Tru Pro Pure Rush: The BEST Budget Poly

With new tennis racquets approaching $300 USD plus taxes and strings, I think I speak for all of us “low folk” when I say, “I wish things were cheaper.” I’ll admit, I’ve been sleeping on the BEST budget string company on the market and it's time I woke up. Tru Pro, formerly known as Tier1, famous for their cult classics in Black Knight and Ghost Wire are here to save the day with sub-$10 strings. Honestly, I wasn’t always a believer in Tru Pro, despite the price. Black Knight never quite stood out to me. Firewire Boost just isn’t what I was looking for, given the extreme triangular shape and while Ghostwire is an excellent soft poly with a connected feel, it’s never something that I saw myself using in a full bed.

That said, their newest string, Pure Rush, has completely flipped the script.

What Makes a String Great

The most important thing about testing strings is deciding what you are actually looking for from a new string. Sure, it’s nice to know that Sinner uses Hawk Touch, but that’s because it works for HIS game. Sinner didn’t pick the string because he’s considering the needs for a 40 year old 4.0 player, he picked it because it worked for him, and its Head so it's free.

For me, there are two ways a string can be great. One, the string can accel in a specific category, offering unmatched performance in a single metric. This could be like ReString Zero for snapback and spin, ALU Power for feel or Grapplesnake Game Changer for ball-bite. The other way a string can be great is by providing outstanding all-around performance. This is why I’m always recommending strings like Wasabi, Tour M8, Confidential and Sync to such a wide range of players.

The problem with budget strings is that they always fall down in at least one category, meaning there aren’t any true budget all-arounders. Until now, Tourna Silver 7 Tour was my budget king, but reports of significant sheering in recent batches and a generally stiff and unforgiving hitting feel means that Silver 7 Tour isn’t going to be right for a lot of players. Volkl Cyclone is another budget classic, with seemingly strong all-around performance until you hit the 2 hour mark, when the string loses all of its tension and the edges start wearing off. Tru Pro Pure Rush is a true budget all-arounder, offering average or better performance in every category WITHOUT glaring weaknesses all for under $10 a set.

Power

Power for Pure Rush is on the lower end of medium. You don’t get much for free, but you also don’t have to swing like a psychopath to penetrate the court. I’d say things are pretty much in line with Hyper-G on this front, but with a slightly lower launch angle resulting in a more penetrating ball. I definitely find this easier to use than a string like Tour Hex, Lynx Tour or Tour Sniper, but not quite as accessible as Toroline Wasabi, ReString Zero or Hyper-G Soft. It's easy to find depth on neutral rally-balls and attacking shots, but the string doesn’t give you a ton of extra help on the stretch.

Control and Feel

The hitting feel on this string is quite excellent. The stringbed always felt precise and predictable, feeding me with all the information and vibration I needed to feel in-control on court. In a world mostly muted poly’s, I’m relieved to see that Tru Pro has opted to keep this string pretty connected.

I think there’s more feel and vibration than you’d find in anything from Toroline or Yonex, it’s more connected than Hyper-G and probably landing somewhere between Confidential and Tour Bite, not quite offering that metallic, crisp hitting-feel from silver strings like ALU Power or M8, but still retaining sufficient connection for all but the pickiest players.

The feel is on the firmer side. The ball-pocketing is medium, enough so that you can feel the ball come in and out of the stringbed, but there’s no deep pocketing that you’d find in softer strings. As with all poly’s, but especially one geared towards more advanced players, the hitting feel and ball pocketing improves as your swing speed increases.

One thing I’ve started to notice lately is that different strings perform differently at different swingspeeds.

Some strings, like ALU Power, Paradox Pro or RPM Power, have very inaccessible hitting curves, meaning you get essentially zero playability and low swingspeeds and the string becomes more and more playable as you swing faster. Other strings, like Hyper-G Soft or Toroline Snapper, are more accessible, but they are so soft that they tend to bottom out once you achieve a certain level of play. Pure Rush felt very neutral to me, performing quite linearly throughout the hitting range, offering surprisingly accessible play at lower swingspeeds without completely bottoming out when I was redlining my game.

That said, I didn’t always feel like I was in complete control.

Spin

Spin is my main gripe with this string. The spin isn’t flat-out bad, but the snapback isn’t the best. The string isn’t super slippery, which contributes to excellent directional control and feel for a shaped string, but you don’t get that extra buff in RPM’s. I think this is mainly because I’ve become so accustomed to using Toroline’s latest “O-Toro” in my Aero Rafa that anything less than a 10/10 feels insufficient. I know that I’ve missed balls with Pure Rush that I would have been able to pull down into the court with O-Toro.

Still, the shaped edges meant that I was still getting more spin than strings like Sync, with overall performance falling just behind Wasabi, and again being quite similar to Hyper-G.

Playability Duration

The main weakness with most budget strings is tension maintenance. Fresh off the machine, in my Regna 98 strung at 49/46lbs, I measure a dynamic tension (DT) of 34DT, with the ERT300. 1 week later and about 1h of hitting, the strings dropped to 29DT. So a 5 point drop in DT isn’t perfect but it could certainly be worse. That said, does this number actually mean anything?

I’d say yes and no. It’s definitely nice to have the number to reference, but your feelings on court will always be king. I certainly felt the string soften up after the first hit, some might call this a “break-in” period, I don’t think that’s correct but we can save that semantic discussion for another day. After the initial drop, I didn’t experience any significant changes in playability.

Pure Rush plays great all the way till about 30-40% notching in my Pure Aero Rafa, at which point, the reduced snapback kills too much spin for me and I had to cut it out. The main thing to note is that I didn’t find any serious losses in performance from the first hit to the second hit, which is where the tension drop occurs. Pure Rush is not like ALU Power or RPM Blast where you can feel the reduction in spin and consistency flee the string bed throughout the first hit. The string just slowly softens over that first hit without any other key characteristics changing that much.

Hybriding

As much as I enjoyed Pure Rush in a full bed, I think the real magic hits when you start blending it. Ghostwire in the crosses plays so nicely with Pure Rush in the mains. A lot of the time when you try to soften up a string bed, you lose a bit of feel or spin. Something like Wasabi X makes things too muted, Polytour Pro isn’t great for spin and nylon’s are even worse for spin even though they feel good fresh. Ghostwire opens things up, increasing the dwell time and ball-pocketing dramatically, without killing spin or creating a “launchy” stringbed.

All of Pure Rush’s best features are still here, responsive feel, excellent control and well rounded play, but suddenly you get the sweet feel of a “gut-like” setup for a much cheaper price. I think you’d be pretty hard pressed to find a sweeter feeling, more well-rounded setup for $10, and you can even get 20% any of the Tru Pro strings using my affiliate link in the description.

Yes obviously I’m biased but seriously, Pure Rush is really good and the affiliate links are one of the main reasons I’m even able to make videos and articles like this in the first place.

Overall, for me, Pure Rush moves into my Top 5 strings of all time for tournament play simply for its well rounded playability, not even factoring in price, making it the most affordable string in my Top 10.

I think this is a must try poly for anyone that doesn’t have arm problems and a double must try with Ghostwire in the crosses.