Here’s a video review I recently put together for the Stellar Assault:
If you can’t watch the video right now, here’s a rough transcript.
What’s up guys it’s Pierre and in this video I am going to introduce you to the Stellar Assault squash racket. Big thanks to Stellar for providing this racket for me to review.
Stellar is a brand that’s been around for at least 50 years. I know they were big back in the 1970s. One of the Australian greats Geoff Hunt used to use this brand and other pros from that era as well used it.
The brand is going through somewhat of a rejuvenation over the last few years. They’ve created a bunch of new frames and the Stellar Assault is one of those. Stellar recently started sponsoring world number 14 Nele Gilis of Belgium. She was actually using this racket just at the 2021 World Championships in Chicago.
This racket has got a traditional head shape with the opening here. A 500 centimeter squared head size which is the largest allowed per squash racket regulations. It’s got a 16 by 19 stringing pattern which is fairly dense. The listed weight of this frame is 125 grams and on my scale with everything included — strings, grommets grip, etc — it’s 149 grams. So this racket is on the lighter side of models available these days. The balance point of this thing is 36 centimeters on my balance board and that is medium I would say. It’s not super head light and it’s definitely not head heavy — if anything it’s a touch head light. The string is a Stellar-branded string called Stellar Spiral. I think it feels kind of Ashaway-ish: a little bit of grit to it. I like the string even with the factory settings.
The cost of this racket is 229 Australian dollars. Just to put that into US dollars that’s 170 bucks. I don’t know what they’re gonna ultimately charge in the US and around the world so we’ll have to see.
I’ll show you the cosmetics quickly. I like them. It’s red and black and white. Nothing too nothing too crazy but I like the red and black combination. This is “Assault” here on the inside of the frame — a very aggressive name for a racket, Assault. You got Stellar’s logo up here and on the throat and the shaft here there’s Assault in there and that’s the Stellar logo. They’ve also got the Stellar logo on the grip and thoughtfully — because it’s hard to tell up and down on this at a glance — they’ve put plus and minus on the frame to make it really easy when you spin the racket.
I’ve been hitting with this racket for about four weeks now. I’ve used it a lot. I have found it to have a pleasant balance between power and control. It’s light enough and the string bed is large enough that I could get a lot of power when I needed to. I wouldn’t say this is a super-duper powerful racket. It has ample power is how I’d put it.
Because of this dense stringing pattern, you have the ability to cut the ball and control it when you need to. It’s also pretty forgiving if you’re rushing around trying to get something. You don’t have to have pinpoint precision with every shot that you hit.
All in all I think this is a real crowd-pleaser of a model. It’s well balanced, it’s good in a lot of different areas and it’s definitely one that I could play with myself.
At the moment this racket is only available in Australia but they’re making a push to sell it around the world. Keep an eye out for it coming to a country near you and if you’re based in the US and want to kind of get an early version of it, just get in touch with me or leave a comment below and I will help you get in touch with the right people. My next review is going to be another Stellar racket called The Boss: this is their teardrop shaped racket — one of them — so if you want to see this review make sure you hit subscribe.
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