Felix Auger-Aliassime will play the 4th round at the Australian Open for the first time. I think it’s about time I write a little about his racket. He uses the Babolat VS tour racket, with specs that are very reminiscent of the Rafael Nadal racket specs. Although the VS line of the Aero is very different from the Aero that Nadal uses, the specs are similar. Not so head light balance, relatively low MGR/I and high swingweight. He also uses a thicker gauge of the RPM Blast (rough) string, like Nadal. Felix uses the 1,30 mm string, while Nadal uses the 1,35. They both need the control from a thicker string, to control the powerful racket and setup. While Nadal uses a bigger head size and a more open string pattern, he compensates with an even thicker gauge.

I think that Felix would benefit more from a more control-oriented racket as his most common mistake is hitting the ball long. He should raise the MGR/I a bit, to control depth better and play his attacking brand easier. What he uses now is more suitable for a style of play that Nadal has – Focusing on topspin to drag opponents left and right and control the point like that. Felix doesn’t utilize the angles so much and the racket is often too unpredictable for how he wants to use it. Still…we can not argue with some of his results, but I think that there is a lot more potential to be gained from his beautiful groundstrokes and athleticism. He will need to tap into some more of that potential to win a grand slam one day. Nevertheless, let’s take a look at what he uses (source: mptennislab):