Racquet Reviews: Manufacturer Expectations, Retailer’s Responsibilities and Professionalism.

In the last few weeks, TennCom was involved in two highly irregular events. Let’s start with the bad. As I’m sure you’ve seen by now, the company NordicDots prevented me from producing a fair review on their products. Thankfully, I have since “resolved” the issue with them. Still, this was the first time I was actively prevented from sharing my thoughts on a product. No doubt this is a sign of progress for TennCom but it remains a frustrating part of the business.

The second event ranks among the most positive experiences in my entire life, a week-long trip to San Luis Obispo, California, the home of Tennis Warehouse. TW is, for me at least, genesis. 2010 was the year I really got into tennis. I won my first ever tournament in the Summer before moving cities and joining high performance programming for the first time. One of the things I needed was a pair of new shoes. My dad, the original tennis idol, tasked me with researching the best pair of tennis shoes available for under $100 on TW. It was thanks to TW that I first began consuming reviews on YouTube, and back in 2010, the only serious source was Tennis Warehouse. I’ve been watching Chris, Brittany, Jason and Troy for 14 years.

While I feel relatively experienced in reviewing products, dealing with manufacturers and presenting information to customers, my 6 years in the tennis industry is incomparable to the experience of the TW playtesters.

You may be surprised to read this, but Tennis Warehouse does not exclusively give positive reviews. As with most professionals, the goal for them is more about finding the right consumer for a given product, but the playtesters have complete freedom to share their full opinions on products. Good or bad, TW shares their truth.

As fun as it sounds to simply visit California, which it is, of course, insanely fun, the real magic of visiting Tennis Warehouse was being able to connect with people who share the same career as me. Of course, I’m extremely lucky to live only a few minutes from my friend Luca, of Rackets and Runners, but it’s always refreshing to see new perspectives and stories. For example, I learned that TW and Jonas (Tennisnerd) have had to firmly defend their opinions in the past to overly sensitive manufacturers. Honestly, this isn’t something I’ve really had to do. 

I’ve been blessed (I hate that word but don’t feel like finding a synonym) with very passionate, understanding and supportive reps here in Canada. Dunlop, Babolat and Tecnifibre have offered incredibly open support. They take my criticism constructively, rather than personally. This isn’t always the case, for example, Yonex no longer communicates with me after my critical review of the Percept 97, but I would rather radio silence than an outright attack.

Unfortunately, I have now experienced an outright attack. I have to tell you, it doesn’t feel good. After about a month of sitting with it, I chose to go public with my frustrations with NordicDots. Here, I want to explain my reasoning for doing so.

First, I don’t think offering a product for review and then pulling it is an acceptable business practice. When you send a member of the media a product for review, you are accepting the risk that the reviewer may offer some negative feedback. Of course, the upside is that the right review can catapult sales. 

Second, I want other brands to understand that TennCom is not to be fucked with. I think there needs to be a precedent set for how to appropriately engage with tennis, so-call, “influencers.” It’s become apparent to me that the tennis industry’s marketing is on a 2 year delay, if not more, compared to established niches. Many of the people I have begun working with are new to social media collaborations, meaning, they are still in the process of understanding our value.

The number one thing that we provide, as independent content creators, is a human connection. Traditional media lacks personality. We, as a society, have become sick of relying on institutions for our information. Can you trust the news? Can you trust magazines? Can you trust TV? People have started to realize that these media outlets may have interests that we, as consumers, cannot evidently see. Not to get overly political, but the recent US election is an example of society choosing a figure they feel they can trust for his strong personality and candid nature.

Now there are some things I wish I didn’t have to do in the video I produced. Mainly, leaking emails doesn’t feel good. I felt like if I was going to point fingers and make accusations that I would have to substantiate my claims. Given that I have zero interest in producing a follow up video, I decided to go all the way.

On the bright side, NordicDots did apologize for the “miscommunication” regarding which racquets were intended for confidential testing and which were for reviewing. I’m happy to move on from this disagreeable incident, but there are a few things I want to get off my chest first.

One, the email reads lawyer written. Fine, stick to your story about a miscommunication, even though I clearly asked to make a review (I’m a fucking racquet reviewer), but at least have the stones to admit you were exceedingly rude. The other issue I have with this “apology,” is that I had to make a video garnering over 20,000 viewers and 200 comments in my support before there was a change in behaviour. Beyond that, the apology comes only days before the restock of the racquet, clearly in hopes that I’d make another video clearing their name to boost sales.

So, will I review NordicDots products in the future? Sure, but only on my terms. Are they suddenly in my good books? No, absolutely not. The damage was done and there are plenty of other companies, with equally, if not better products, that I’d rather work with because I can trust the owners and staff as people.

In regards to the entire trip to Tennis Warehouse, I feel certain that I’ve made strong connections, both with my fellow content creators and playtesters. I’m usually not particularly social, or inclined to travel, but this entire trip changed my mind. Against my nature, I loved every second of it and happily socialized all day. Somehow, it was easy to work all day with these people, eat dinner with them and stay out for a drink or hot tub after. 

I’ve always been a fan of Tennis Warehouse. They’ve provided so much for the tennis community that they really didn’t need to. The Talk Tennis forum is an amazing resource for community engagement, representing one of the last OG forums that still offers better information than can be found on Reddit. The TW University, featuring work by the legendary Lindsey Crawford and significant resources and databases for learning more about seldom discussed topics like weight distribution, twistweight, vibration frequency and string attributes. And we can’t forget, they are the quintessential tennis YouTube channel. Going there, meeting the people behind everything, getting an understanding on how rigorous the process is for them, in all facets of their community building has made love them even more. 

It’s impossible to thank everyone by name for making my experience as a tennis content creator so amazing, but I can start with a few now. Thanks to Jonas, Neya, Will and Zach for providing me with a community while I was away from home. Thanks to Oak for making time for me before my flight home and thanks to Grace for making the whole thing feel smooth and giving me a hug after my horrific travel delays.

Best,

Beckett