Wilson Defyer Testing Took Team Across The World

Karen Khachanov and Peyton Stearns were part of the process to test the new Wilson Defyer racket.

Wilson

Getting a range of prototype rackets into the hands of touring tennis professionals requires a complicated logistical dance. Corralling player feedback from the racket differences and interpreting those thoughts into actionable data for racket designers and engineers offers a fresh wrinkle of complication. That process all happened in record speed for Wilson when creating the new Defyer racket.

The drive of players, led by Karen Khachanov, made it happen. Pablo Gor, Wilson’s tour strategy lead ensured the project stayed on track. “My job is to bring information to our product team and engineer team,” Gor tells me. “I have this feedback from our athletes, so what can we do? Once we have a solid [prototype], we start the playtest.”

Khachanov provided the testing goal, eager to find a new racket franchise improving his game’s spin and power. For him, testing rackets centers on the details. “It is more about the feel, it is about what I can do with this racket,” he tells me. “The way I swing, do I feel power, do I feel control? And then at the end I need to feel confident with the right set up so I can swing confident when I need to swing or stay in a rally if I need.”

The Wilson design process begins with a brief—the Defyer always focused on professionals and their need for additional power with spin—and after early design, the process moves to getting prototypes in the hands of professionals.

Wilson consistently mines input from players, meeting with them throughout the year at every major tournament. Getting time to test prototypes, though, is a different matter. “It is very difficult during the season,” Gor says. For the Defyer, though, the pros accelerated the process by opening time in their schedules. Normally testing happens in the offseason, but once the racket was ready for the pros—it goes through stages of club-level and college-level testing early in the process—it was ready for the game’s best players.

That requires Gor and his team to go to the players, most often Monaco and Dubai. Typically, players test between 10 to 14 rackets at a time, but sometimes only eight for a player tuned into their needs and up to 16 for someone open to trying a variety of options.

“Some of the players love it, some of them just want to see the results, the outcome,” Gor says. With each new prototype, Wilson works with a select group of tour-level players—Khachanov, Peyton Stearns and Holger Rune led the Defyer testing—but doesn’t design for just one situation, instead looking to create a frame fitting for multiple players. “Most of them love the process and they feel part of the success,” Gor says. “Karen was part of the process, and he enjoyed the journey.”

Khachanov says he requests a few frames with slight differences in the string patterns or construction, sometimes comparing different strings or specs during each session. “To go deep into it, it is the small details in what you feel the most,” he says. “If you try too many options, it can be tough to compare. It becomes more complicated.”

Sometimes it takes Gor or his team to help decode feedback from players for engineers. “When you talk to the engineer team, a stiff racket is one thing,” he says. “For a player it is the opposite. We try to understand the player and what they really want.”

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Gor says during playtests someone from his team sits alongside someone from the product team, ready to “translate what the player wants,” since some players share information better than others, but all are important for the process.

Stearns tells me that when originally approached by Wilson to try a prototype, she was skeptical due to an injury. The team convinced her to give it a go. “I got out of the boot, played an exhibition and won the exhibition,” she tells me about her first experience with the Defyer. “So, I was like, ‘alright, let’s switch to this racket.’ I was feeling great out there.”

Working with Wilson as a tester proved enjoyable for the American player. “It is always fun to be part of anything that is developing into something bigger,” Stearns says. “The process was a lot of fun. When you find out when it is being released and you have to keep your mouth shut, that’s the hardest part.”