The *almost* Perfect Tennis Racquet? Dunlop FX 500 Tour Review 

As a former FX 500 Tour owner (the more firm 2020's), I'll tell you what's holding them back (and the CX and SX): Dunlop's goofy "PowerGrid StringTech" drill pattern -- instead of using progressively spaced out mains that are more dense in the center, with constantly-spaced crosses (like almost everyone else, including Babolat, Head and Wilson), Dunlop "rotated" that layout 90 degrees, which creates even and widely-spaced mains, with progressively spaced out crosses that are more dense in the center. While this theoretically produces more control and consistency across the middle of the string bed between 9 and 3, it reduces control and consistency up and down the string bed as you move towards 12 and 6. The problem? Well, as soon as you start making contact just a little further up the string bed (as many of us tend to do these days), or down (if you get jammed, such as when returning a hard body serve, etc.) the cell size at the top/bottom gets huge and you loose a noticeable amount precision and control. This places extra emphasis on having to maintain perfect spacing, and in the modern game, that's getting harder and harder in general. We don't need our gear making it even more difficult. Overall, the amount of consistency across the "swiping zone" between 9 and 3 (at true string bed center) tends to be overshadowed by the loss of precision and control above and below, at least for most players. It takes really unique mechanics to be able to prefer such a string pattern. As such, I hope Dunlop sees how foolish the drill pattern is, and removes it from all of their silos, returning to the tried-and-true pattern used by basically everyone else. Sometimes, reinventing the wheel is NOT the best idea, and this is a prime example. It borderline-ruins what would otherwise be great frames, almost across the board. Such a shame.

Works well with the yellow dunlop explosive spin, 1,25.

How did it compare to the extreme tour? The specs are very similar on paper.

As somebody that's jumped around from the Radical Pro to the Pure Strike VS and to this Dunlop DX 500 Tour, I completely agree with you. I think the string bed consistency/spacing is the only thing keeping this racquet from basically being perfect. It moves through the air great, it does everything pretty much great, but it just doesn't have that real dependability/precision that the Radical has.

did you try putting a 15 gauge string in there

The best value racket brand of the bunch. Designed in Japan, wish it was mfg’d there as well though. Punches well above it’s weight class.

What dampners do u recommend?

Try the yonex 98 tour. It's the most perfect racquet