SOLINCO Tour Bite

While perusing various online tennis forums a few months ago, I came across a new string company called SOLINCO.  I was excited to learn of SOLINCO, and I promptly reached out to them to get more information.

My contact at SOLINCO, KT Kim, is a super-nice guy, and he offered to send me samples of three of their co-polyester strings:  Outlast, Revolution, and their flagship co-polyester string, Tour Bite.  Of course…  I never turn down free string and the opportunity to provide stringing and play-testing feedback to string companies. 

When the sets arrived, the first thing that struck me was how impressive SOLINCO’s packaging is.  I mean, I have seen some very cheap, unprofessional looking packaging from smaller string companies, but that certainly wasn’t the case with SOLINCO.  Their packaging is higly professional and ranks among the industry’s best.  Here is an image I took of Outlast and Revolution.  Judge for yourself.

Being a fully poly guy, I was anxious to try SOLINCO’s flagship co-polyester string, Tour Bite.  According to their website (www.solincosports.com), Tour Bite is a “newly developed, high-performance and versatile co-polyester string designed to generate extreme power and intense spin and bite.  Utilizes an innovative, high-powered co-polyester monofilament fiber designed and shaped to generate maximum power while amplifying the spin and bite intensity of the ball.”

Stringing Tour Bite was fine.  I mean, after all, it is a co-polyester string, so it isn’t as easy to string as a nice, soft multi.  But…  It isn’t as tough to string as my string of choice for the past two years, Alu Power Rough.

Tour Bite has a similar gray color to Alu Power Rough, but the similarity doesn’t stop there…  Like Alu Power Rough, Tour Bite, with its non-round shape, allows me to generate a great deal of spin/action on the ball.  I love to sit at the baseline and take big, full cracks at my groundies and hit with a ton of topspin, and Tour Bite allows me to do just that.  I am able to take big swings, but because of the additional topspin generated by Tour Bite, the ball seems to drop right where I want it to – deep but inside the baseline.  From a power perspective, I’d say Tour Bite is slightly more powerful than Alu – which for me was a slight negative but nothing that a little tension adjustment can’t fix.

I specifically recall the first time I played with Tour Bite.  I was playing a formidable opponent in my 4.0 singles league at South Regency Tennis Center, and while using my POG MidPlus with Alu Power Rough, had just dropped the first set 6-4.  Since my Alu had several hours of play in it already and was beginning to lose tension/playability, I figured I’d give freshly strung Tour Bite a try.  I switched to another POG with Tour Bite 17 at 57 lbs., and I promptly disposed of my opponet 6-0 in the second set, went on to take the super-tiebreaker, and ultimately won the match.  Did I pick up my game in a major way?  Did my opponent’s game fall off a cliff?  Or was it the freshly strung Tour Bite? 

Probably a combination of all three, but I know the fresh Tour Bite certainly made a difference.

Overall, I still think Alu Power Rough is slightly better than Tour Bite from a playability standpoint.  (There is just an almost magical crispness with Alu that I’ve yet to find in any other poly.)  However, Tour Bite is definitely an outstanding string, and one I certainly recomend to anyone who wants a c0-polyester string with great playability and exceptional spin generation.

I play-tested Tour Bite prior to purchasing my Beers ERT 300 Tension Meter, so I cannot specifically comment about Tour Bite’s tension maintenance.  From a gut feel, non-technical standpoint, it seemed to hold tension just as well as, if not better than, Alu.

In addition to the three co-polyester strings mentioned above, SOLINCO is currently developing a new co-polyester string that I will be play-testing in the near future.  Based on the excellent playability of Tour Bite and based on a recent conversation with KT, I am expecting exceptional performance from this new string.  Please check back for a review in a few weeks.

Not to be forgotten, SOLINCO also produces two multifilament strings (Tru Feel and Vanquish) and one monofilament string (Pro-Stacked).

Because of their high-quality strings, SOLINCO has been able to garner the attention of several top college teams such as UCLA, Pepperdine, and Virginia Tech to name just a few.  SOLINCO is, in my opinion, and up-and-coming string (and racquet) company that you’ll likely be hearing more about in the future.

Thanks for checking in.

DH