[Review Experience] YONEX DUORA 10

Jayce September 6, 2024 3 0

More and more, I’m not confident in how I feel. I have a lot of rackets to digest, and my ability to digest them is very poor, at the same time, my skills are not very good, and often there is a discrepancy between my personal experience and the reputation of the racket. Although categorized as a review, I have always positioned my words as “trial sharing”, and I would like to advise all players that they are for reference only and should not be taken seriously.

At the top end of the DUORA series, the DUORA 10LT is all that’s left, and there’s still one more target to fill. Thank you for borrowing it.

Parameters: 3UG5, de-bottomed, total weight in used condition 91.9g, balance point 305mm, center bar length 208mm, moderate stiffness, double sided shaped frame, 9-3 point cable slot, 76 hole cable bed, 26lb warranty, 25-27lbs of pull cable xb63.

The asymmetrical color scheme is the most dominant feature of the DUORA series in terms of appearance, and as the first in the series, the DUORA 10 makes more sense to me in terms of color choices than the later Frost Blue. The base color is black with a glossy lacquer finish, and the fluorescent orange and fluorescent green chosen for the racket both have a fairly youthful feel to them, and are colors I would be happy to take out and show off. If you hold the racket with the muzzle facing the orange part of the center bar, it means that the forehand face is a box frame. In fact, the whole racket feels quite understated and doesn’t reveal too much aggressiveness, perhaps also because it’s not that aggressive of a racket in the first place. However, the strength of the paint is not ideal, I received the racket in more than a few places have dropped paint, slightly difficult to understand is even the T-head part of the two pieces of larger defects, which is not a racket collision of the common bit, I deduce that more likely to hit the head of the ball caused by, and therefore can see how easy it is to become a battlefield color.

After all, Li Zongwei once used a DUORA 10-painted brother-in-law, and many Chinese feather players reflect that it is a difficult racket to use, so I would have thought that it is an offensive racket at first. But when I actually got my hands on it, I was a bit surprised by its low balance point, and the swingweight might not be as good as a 4U speed attack racket. I prefer a slimmer grip, and after a small amount of cushioning film and a layer of hand gel, the G5 still feels slim, but despite the slimness, it still feels solid in the hand. While with other DUORA racquets I’ve had a hard time appreciating the difference in swing speeds between the two sides of the racket in the air, I was able to blind taste the DUORA 10 – the box box held the ball a little better, while the windbreaker side of the racket was a little crisper. Although the DUORA 10 is less appreciated in YA’s high-end rackets, I was highly impressed with the regularity of the sweet spot and the jarring-free feedback during the at-home bump test.

According to me, the DUORA 10 is really good on the hands. With its low swingweight and rounded box frame, it has a high swing speed for a singles racket, so it’s a very smooth swing for both overhand and underhand shots. The mid-range is not extreme, and the actual stiffness is between DUORA 7 and DUORA 9 in the same series, which is moderately stiff at best, but still resilient. Combined with the advantage of a large sweet spot, it is possible to make initial contact with the DUORA after a few shots, and it is not as meaty as the DUORA 7, so with the XB63 hard line, it maintains the ability to easily hit the ball high and high, and at the same time, there is a gain in the feedback on the ball.

This tuning made me very happy with its performance in the front court of doubles. First of all, as I said, the DUORA 10 is still a fast and light racket, especially after tasting a 4U Big Sister on the same day. For faster paced matches, both forehand draws and backhand draws have the right feel, especially on the windbreak side of the frame, which is much crisper. If your teammates are good backcourt attackers, you can also use a variety of rubbing and releasing to create active opportunities, with a high degree of tolerance, and the front court will not miss the highest point because of excessive swinging weight.

DUORA 10 is not a backcourt killer, the power is limited, like heavy artillery fast comrades may be disappointed. However, this does not mean that it does not have the means of attack, in fact, relying on its driveability, stability and good elasticity, you can still pay more attention to the landing point of the coherent downward pressure to tear the opponent’s line of defense, kill the ball is not heavy, but still has a not bad ball speed, you can use the chopping and hanging, soft pressure and so on to maintain the initiative to keep the coherence of the first, and then wait for the opportunity to score, play a little more cleverly.

The less aggressive tuning of the D10 also had a comfortable experience for me on defense and passive getaways, with all of the catch-and-kill top-bounce backcourt having enough borrowed feel to get rid of the ball in place. It’s not bad for touching fish.

Maybe my tastes have changed as I’ve gotten older, but after only one game of this racket, which many people say is not good, I’ve grown fond of it. I’ll admit, it’s fallible, but the market performance isn’t as bad as word of mouth suggests – after all, as a racket that can be reproduced, it must have some strengths. In fact, judging by the level of appearances at the flat or club games I regularly attend, the D10 is in the minority. Now the price has gone up, but for those who have not yet formed a precise position on their own style of play, and who have passed the basic stage and want a high-end racket to advance but do not have a particularly clear idea of what they want, the DUORA 10 at the price of a year or two ago is an option.