Babolat Pure Drive 107 Racquet Review

Groundstrokes - Score: 87

With a generous sweetspot and slightly longer length, the Pure Drive 107 lived up to the powerful reputation of the Pure Drive family. Chris described, "Super easy power from a compact swing was my experience with the Pure Drive 107 from the baseline. If I took a full cut at the ball, I needed to add ample spin or be deadly accurate because overhitting was a risk. Fortunately, getting spin with this racquet was a snap. The oversize head offers a very generous spin window, so I could take an aggressive swing angle without fear of catching the frame. When strung up with a co-poly, the Pure Drive 107 spat the ball out with tons of spin. I had just as much fun ripping topspin groundies as I did slicing and dicing. The feel was very forgiving, and I thought the oversize head did a surprisingly good job of softening the feel of even a stiff co-poly type string."

While Tiffani found herself launching the occasional ball, she still had plenty of fun swinging this racquet from the baseline. She said, "With a lighter weight and larger head size than I prefer, this Pure Drive 107 isn't in my typical spec range. I went in with the idea that this could be a rocket launcher, and I was really surprised how fun it was to use the Pure Drive 107 from the baseline. Sure, I sprayed one long here and there because it's more powerful than what I'm used to. But on the flip side, this racquet had good pocketing in the big sweetspot, so I could play with a lot of variety, mixing in slice to change up the pace during games. This large head size also produced plenty of spin, even more than the standard Pure Drive, so even though the trajectory was higher, the topspin was bringing my shots down and into play. There was some expected instability when bigger shots were coming back at me, but I was often able to counteract that with some good racquet head speed. This racquet offers plenty of opportunities for beginners and intermediate players to have fun, whether they're looking to hit with pace or mix it up with variety."

Volleys - Score: 86

The user-friendly nature of the Pure Drive 107 continued as the playtesters came forward to the net. Tiffani had no complaints. She said, "I'm all for a bigger hitting area when it comes to volleys! The sweetspot felt large and forgiving, and I was able to block volleys back pretty easily. The slightly extended length was not noticeable for me at net, and I was getting the racquet into position on time. I stuck to the basics with the Pure Drive 107 at net, and it got the job done."

Chris was able to use all the volleys in his repertoire to good effect. He said, "Attacking the net was fun with the Pure Drive 107. I loved cutting the ball aggressively to create some crazy spins that had the ball jumping off the court on angle volleys. There was ample power to punch volleys deep, and I was happy with the control I still had to find my targets. My only minor complaint was a little flutter I encountered when trying to block back fast incoming shots if I wasn't plumb on the sweetspot. Still, that was easily fixed by giving the handle a little squeeze before contact or permanently fixed by adding a bit of weight to the hoop of the frame."

Serves - Score: 83

The Pure Drive line is known for helping players boost their serves with pace, and this Pure Drive 107 delivered easy speed, but not the heavy power of the weightier frames in the series. Chris explained, "I found getting pace and spin on my serves easy with the Pure Drive 107. However, I also found a lot of my serves coming back, which told me I wasn't hitting a heavy ball. With that in mind, I focused on hitting my targets for more effective serving. The response felt comfortable, and I never felt tired even during long service games. I liked how easy it was to swing this racquet, and that helped me generate the racquet head speed needed for lots of spin. The added spin allowed me to go higher over the net with my serves and still get them to drop well inside the lines, so my consistency remained high throughout the test."

Tiffani enjoyed some extra zip on her serves. She said, "Like other Pure Drives, this 107-square-inch version gave me a boost on serves. Again, I didn't really notice the extra length, but I liked the pop I got off the strings on my serve. I'm not a huge server, so I liked the extra pace. My serves weren't as heavy as I would hit with the standard Pure Drive, but I was still really happy with my results."

Returns - Score: 84

Power and depth abounded when returning with the Pure Drive 107, and for Tiffani, that meant figuring out how to harness the power into something effective. She explained, "This is the shot that took me the longest to dial in. We had the racquet strung up a couple of different ways, and when we had it strung to be more powerful, I had to be careful not to swing too big. Otherwise, I could really launch the ball. The more controlled setup was more in tune with my needs on returns, and I could be moderately aggressive with my shot selection and swing. It's easy to get depth with this racquet, so it's a matter of keeping it under control."

"There was a lot of power on tap when returning with the Pure Drive 107," Chris added. "Combining this racquet's powerful nature with the pace of an incoming serve, returns would just zip off the stringbed. I found a very compact backswing with a long follow-through to work well; it allowed me to control the power while still generating spin for control. I found stability to be good enough, and the racquet felt very solid for intermediate-level play."

Overall - Score: 84