Head Nano Ti 110

The Head Nano Ti 110:

Image via amazon.com

Head Nano Ti 110 Review

I included this racket on my list of best squash rackets for beginners because:

• It has a large, forgiving head size
• The teardrop shape is easy to hit with
• The fan stringing pattern* is good for a little extra power
• The cosmetics are decent
• It’s a good price

*They actually call it a “Powerfan” stringing pattern. That ought to make playing squash a breeze.

Here’s a video I put together about this racket if you’d like to learn a little more, and see some of the cosmetics. A transcript of the video is pasted below.

PDH Sports also included this on their list of best beginner squash rackets a while back.

Here’s the transcript of my review:

What’s up squash players. Today I have a review of the Head Nano Titanium squash racket. This is on my list of the best squash rackets for beginners on account of several factors and I’m gonna tell you about those and then tell you what this was like on court. I’ve been playing with it for a few weeks and I got some feedback.

So I like this racquet on paper for a number of reasons. One is a forgiving large head size. This has got a large sweet spot. It’s easy if you’re not middling the ball if you’re a beginner, you’re still trying to work out how to hit the sweet spot on a consistent basis, this frame gives you a large area to hit into. I personally like the fan stringing pattern to get a little bit extra power. So this racket is going to give you that extra power because of that fan stringing pattern. I like that just as a way to, as you’re getting started, make sure you can get some zip on the ball.

The only real downside of this is it’s just not got the latest and greatest marketing. For example — it did come with a head cover which is nice — here’s the cover card for this. Here we’ve got Iskandar, Adrian Grant, and Darwish. Those are guys who were just starting to retire when I started Squash Source like 10 years ago, so they’re not the latest and greatest world number one heroes, and none of them in this photo are actually using this racket, but it’s still a good frame.

Don’t worry about the fact that it is a little bit on the older side. Squash rackets haven’t changed all that much. It’s at a good price and it’ll get you far.

So some other things to tell you about this: the factory strings are not that great. They’re just kind of dead feeling and I didn’t love them. But honestly I still played in a league match with this, in a competitive match, and felt totally fine and happy using it. I would probably myself restring it but if you’re a beginner just get out there and I mean honestly if you’re a beginner, any racket that gets you playing squash is a good racket, so don’t worry too much about it. But if you want my choice I’m recommending this one as one of my top ones.

The frame is a little bit chunky in parts but it’s really not an issue at all on court or swinging it. Like I said I played with it and thought it was perfectly fine. Great actually. I was able to use it in a lot of different matches with no issues.

The grip is unusual. It’s very rectangular. You can feel the flatness of the sides. It’s quite pronounced, and more so than some other rackets, and not necessarily in a bad way because I could actually feel where my thumb was and understand very clearly the angles of of the racket. It was just easy to feel with the grip which way the racket was oriented. Obviously if you’re brand new to squash that’s not going to be a real plus for you as you’re still trying to work out the mechanics of the swing and all that but just for me I thought that was an interesting feature of this and I’m going to measure the grip now since I often forget to do that but people like to know. People want to know. So this baby is 10 centimeters around. I think that’s on the smaller side as a total grip circumference.

The grommet holes, it’s gonna be a little hard to see in the video, but they’re quite large and I didn’t really notice that until after hitting with it, before while I was preparing to do this review. I think it just makes the racket feel like there’s not a whole lot of vibration because the string isn’t touching the grommets  in the middle part of the part of the racket. It’s very tight but I still liked it. So that’s just neither here nor there just sort of an observation on these. This is the “Power Fan” perhaps stringing concept. That was something in their marketing for this racket.

I did hear some comments, because I did a little research on what other people thought of this. At PDH Sports, Paul from PDH Sports had this on his list of recommended beginner rackets from a while ago, so that was a positive recommendation. Some people on Reddit thought that maybe the weight of this racket was a little too low. It’s a 110 gram advertised weight. All in on my scale, 149 grams, so it’s a fairly light racket. The balance point is 37 centimeters so a little bit head heavy. I understand what people are saying with that. I think that there is some validity to maybe a little heavier racket. It just helps you move it more slowly and methodically through the air whereas a light racket may encourage you to kind of you know “cheat” as it were: use your wrist or something that is going to not provide an optimal swing where you’re you’re taking it back and you’re using the racket all the way through the shot. That’s how you’re going to really generate a clean strike on the ball is to take a full swing and so so I guess there could be some validity to that. If you are using this, don’t get into the habit of, just because it’s light, trying to flick the ball. Although being light is handy if you are under pressure and you need to flick the ball!

Also I’ll say that the 37 centimeter balance point, the head heavy balance point, it kind of negates some of that lightness because it’s a little bit head heavy. The leading edge of the frame is going to kind of follow through the shot so a racket that’s heavier but head-lighter may actually be worse because it would feel like unmoored I guess you could say, whereas having the head heaviness of this racket helps guide your shot. So that’s all I want to say about this.

I think this is, like I said a great frame for beginners, affordably priced, and still got good cosmetics in my opinion. Just a good overall deal, good bang for the buck.

This is called the Head Nano Ti or Titanium squash racket. What what do they call it? Head Nano Ti 110 is what most of the marketing says, but if you really want its full proper name it’s the Head Nano Titanium 110. There you go. I hope that was helpful. I’ll see you in the next video. Subscribe if you want to see more reviews. Bye.