Badminton Racket Li-Ning AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX Reviews

Jayce October 18, 2024 4 0

In the second half of 2021, the launch of the AXFORCE series marked the beginning of a new era for Li-Ning’s offensive racquets, and with the success of the pioneering AXFORCE 80, Li-Ning didn’t stop moving forward.In early 2022, the shocking revelation of AXFORCE 90 Dragon-Tiger MAX, the newest racquet in the AXFORCE series, once again triggered a great response. In May, the two racquets went on sale, and the AXFORCE craze swept through again! As the latest flagship racket of Li-Ning in 2022, the naming of AXFORCE 90 Dragon/Tiger MAX gives a glimpse of its superb positioning! Dragons and tigers have been revered and admired by the Chinese since ancient times, and the dragon is the most important symbol of good fortune and nobility, as well as majesty and aggressiveness.

AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX, a weapon with the name ‘Dragon’ and endorsed by 2021 World Championships Men’s Singles Champion Kenny Locke, is the main attraction of today’s event!

Sculpted dragons and phoenixes, the painting of the near peep far view

The appearance of AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX can be said to perfectly fit the word ‘AXFORCE’ in the series name. The navy blue background colour, together with the blue-based and orange-red paint, is like a pure green fire burning, like a thunderbolt in the night sky that shakes the sky!

The frame of the AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX adopts the left-right symmetrical design that is most commonly used by Li-Ning, with the exception of the ‘AXFORCE’ lettering on both sides of the T-head and some other details.

The name of the series ‘AXFORCE’ is printed in silver on the lower left corner of the frame, and like the Li-Ning logo in the centre of the T-header, the silver metallic texture has a light iridescent sheen, and the colours flicker and shine from different angles.

The top-down Thunder Dragon pattern on the centre pole is dominating, like a thunderbolt of dragons falling from the sky!

At a closer look, the coating of Thunder 90 Dragon MAX is very delicate and gorgeous, embellished with dragon scale-like patterns and lightning-like lines, the elements of ‘AXFORCE’ and ‘dragon’ are perfectly integrated on the body of Thunder 90 Dragon MAX. It is intriguing when examined carefully, and spectacular when appreciated from afar! AXFORCE is magnificent, and the dragon breaks through the wind and clouds!

Ins and outs, parameters and technology at a glance

The AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX in my hands is a 3U/G5 specification, weighing about 87.16g empty with sole rubber and 79.86g de-soled.

It weighs about 93.15g after top line (Viktor VBS-66N line, 25lbs) and hand rubber (cushioning membrane + Li-Ning GR1000 hand rubber), and has a balance point of 307mm, a standard head-heavy offensive racket configuration.

The total length of the racket is 675mm, after measurement, the frame is about 254mm long, the centre pole (from the top of the cone cover to the lowest line hole on both sides of the T-head) is about 204mm long, and the handle (from the bottom cover to the top of the cone cover) is about 217mm long.

Being a small frame racquet, I compared AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX with the racket faces of VT-ZFⅡ LCW, D-ZS and NR-ZSP. Compared to these three small-frame racquets, the frame of AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX is basically the same as theirs in terms of width, but it is longer, about 5mm longer than the VT-ZFⅡ LCW, which has the longest frame among them.

This length of the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX frame is instead in line with larger framed racquets such as the ARC-11 and NF-700, and in comparison to the ARC11, for example, the frame of the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX is only a little narrower in width.

Comparing the lengths of the centrebars, the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX has the shortest centrebars of the four racquets, and accordingly, the handle is a little on the longer side.

So technically, the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX belongs to the category of racquets with narrow frames and extended handles.

The AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX features a 72-line hole, box-style racket frame. The bottom of the frame (near the T-head) is about 10.43mm wide, while the thickness is about 7.99mm.

The racket frame is approximately 9.88mm wide and 6.38mm thick on both sides (3 o’clock and 9 o’clock).

The top of the shooting frame is about 10.39mm wide and 6.54mm thick.

The frame of the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX is very slim overall, even narrower and thinner than some speed racquets as you can see based on the measured data of width and thickness.

Secondly, the frame of AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX adopts an almost fully wire-slotted design, with two connecting pegs on each side of its T-head and wire slots on the rest of the frame. This design is identical to that of the NF-700 and the AX-99PRO, which reduces the windward area of the racket face to lower the wind resistance and increase the swing speed.

However, as an attacking racket, swing speed is not enough, you must focus on the stability of the racket face and power transfer when hitting the ball. In addition to the box frame that ensures solid and stable hitting, AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX has made great efforts on the frame material! The most important feature is the introduction of Toray M50 Carbon as the frame material. This new generation carbon with high modulus of elasticity allows the frame to withstand significant bending, thus accumulating more elastic potential energy and providing more power for hitting. Together with ‘TB-NANO’ superconducting nano, the durability of the racket is also guaranteed.

The secrets of AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX’s racket frame don’t stop there. On both sides of the frame, AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX is equipped with the ‘WIND STABILIZED’ wing stabilisation system, which plays a role in suppressing racket wobble and improving the torsional performance of the frame when hitting the ball.

In addition, AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX is equipped with a high composite density damping system that enhances its damping effect, allowing for a smoother power transfer when hitting the ball, releasing all of the power from the ball, enhancing feedback and reducing the load from the ball.

AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX is equipped with a 6.2mm slim high-strength bionic centre shaft, with an actual measured diameter of approximately 6.64mm.

Like its predecessor, the AXFORCE 80, the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX’s mid-shaft continues to be equipped with AXFORCE’s ‘FRTP TECH’ supercharged kinetic system, which, thanks to the high modulus of elasticity of the new generation of M50 Carbon, increases the elastic potential energy brought about by the deformation of the mid-shaft, and thus improves the attacking performance.

At the same time, the ‘UHB SHAFT’ brings the flex point of the middle shaft closer to the front end, resulting in a fuller power transfer and a more concentrated shot.

AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX is equipped with the ‘STABILIZED ELASTIC SHAFT’ mid-barrel reset system, which effectively dampens vibration through good elasticity and toughness, providing more comfortable feedback on the ball, and reducing the load on the user and sports injuries.

The AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX features a double fish mouth cone cap with a wooden handle.

3U’s AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX warranty pounds up to 31 pounds.

Dragon’s Greeting, Hitting Feeling and Practical Experience

Long Balls

Maybe it is because the handle length of AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX is relatively large, despite the weight of 3U and the balance point of 307mm, when I first picked up AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX and weighed it in my hand, I didn’t feel any obvious heavy feeling in the head of the racket, which is the unanimous feeling of the author and the friends who took part in the experience. When swinging the racket, I could feel that AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX has a certain swing weight, but it is also somewhat different from what I thought. Before I started to use AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX, I always thought it would be a heavy weapon like VT-ZFⅡ LCW, with a very large swing weight, extremely hard mid-range, and difficult to handle, but after using AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX for the first time and pulling the ball for about ten minutes, my impression of AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX has changed significantly. When swinging AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX, you can indeed feel a certain degree of head weight, the racket head has obvious inertia, but compared with the VT-ZF II LCW extremely hard middle shaft, AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX is very different, although the official hardness of the middle shaft of the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX is marked as hard, but in the actual hitting process can be clearly felt in the middle shaft deformation, even if you do not need to send a too vigorous Even on high shots that don’t require too much power, the deformation of the mid-range is noticeable. Perhaps due to the slenderness of the centre stick and the elasticity of the centre stick and the frame, the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX feels hard and bouncy, with good ball retention and a solid feel in the hand. Returning the ball with the same force, one can experience the interaction between the racket face line bed and the ball, rather than the stiffness of the VT-ZF II LCW.

I used the same 3U VT-ZFⅡ LCW, D-ZS, NR-ZSP and JS-10 Black Gold racquets, which are also known for their stiff mid-range, to compare with AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX in terms of hitting feeling. First of all, as an offensive racquet, I think the VT-ZFⅡ LCW is still the most extreme among them, with a swingweight and mid-range hardness of the ceiling; the D-ZS does not have a big difference in swingweight compared to the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX, but the mid-range shape of the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX changes significantly when hitting the ball, while the D-ZS is straight up hard and a little bit on the wooden side; and as a speedy racquet, the NR-ZSP and the JS-10 Black Gold are also known for their stiffness in mid-range. -Overall, the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX is not as hard as the VT-ZF II LCW and D-ZS in terms of driving difficulty, while the NR-ZSP and JS-10 Black Gold are different from each other.

Back to the point, when hitting the ball high, thanks to the elasticity of AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX’s centre and frame, it is still relatively easy to hit the ball, and with the inertia of the racket head under the high balance point, you can comfortably return the ball to the baseline in the active situation by just applying the whipping action in a normal and relaxed way without applying too much extra force.

Killing

When using AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX to kill the ball, the first thing that surprised me the most is that its hitting sound is very light and crispy, which also surprised me a little bit, after all, the top line poundage is only 25 pounds, the poundage is not very high, and they all chose the same VBS-66N strings, but the hitting sound is very different from the other racquets, and the sound of the blasting sound is very fast! In contrast, the AX-99, which is also an offensive racquet, has a relatively muffled sound. If I were to try to analyse this, I think it might be due to the more concentrated power of the smaller frame.

The sound is only external, but AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX in the quality of killing the ball is not flashy, its performance is absolutely worthy of Li-Ning’s new generation of offensive flagship positioning. In order to collect a more comprehensive feeling evaluation, in the process of using AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX for more than a month, in addition to their own subjective feelings, I also invited a few friends who are good at killing the ball to participate in the experience, and refer to their evaluation.

First of all, AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX has a complete hitting experience when killing the ball, and the user can clearly feel the process of the mid-shot deformation accumulating energy and then bursting out, with solid feedback, a feeling that the racket and itself are one, and every hit is very solid.

Secondly, the explosive power of the middle shaft and frame elasticity makes the ball speed of heavy kills absolutely guaranteed. As a spectator, I can feel the ‘heavy’ of AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX’s kills to the naked eye, and I can really feel the pressure of defending when I stand on the opposite side of the court in a real battle.

In addition to ball speed, the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX Heavy Kills have a respectable angle of attack, allowing you to hit kills with a sharp angle.

In addition, thanks to the concentrated power of the small racket frame, the AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX has a good pointing of the ball, and the control of the landing point of the kill ball can be more clear and accurate.

Finally, the most important point is that AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX racket body overall shock absorption performance is good, hair force heavy kill, compared to the VT-ZF Ⅱ LCW and D-ZS and other types of offensive racquets, there is no obvious vibration feeling, continuous attack to the user’s burden is relatively small, of course, this is based on the premise of the correct hair force action norms.

Overall, the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX has a great performance in killing the ball, with excellent feedback from the elastic centre stick and a stable frame, coupled with a high balance point and heavy body weight, the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX is an unbeatable attacking weapon if you have enough power to handle it!

Flat High Ball

AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX seems to have a kind of magic power, which drives the user to keep on attacking and outputting on the court, this is what I feel after using AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX for many games of singles. However, the attack is not only to kill the ball, combined with the characteristics of AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX, such as good feedback in the middle of the club, solid hitting feeling, and good pointing of the ball, it is also a good choice to use the Ping Gao ball to organise the attack and break through the opponent’s defence.

If you have a heavy kill that scares your opponent, then with good backcourt consistency, the judicious use of attacking flat-high shots can often have a surprising effect in practice.

Kick reception/defence

The overall weight of 3U’s AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX is heavy and head heavy, so it struggles with underhand returns such as catches and kills. However, the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX still surprised me with the feel of the ball when I first tried to catch and defend with it. Thanks to the hard popping centre pole, when using AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX to receive the kill top backcourt, there is a kind of ball ejection out of the fast hitting feeling, hit the sweet spot of the case can obviously feel a kind of solid and hard, in turn, is less cumbersome feeling of some heavy racket, as long as you hit the sweet spot, will be the top of the ball in place is not a problem.

But the problem still lies in the forgiveness. As a heavy racket, the movement of the racket head is on the slow side, when dealing with the incoming ball, the racket head from the ready position (the centre of the body) to the hitting point and the force of the process is longer than the general racket, it seems to be bulky, inflexible, coupled with AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX frame is small, the probability of being able to accurately sweet spot on the hitting point is down, in this case, if the incoming line of the ball is very positive and there is no change is okay, but a change in the line of difficulty, the defence will have no problem to hit the ball in place. If the line has changed, the difficulty of defence rises sharply, especially the position of the left and right armpits, the armpit position of the racket holder is easy to hit the ball, the other side of the armpit position of the non-racket holder is easy to send the force is not sufficient to lead to the ball is not in place. In the face of the opponent’s kill, the first beat in place, it is good to say, can be for the next beat to win time, did not form the rhythm of the pressure, but if the first beat is not quite in place, so that the opponents formed a coherent attack, AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX will be difficult to fight and get rid of the power.

Flat Shot

Flat blocking is a little different compared to catching a kill, because it does not require much power, you can’t feel the advantages of solid, hard and elasticity when catching a kill, although the feedback of the middle stick is good, and the feeling of hitting the ball is clear and hard, but the overall weight of the heavy weight, high balance point inevitably leads to the inertia of the racket head, which affects the speed of the racket back after hitting the ball, and slows down the speed of the coherent articulation, and thus the Thunder 90 Dragon MAX will be difficult to deal with the opponents holding speed rackets with changes in direction and landing point when they are not facing the Thunder 90 Dragon MAX. ‘As a result, in the fast-paced mid-court match, AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX has difficulty in dealing with balls with changing directions and landing points, and if it does not get rid of them as soon as possible, it will be defeated in a few rounds.

Passive transition

The passive transition shot here mainly refers to the return of the ball from a lower (below shoulder height) position on the baseline in singles. AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX has a heavy racket head, so in the overhand stroke, the racket head inertia can be used to gain more speed and kinetic energy, but in the underhand stroke, the power we exerted will not only be used for hitting the ball, but also some of it will be lost due to the need to make the racket head move from the bottom to the top to do work, so we need to exert more power when using AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX passive transition, which will result in greater consumption of energy and greater load to the user in the long run. Therefore, more force needs to be exerted when using the Thunder 90 Dragon MAX passive transition, which in the long run is a greater consumption of physical energy and a greater load on the user. I use Thunder 90 Dragon MAX for singles, in the first game, especially in the opening stage of physical fitness, you can rely on faster speed to reduce the frequency of passive ball, so as to give more play to the power of AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX in the overhand ball, but in the second game of the physical fitness decline, AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX began to seem cumbersome to opponents of two bottom of the line of the ball is somewhat tired of the fight, plus the energy will also decline with the physical fitness. Energy will also decline with the decline in physical fitness, the phenomenon of hitting the sweet spot or even hit the box began to appear, ball control deviation, easy to return the ball is not in place, the ability to get rid of the decline. Therefore, I felt that the first and second sets were played with two different rackets, the first set gave full play to the advantages, while the second set showed the disadvantages, and the pros and cons were obvious.

Overall, when using the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX for singles, it can be difficult to get to the top handball club, requiring a higher degree of accuracy and expending more energy to complete the return. As a result, the AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX is a little more difficult to handle for players with less than stellar fitness. Of course, players who are confident in their strength and fitness will not have to worry about this, but it will also take time to get used to the feel of the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX in the small sweet spot when it comes to passive transitions.

Net shots

The front of the net is a test of skill and feel of the area, talking about the impact of the racket on the ball, I believe that the light racket is better in the fast change, the scope to perform a variety of skills, while the heavy racket is easier to control the force of the ball, solid and stable control of the landing point. AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX has an excellent feedback centre stick, which gives a hard and bouncy feel on the putt and controls the landing point without the slightest insecurity of ‘floating’.

Comprehensive Evaluation

As the flagship racquet of the 2022 Li-Ning AXFORCE series, the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX is full of sincerity, from the paint to the use of materials and technology. As an offensively orientated racquet, the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX also lived up to its expectations, with excellent offensive performance thanks to the stiff and bouncy middle, as well as a frame that is both flexible and stable.

Although the heavier swing weight makes 3U’s AXFORCE 90 DRAGON MAX a bit of a handicap, the stiff-medium, shock-absorbing mid-range still delivers a relatively friendly hitting feel and experience. It is suitable for singles players who like to attack, as it is easy to borrow power for long balls, has solid and stable bursts for kills, and has a clear control feel at the net.

However, the overall heavier weight and higher balance point make the AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX’s mid-court flat draw blocking and catch-and-kill defence still a weak point, which puts it at a disadvantage in faster-paced matchups, making it relatively unsuitable for doubles play.

Dragon scale trips the body of the gorgeous paint, burst AXFORCE-like offensive experience! Overall, AXFORCE 90 Dragon MAX is a piece of work with distinctive features, innovation in tradition, and breakthrough in maturity.