I paired it with demanding rubbers and the two together is guess what? 2x Demanding. But with more forgiving rubbers I think it is great.
Why? Because the blade has this base potential in speed and accuracy. So even if you pair it with a rubber that has not that much spin but spin it works so well.
On ZLC side Glayzer is great, enough speed, great control , great spin too, very comfy and safe combo and durable.
I've been playing around on the ALC side a lot with Chinese rubbers, actually the less demanding rubbers felt the best, and more demanding were more demanding.
So seems like I need to find a great FH rubber that is easy to use and the blade can push it to be great. Quanshibao F1 so far seems the best, Piny Cuifeng is not bad but more demanding, Quanshibao P1 is very very demanding...
So manybe some German sticky rubbers or even Glayzer 09c on FH I can imagine to be just about right.
Why? Because the blade has this base potential in speed and accuracy. So even if you pair it with a rubber that has not that much spin but spin it works so well.
On ZLC side Glayzer is great, enough speed, great control , great spin too, very comfy and safe combo and durable.
I've been playing around on the ALC side a lot with Chinese rubbers, actually the less demanding rubbers felt the best, and more demanding were more demanding.
So seems like I need to find a great FH rubber that is easy to use and the blade can push it to be great. Quanshibao F1 so far seems the best, Piny Cuifeng is not bad but more demanding, Quanshibao P1 is very very demanding...
So manybe some German sticky rubbers or even Glayzer 09c on FH I can imagine to be just about right.
Similar threads
