With any sport, you will want to make sure you are using any advantage you can get. This means you’ll want to practice and train, keep your body in a fit and healthy condition, and get the best quality equipment you can afford. Thankfully for tennis, there isn’t much equipment to worry about. However, this means that when shopping around for different gear, you’ll stumble upon a wide range of options of varying quality and price.
To help prevent any overwhelming, we are about to review a set of tennis strings from the popular manufacturer Luxilon. While they may not be as big as a company such as Wilson, they are a good contender for second most popular thanks to their excellent quality.
Their focus has primarily been on the polyester side of the market for tennis strings, practically owning a monopoly on that side of the spectrum. However, the set we’ll be looking at today is their first set of natural gut strings, so let’s see how well it performs.
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Luxilon Natural Gut Tennis Strings
As we said before, Luxilon is a pretty popular racquet manufacturing company known for its high-quality products. While their focus may primarily be on polymer strings, this is their first venture into the world of natural gut tennis strings. This means they have plenty of years of experience behind them so that you can expect a certain level of quality from them.
Indeed, as you’ll discover later on in this article, there are some veritable high points that you can recognize as a signature to Luxilon. However, they are far from perfect, as some aspects of these tennis strings are a bit more mediocre or lackluster, which is to be expected from first-timers making their first set of natural gut strings.
Who is this product for?
Die-hard fans of Luxilon products may be quite torn about these strings, as they are, for the most part, polymer string users. Trying out these natural gut strings will feel quite different and can take some adjustment through plenty of practice to get used to.
However, if you are a natural gut string player already and looking for a new set of strings, then these might prove significant as you’ll already be acclimatized and have some expectations for how it should feel.
If you are a poly player and have trouble getting the hang of these strings, then you might try to use them in a hybrid setup, as they are pretty high quality. Another deciding factor for many is the price, as these are pretty pricey, though this is to be expected for natural gut strings.
Specifications
- Naturally colored
- Three gauge options:
- 16L (1.25mm)
- 17G (1.30)
- 17L (1.20mm)
- String Material: Natural Serosa Fibers
These strings come with the Luxilon quality guarantee, meaning you can expect an overall good set of strings. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll break down our review into different subsection paragraphs based on the power it provides, its comfortability, how it feels to control, and the overall quality and durability.
Starting with the power these strings bring to bear, anyone unfamiliar with how the natural gut feels when you play will immediately feel the strength behind each shot. Natural gut is incredibly elastic as far as tennis string materials go, and Luxilon’s take is no different.
There is a powerful response to each impact from the strings hitting the ball, which players will significantly appreciate when hitting game-winning shots. For optimal strength, be sure to find the perfect amount of tension when setting up your strings. The power these strings provide is one of the high points.
While the power of these natural gut strings is nothing to scoff at, the best feature lies in its comfortability. Natural serosa fibers are incredibly elastic and pliable, making them one of the most comfortable strings to handle.
Because of how they absorb the energy from impacts with the ball, creating a pocket of some kind, very little impact is transferred to your wrist or forearm, so you can comfortably swing without any aches or pains developing. If you’re a hybrid player, you might not notice an immediate difference, but if you’re more used to using stiffer polymer string racquets, then the difference will be immediately welcome.
The power and comfort of the strings are the main drawcards. When it comes to assessing the difficulty of control, you might find it a bit lackluster in comparison. This comes from a tension issue, wherein it can take some time to find a proper level of tension set within your racquet to get the full effect.
Thankfully, comfortability means you can reliably crank up the tension without sacrifice, giving you a better measure of control. However, this can sacrifice some power, so it can take some fiddling to find a balance that you are comfortable with.
As an added note for control, there is the subject of spin. While polyester strings can be shaped to have teeth that grip the ball to make spinning much easier, these natural gut strings don’t have the same design. Instead, they were designed to be smooth, with a low-friction surface meant to promote the ball to slide across the surface for a better spin, and while it does help, it is nowhere near as effective as traditional polymer at this job. However, by using these with a set of polymer strings in a duo hybrid setup, you might find it to be quite effective.
Finally, we’ll talk about the overall quality and durability. You’ll find that Luxilon has paid close attention to the quality of these strings and has managed to circumvent the biggest issue with natural gut. Typically, the natural gut has a problem with shearing, tearing, or wearing down very quickly, especially in a hybrid setup. However, these are pretty durable and hold their tension well, making them work quite well for playing hybrid. Overall, they keep their playability very well.
Pros
- Great power
- Very comfortable – prevents any aching in the arm
- Works well in hybrid setups or standalone
- Unique design to assist in spinning
- Durable and holds playability
Cons
- Requires some fiddling to find the proper tension
- Not the best for spinning as standalone
- Pricey compared to Luxilon’s typical poly strings
- Comprised of 9 serosa ribbons
- Extra ribbons deliver better tension maintenance
- Unique, low-friction coating optimized for hybrids
- Organic, grass-fed cows provide higher collagen level for incredible feel and durability
Conclusion
Overall, these are very high-quality strings that feel great on the arm and give a pop to your shot. While you may have some trouble controlling it initially, with some fiddling and perhaps a hybrid setup, you can come to learn to control and use it effectively.
