Pro Kennex Kinetic 5G mini-review

With my golfers elbow arm troubles I was fortunate to get hold of and play with a Pro Kennex Kinetic 5G tennis racket. This racket has a well established reputation as being arm friendly especially for people with tennis elbow. The one I got hold of, and still have, is a couple of years old and so has the older colours with black paint and carbon fiber laminate styling, although that I believe is just a clever flashy looking stencil.

The racket feels solid, quite heavy, 336gms on my scales. If you shake it gently you can hear a rustling like sand in the frame. I suppose this is part of the kinetic system technology. It swings quite freely because it is several points head light. After playing with it I would characterize it as a players racket. It's low powered, almost dead, requiring a good swing to generate any depth or power. I happen to like low powered rackets but this was just about one of the lowest I've ever hit with.

At the time I tried it I was suffering from golfers elbow and a shoulder problem. I played with it for two hours in a social match as a test hoping that my arm would not feel any adverse effects. The next day I was sore. In retrospect I don't think it aggravated the injuries since I recovered quickly, instead I was muscle sore in both the forearm and shoulder where I had been handling weight I was not used to, and swinging harder to generate power on groundstrokes and serves. So if you're big and strong and hit groundies with long fast swings then maybe this racket is for you.

I never used it again and now have it in my collection. I plan to put it on ebay sometime, but if anyone reading this is interested, especially in the UK, feel free to email me and make a sensible offer around £30. That's half the price of a new one. It's not new, but the frame is sound with some chips around the top of the head which I've painted over using black gloss (I fill in the chips on all my rackets). The grip size is probably 3 which is ideal to make larger which I started to do. It's a good racket for the right person, almost a collector's item I would say.