Head Prestige MP-L Auxetic 2.0: The Ultimate Platform Racquet

The Prostock We’ve Always Wanted?

For the uninitiated, a prostock tennis racquet is a tennis racquet produced specifically for professional tennis players. Head, Wilson, Babolat, Yonex, all the brands produce prostock racquets. But why? It’s well known that pro’s are reluctant to switch racquets. Rafa has used the same racquet since 2004, Djokovic since 2009, Tsitsipas since he was a junior, yadayadayada

So since pro’s are not switching to the new models every launch cycle, the manufacturers need to keep producing these old frames to keep their sponsored players happy. The thing is, there are varying degrees of prostock racquets. For example, brands like Wilson and especially Head, are willing to produce some pretty crazy things. Dimitrov has been know to get some pretty wacky stuff. Most recently I saw this Prostaff 97 with an 18x18 drill pattern, but in the past I’ve also seen him using 18x17’s and a custom 93 square inch mold.

Head allows the combination of different string patterns, layups and molds. For example, the PT, or Pro Tour layup, from the old Pro Tour 280, can be seen in the Extreme Tour mold or in Coco’s  racquet, which looks like a Boom, but is actually a PT339.2 18x20, which is the Graphene 360 Speed Pro mold and a Pro Tour layup.

Babolat and Yonex are more subtle, but players like Shapo and FAA get new paintjobs on old frames, howevever, there’s one more key to prostock racquets. They are often produced to a lightened spec to give the professional customizers room to dial-in a given player’s spec, offering them a full bag of perfectly matched frames. So how can you get your hands on a prostock?

Well, it ain’t easy. While websites like prostocktennis.com do exist, you’ll be paying at least $500 per frame for something that will be very hard to find multiple of, depending on what frame you end up buying. For us mere mortals, the best substitute for a prostock racquet is a platform racquet.

A platform racquet is a retail racquet, usually a control-oriented frame in lighter specs that offers users a lot of room for customization. One of the most successful platform racquets in recent times was the first generation Head Extreme Tour, a racquet you can still see on TV, under the Boom paintjob in the hands of Lorenzo Musetti.

However, the truest form of prostock can always be traced back to one racquet line. The Prestige. So in 2023, Head decided to give us exactly what we wanted. A forbidden fruit, previously only available in Europe. A platform racquet in the Prestige silo.

The Review:

The new Prestiges boast some of the most traditionally attractive paintjobs available today. Beautiful glossy, metallic burgundy paint with forged carbon accents. It’s unique compared to industry standards, yet inoffensive to the conservatively minded. It calls back to the Prestige’s of old while incorporating more modern design keys.

The Prestige MP-L is a prostock for us everyday people. The forgiveness of a 99 square inch head. The sweetness of a 61RA. The spin potential of a 16x19 pattern. The precision of a 21.5mm flat beam. With an unstrung weight of 300g, a lower 31.5cm balance point and a feather-like 309 average swingweight, the Prestige MP-L is begging you to add weight.

It longs for your personalization, to suit your game just as you see fit. And honestly, I think you HAVE to customize the MPL.

Even my MPL, which came in overspec, felt way too light for a control frame. I’ll admit, power and stability were beyond what I’d expect in a 317 swingweight racquet with a 61RA. Stock, I think this racquet hits a bigger ball than the V8 Blade 98, but you can feel the potential of this frame isn’t even close to being realized.

The Data:

Here, I used SwingVision to analyze a few points between my friend Ale and I.

In the first session, I used the MPL completely stock. In the second session, I added 3g at 12, increasing swingweight to 327.

On my forehand, my average ball speed increased from 49mph to 52mph, and my backhand, from 42mph to 46mph. Interestingly, both racquets earned me 84% shots in, but my forehand fell apart on cross court balls when I added the weight, dropping from 92% to 84%. Surely, that’s an unsurprising trade-off. You hit harder, you miss more, right?

Wrong, because my backhand, especially down the line, got more consistent as pace increased. Not only that, but the effectiveness of my ball was increased on both wings, hitting more deep shots to all areas of the court with the heavier racquet, with the exception of backhands cross, which dropped by more than I’d like to admit.

Of course, I’m aware that these hitting sessions offer a pretty small sample size so it's hard to gather anything fully conclusive from them, but in general, I think the data provided by SwingVision supports my feelings about the Prestige MPL and how my game is impacted by customization.

The data suggests exactly what I’ve been feeling, my forehand stroke is more creative at the lighter spec. This creativity, which shines on cross-court forehands when I can curl the ball to exit the court through the side-line with great angle, is intensified by the spin-friend 16x19 string pattern on the MPL. I found I was able to easily modulate my spin and net clearance with this frame which is one of the most important criteria in any racquet for my game.

The downsides of the MPL are largely addressed by adding weight. It’s unstable at lower racquet head speeds, as demonstrated by my two-handed backhand, which is much less whippy than my forehand. Adding weight was the exact cure I needed to find more consistent and regular depth.

Final Thoughts

The Prestige MPL delivers well on this idea of being a prostock for the everyday player. The way you customize the frame, either with weight or with strings, can truly help you fine tune the racquet for the right blend of spin, power, stability and control.

The racquet is just predictable enough to work for flat, aggressive hitters with the right weight distribution, and just spin friendly enough to work for counter punchers. And yet, for some reason, I’m just not drawn to keep playing with this racquet.

I felt like I could play great tennis with it, but for me, the feel left a lot to be desired. It was more muted and spongy feeling than I think a Prestige should be. You can really feel the Auxetic flex, with a lot of enhanced ball-pocketing on the stringbed, but to me, it just feels a bit artificial. Much like the Wilson Clash or the Shift, there’s an exaggerated feel to the way the Prestige MPL flexes and that’s just not for me.

Player Recommendations

If you are an Auxetic Speed user or a Clash user, and you are looking for something that’s more connected to the ball, with a nice boost in control, I think the MPL would be an amazing frame.

If you love the feeling of really holding the ball on your strings and are excited by the prospect of fine tuning a racquet perfectly for your game, the MPL is again, a great choice.

But for me, it’s far from my favourite and here’s where it stands compared to other 98 square inch racquets on the market.

So if you think this racquet is for you, I’ve got links to Tennis Warehouse, Tennis Warehouse Europe and Tennis Only where purchases made will directly support the creation of future tennis content just like this.