2025 Pure Drive 100 Review
Believe it or not, Babolat has been making the Pure Drive for over 30 years. Yes, they have made some changes to this frame over the years, stiffnesses have varied, weight distributions have shifted, string patterns have become more open but at the end of the day, we are still dealing with that same Pure Drive mold with the same oval beam design and 23-26-23mm structure. Interestingly, this arguably isn’t even a Babolat mold since Babolat actually acquired this mold from Pro Kennex when they called it the Pro Kennex Destiny. I think this makes the Pure Drive the oldest continuously produced frame still available today, as other heritage lines, like the Prostaff and Prestige’s have seen significant changes to their molds since the 80’s.
I guess my point is, after 30 years of minor tweaks, how different is the 2025 Pure Drive actually going to be?
What’s New
Well not much. The main criticism with the Pure Drive is comfort. There’s a reason Babolat’s are known as arm breakers and the high stiffness found on most models is a major factor. Tennis Warehouse’s initial measurements show that RA has dropped from 71 with the old version to 66 for 2025, in part due to the addition of NF2 dampening tech in the throat, which follows the industry trend of dropping throat stiffness, as seen with Head’s Auxetic and Yonex’s Minolon.
Honestly, I’m not convinced that that 5 point drop in RA is that consequential, or not based on some outlier measurements, because to me, the playability is pretty much the same as last year. It shound also be noted that my friend, Luca, from Rackets and Runners, measured several new 2025 Pure Drive 100’s with a 70-71 RA, unstrung.
Power and Stability
Power and stability is the Pure Drive’s bread and butter. Even with my copy boasting a relatively meager swingweight of 280 unstrung (this is roughly 310 strung, depending on string choice), the thick beam and high stiffness make the energy transfer for each shot incredibly efficient. There are 3 places that I really took best advantage of the Pure Drive’s power.
Beckett preparing to unload the force of Satan onto this incoming forehand.
The first is on ground strokes, obviously, more power makes those attacking balls just a little more poisonous as it’s incredibly easy to hit through the court.
The second is on defense. Any time I was on the ropes, I knew I could use the Pure Drive’s power to push balls deeper into the court to hold my opponent at bay.
The third is at net. I’m personally not that comfortable at net. It’s something I’ve been working on in the last several months but my volleys are relatively weak and I lack the natural instinct of someone who plays regular doubles or more of a serve and volley style. Despite my deficiencies, the Pure Drive inspired me to venture forward and confidently close down the net.
There’s a tremendous amount of stability coupled to some of the best power on the market, leading to effortless punching volleys. It feels like all you have to do to find success at net is hold the racquet out and find the ball. As long as you find the strings, you’ll be able to punch that volley deep, in a way that’s both assertive and predictable.
I think that a big reason for this outstanding netplay is the Pure Drive’s outstanding maneuverability.
Maneuverability
The whole point of the Pure Drive is ease of use, hence the power and stability. The problem is, those things usually require weight to execute, either a high static weight for stability or a high swingweight for power. For example, I personally use a racquet that weighs 12g more than this Pure Drive and has a swingweight that’s over 20 points higher, because I felt like I NEEDED that weight for power and stability. To my shock, the Pure Drive had me second guessing that “need.”
Even at the 310 strung swingweight that my racquet came to, the Pure Drive was rock solid, deflecting incoming balls like it was made with vibranium. This lower weight makes it tremendously easy to setup your shot and find high swingspeeds.
There wasn’t a single time where I felt the racquet was slowing me down or I couldn’t count on the frame to bail me out of a tricky situation, making it one of the easiest to use frames I’ve even tested for TennCom.
Spin and Hitting Style
These power 100’s are typically marketing for providing not only great power but also great spin. However, I don’t think that the spin is a standout feature with this frame. If you are like me, someone who relies on big spin and strong spin modulation to find your best tennis, you probably won’t find your best tennis with the Pure Drive.
I hit with way more spin when using my personal Pure Aero Rafa, the new EZONE 100, the new 2025 TFIGHTs, the Gravity 98, the VCOREs and a few others.
Thankfully, for hitting flat shots, this thing bombs. Finding depth into the court is effortless and surprisingly controllable. Taking balls early and on the rise is also a huge strength with this frame due to the rock solid stability and outstanding maneuverability, making it easy to time the ball accurately.
This racquet simply does not flutter on contact which makes it deviously predictable and controllable for a power frame.
Control
I personally think that the control with this Pure Drive is amazing, especially for a high power frame.While I think a lot of you are going to disagree with this take, because it’s a Pure Drive, it’s not designed for control, it’s designed for power.
Let’s clear this up with a semantic discussion. For me, control means the racquet does what I expect it to do. The racquet is consistent in the way it interacts with the ball and it behaves predictably. This means that high power frames, like the Pure Drive 100, can also have high levels of control, contrary to the old school definition of control, where control was considered to be the opposite of power.
The flex on this Pure Drive is incredibly uniform. There’s no bendy hoop, like the Clash, Phantom or Auxetic 1.0 Gravity MP and there’s no floppy throat like the Gravity 98 or Boom MP.
The string pattern is decently open, but consistently spaced and there’s nothing funky going on like with the VCORE or Booms, which exhibit unusually open tips.
This is simply a high launch angle, stiffer frame that stays incredibly stable through contact, never fluttering or wavering, resulting in a surprisingly consistent response. Like any decent control frame, the Pure Drive encouraged me to swing out, go for my shots and take control of the point.
Feel
The feel is still pretty muted. Definitely more muted than the Boom MP, in the same realm as the EZONE 100, though I need more time with the EZONE to be sure and probably 2% more muted than the previous version. I strung up this new Pure Drive and the previous version, in 30th anniversary paint, with the same string and tension, Caviar 1.24mm at 52lbs, for a back-to-back test. The performance was almost identical. Maybe the previous version is slightly more hollow and crisp, with the new one being slightly more muted but solid. Ultimately, I don’t think that the change in feel should factor into your buying decision, whether you are cross-shopping the ‘21 for a deal and the ‘25 for the new paintjob, or if comfort was an issue for you before, I suspect it still will be today.
Frankly, I think for this application, that muted feel is completely fine. Whatever this NF2 thing actually is, the tech produces pretty good results. The feel is muted, yes, but it's a solid feeling. The Strike, the Aero, the Drive, they all have this solid feel now, something that, historically, hasn’t been the case, as old Babolat’s were considered hollow, tinny or harsh.
At the end of the day, the racquet communicates just enough, you can feel where the ball lands on the strings and where it’s going to go after you hit it. Is it this angelic hitting feel? No, or course not, it’s a Pure Drive, but it’s serviceable for most players and I really don’t think comfort should be a major issue going forward.
Setups and Customization
I tried 3 different string setups, RPM Blast, ReString Sync and Caviar, all 17 gauge. None of them felt that different or played especially well or poorly in this frame. The Pure Drive is a muted frame so it’s less string sensitive. Of the 3 I tried, Caviar was my favourite.
This is mainly because Caviar offers tremendous depth control on flat shots, giving you a nice connection to the ball from a longer dwell time and better ball pocketing, while also delivering a nice amount of grip from the 6 sided profile.
Sync was a bit too “point and shooty” for with the ball coming in and out of the stringbed too quickly and RPM Blast was stiff and unrewarding.
My final strung specs after trying a few different customizations are:
330g
32.4cm
321SW
Interestingly, this is way below the weight range of my typical setups, but I wanted to keep things easy to use to retain that Pure Drive DNA. Increasing the swingweight beyond about 325 made things feel a bit clubby and slow and the stability/power gains just didn’t feel worth the losses in swing speeds.
Recommendations
Overall the Pure Drive is tremendously easy to recommend to a wide range of players, but the stability to maneuverability ratio makes it especially interesting to intermediate players. Especially if you are a flat hitter, or an all court player who takes the ball early, using knifing slices and keen net play to win points. If that’s you, I think the Pure Drive would make an excellent companion. If you use the previous version of the Pure Drive, the 2025 model would be a seamless switch, as they play pretty much exactly the same, but that just makes upgrading seem pretty needless unless your racquets are worn out.
This is one of my personal favourite racquets for doubles, if you are into swinging, and overall I just think this is a good racquet. If you are interested in buying one for yourself, the best way to support the creation of more and better content, just like this, is to use our affiliate links in the description below to Tennis Warehouse, Tennis Warehouse Europe and Tennis Only Australia.
