Head Extreme Tour Racquet Review

Groundstrokes - Score: 81

As our team expected, the Head Extreme Tour 2022 offers a massive amount of spin to players. With the spin grommets and ultra-fast swingweight, this racquet let our playtesters easily ramp up speed when necessary. With her background on clay courts, Zsofi loved how much spin she could generate when hitting with the Extreme Tour. She said, "I really enjoyed the easy depth I was getting with the new Extreme Tour on the baseline! It was one of the first things that stood out for me when I picked up the racquet. I was able to easily open up the court with more aggressive angles and move my opponents around. I grew up playing on the red clay courts of Europe, so I especially appreciate a racquet that is able to give me that extra spin I am looking for, and the new Extreme Tour did just that. It's a super spin-friendly racquet, so if that is something that you are looking for, give this one a go!"

Michelle found it simple to shape the ball to keep her opponents deep in the court. She said, "The first thing I realized about this racquet was how fast it played. It was explosive, but still stable for its weight. I tested this Extreme Tour after playtesting some extended-length racquets that were on the beefier side and a bit hefty to swing, and this racquet was quite the opposite, so it was a nice change of pace! I did note at times that I was missing some mass in the racquet's head and could have used that extra weight to push through the ball. I like to lead with the tip of my racquet through the ball and felt like the tip was struggling to come through when I went for bigger shots. For me, this was an easy sign that this racquet would perform well with a tiny bit of customization. The sweetspot, however, did feel forgiving, and it was easy to get some arch on the ball. I enjoyed working on shots with more topspin, pushing my opponents back with the ball jumping up rather than penetrating through the court."

Among a long list of positives, the standout feature for Andrew was how comfortable the racquet felt. He explained, "The Head Extreme Tour meshed well with my play style from the baseline. I found it easy to maneuver for my topspin forehands and stable enough for my slice and flatter backhands. The lower RA was noticeable and made my hitting experience comfortable compared to other spin racquets, which is a huge advantage. The response was not lacking even though the racquet offered more flexibility. As it does with other racquets, Auxetic technology seemed to make the sweetspot large and consistent — a huge bonus since it is pretty easy for me to hit outside the sweetspot when ramping up on spin. Lastly, the lower swingweight made it simple to get the racquet moving when I was on the run or in defensive scenarios."

Mark took note of how well the Extreme Tour handled slice and topspin backhands. He said, "I spend most of my tennis time playing from the baseline, so I look for racquets that are heavy enough to be stable, yet light enough to maneuver during long matches and groundstroke exchanges. Overall, my groundstrokes were sound; however, the new Head Extreme Tour errs slightly on the side of maneuverability and not stability, so I was feeling the weight of the ball on my stringbed more. After the second hour of play, the issue was cured with an increase in swing speed to get the shot depth I need. Lastly, its 16x19 pattern looks and feels tighter than the Extreme MP's, yet it still allows for easy generation of topspin and complements my backhand slice better than expected."

Volleys - Score: 80

At net, our playtesters found the Head Extreme Tour 2022 to offer quick maneuverability and sufficient stability against heavy hitters. Michelle and Zsofi both play high-level doubles, and the Extreme Tour easily handled their quick exchanges. Michelle said, "At net, I found this racquet fairly easy to use. However, I did find it more effective to really punch volleys to make sure they had some snap behind them. It was super maneuverable, and I didn't have any issues with stability even against the big hitters — no wobbles luckily!"

Zsofi added, "I play a lot of doubles nowadays, and I really appreciated the extreme stability of this racquet at net. Even if I only had time for a quick reflex volley, I still felt stable during the shot and could trust the Extreme Tour to do its job."

Mark had to put in some extra effort to find success on volleys with this racquet. He said, "As I mentioned with regards to play from the baseline, could feel the weight of the ball on the stringbed of the Extreme Tour 2022 a little more than I do with racquets that feature a higher swingweight. So, where I would typically just make contact with the volleyed shot, I had to punch forward with the Extreme Tour to keep my volleys from being pounced on by my opponent."

While he generally prefers to stay on the baseline, Andrew was able to utilize a wide variety of shots at net with the Extreme Tour. He said, "Although I don't prefer the net in most cases, the Extreme Tour offered quick speed and easy playability in situations when I had to move up. My biggest concern when initially hitting the Extreme was the speed-to-stability ratio. With a sub-320 swingweight, the Extreme Tour held up surprisingly well when blocking back powerful shots. I never felt the racquet twisting, unless I really messed up and hit near the edge of the frame. Otherwise, I was able to volley with a good amount of variety, from drop touch shots to deep, penetrating volleys."

Serves - Score: 82

Out of all the parts of this playtest, our team thought the Head Extreme Tour 2022 performed best on serves. The swing speed made it easy to generate racquet head speed, and the spin grommets boosted kicks and slices. Andrew favored serving with the Extreme Tour over other spin racquets due to its low RA and the comfort he found from the Auxetic technology. He said, "I have had some shoulder and wrist issues in the past, but the quickness and power potential made the Extreme Tour super easy to serve with. I found my favorite serve to be my slice serve. The racquet was fast, yet controllable enough to keep the ball in play when pushing serves out wide. Of course, with the spin grommets, I could also get the ball to kick up on topspin serves, which gave me some serving versatility. The serve I really had to focus on was my flat serve. With the Extreme Tour's depth generation, I had to pay attention to my contact to keep the ball from landing out."

Zsofi felt very confident with this racquet in her hands and was able to go for riskier serves with more success than usual. She said, "The new Head Extreme Tour was awesome on my serves! My serve is not normally a shot I lean on as a strong weapon, but with the new Extreme Tour I felt brave enough to pick riskier targets, and I was able to generate easy power."

Michelle and Mark both found serves to be their favorite shot of the playtest. Mark described, "As with every other shot I hit with Head's new Extreme Tour, I found myself having to use more tip speed to get an effective level of pace and spin on my serves. Where I maybe struggled a bit more at net and from the baseline with this racquet, the fast-swinging nature of the Extreme Tour catered to good action and pace on the ball, making the serve my best shot of the playtest."

"This was one of the bright spots of the playtest for me because the lower swingweight reacted really well to every serve," Michelle added. "The targeting felt very dialed in as well. I could flatten out serves easily, but I also really enjoyed hitting second serves with this racquet. It wasn't demanding at all, and I could really get momentum going through the ball. I loved hitting big flat 'T' serves on both sides!"

Returns - Score: 76

With its high swing speed, the Head Extreme Tour 2022 had our playtesters questioning if the stability would provide enough confidence to return against big servers. By the time testing was through, they were happy to find that the Extreme Tour performed extraordinarily well for its sub-320 swingweight. The Extreme Tour made it simple to get in front of the ball, allowing the user to be more spin-aggressive than with racquets with higher swingweights. Andrew usually hits a counter-punch return, but he was able to return more serves with topspin and angles with the Extreme Tour 2022. He described, "The Extreme Tour was great on returns. Typically, I like to return with a chip or flat counterpunch, but the Extreme Tour gave me so much confidence to hit with spin that I was slicing or adding topspin to most of my returns. Flat returns were still there when I wanted them, but I really enjoyed being able to comfortably use spin to angle my returns off the center of the court. As with other shots, the Tour held up well against big serves for how fast it was. Overall, this is one of the better racquets I've hit this year for serve returns."

The Extreme Tour was able to give Michelle the classic 'one-two' winner combo. She said, "It was fun to swing big on returns with this Extreme Tour. I felt pretty good about hitting my targets and loved going for a big ball down the line, but I also liked hitting angles off the outer wings to move my opponent off the court and create an opening for a one-two combo. The racquet was fairly forgiving, and even if I didn't always find the sweetspot, I felt like I was OK."

With the Extreme Tour's power potential, Zsofi was able to hone her tactics to get the most out of her returns with this racquet. She said, "Because of the great stability of the Extreme Tour 2022 and the easy depth I was able to generate, my returns felt great and very stable. The launch angle was a bit higher than I am used to, so I had to keep it in mind and dial my returns back a bit sometimes, but once I got used to that, it really wasn't a problem."

Mark had mixed results when it came to return of serve. He wrapped up the playtest, saying, "Other than the volley, the return of serve was the shot where I could really feel the weight of the ball on the racquet, basically demanding that I ditch my chip return and swing through contact of the ball. As a result, my return of serve was a little erratic."

Overall - Score: 81