Editor's Choice writes:
First take: This game-improvement Völkl is like the Escalade of racquets: It's big and powerful, with plenty of bells and whistles to make playing tennis as easy as possible.
Compare to: Völkl Catapult 3
How it tested: The first thing we noticed about the DNX 3 was the trampoline effect in the string bed, which is caused by the Catapult springs that are located at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions of the head. Covering 12 grommets on each side, these graphite springs compress when the ball hits the strings, cushioning the blow, and release for power. The racquet is further juiced with an oversize head, extra length, and DNX. "DNX" refers to the ultrastiff carbon nanotubes placed at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions of the head and above the handle, so the frame bends less on impact and transfers more energy into the ball. You'll get plenty of pop on ground strockes, volleys, serves, and just about every other shot - older players in particular should appreciate this. The rub, of course, is that by using a racquet like this you won't develop your strokes much. But it will take what you have and make it better.
Bottom line: The power, light weight, an oversize head do a lot of the work for you.

We are in China at the moment and are very busy developing new frames that you can hopefully playtest and buy in the near future.

All our frames are produced in China ! That goes for the mass-production of all tennis racquets (Adults and Junior racquets). However the design, the construction, as well as the material composition of a frame is still 100% the responsibility and task of Völkl Tennis. Here we profit a lot from our prototype department in Straubing, Germany where we still mould a lot of proto-type frames, always trying new ideas, materials and other technologies (no, I will not tell you more, we can keep a secret… ;-) ).

The material composition of a tennis frame is really interesting: using the same basic material (Uni-directional Prepreg) we could make 1.000 different frames, even when the material is placed always at the same position (means all 1.000 frames would have the same mass distribution means same weight, balance and swingweight)!!! Reason for this is that the mechanical properties of a Uni-directional Prepreg can be widely changed by the orientation of the fibers. This behaviour of a material (properties are not the same in each direction) is called an-isotropic.

Also an exception here is our unique DNX material that is produced in the labs of the Fraunhofer TEG in Stuttgart, Germany. We, at Völkl Tennis have the exclusive rights to purchase this material from one of the leading technical institutes in the world.

Among the other advantages of this material (extreme high strength values, very good dampening) this material is also isotropic, means it has the same properties in all directions. Not like regular graphite fibers that are only strong in one direction, the new DNX is strong in EVERY direction, resulting in being 25times stronger than carbon as we know it today. Really a unique material and a material that other industries are already very very interested in, but for the Tennis industry Völkl Tennis has the exclusive rights ☺

Important for all of us here in the Research and Development Team of Völkl Tennis, is that we are experienced and serious Tennis Players. Of course we will never win a big tournament, but we know how to crank a forehand and we know what you need from a racquet when returning a 180 km/h serve or when hitting a deep slice backhand approach shot. Then again, we also have an experience play-test team around the world, assisting us in developing the right racquets.

All right, we’ve got to get back to our babies: the racquets, dead-lines are approaching.
We will keep in touch and you can be sure: we will work our ass off to improve our racquets further and further.



This is the Research & Development Department in Straubing, Germany. A thousand racquets and more...