This Pickleball Paddle has a 7.0" Handle

What’s up, guys? Hope you had a great week of Pickleball. This week we are recapping my latest review, letting you know what’s in my review pipeline, and further discussion about generic paddles/clones.

Oya Obsidian and Phantom Review

• Watch the video

• Link to buy

Oya is a new company to Pickleball and they are targeting the Tennis players. They have 2 models with 2 shapes. The Phantom & Obsidian along with the shapes Max and standard.

The Obsidian is a raw carbon fiber thermoformed paddle while the Phantom is carbon fiber but with paint grit.

The two shapes both have very long handles. The Max is a whopping 7” handle and 17” in length while the standard is 16.5” with a 6.25” handle.

When you pick one of these up, it’s wild how long the handles are. It’s really fun to mess with if you have a two-handed backhand.

I’ll let you watch the video if you want the finer details, but if you’ve been searching for a paddle that lets you use a two-handed backhand without putting your finger on the back, the Oya’s are the best thing you’ll find on the market right now along with Pickleball Apes Pro Line Energy.

What’s in the paddle review queue?

With the PPA Kansas tournament I got a bit behind my preferred schedule for paddle reviews.

At the moment here are the paddle reviews I’m aiming to work on for September:

• PaddleTek Tempest line (I’m quite enjoying the Wave v3)

• Engage Pursuit Pro

• Volair Forza Mach 1

• Spartus Ballista

I may not be able to get to all of these in September, but that’s the goal for now.

I’ve gotten a lot of requests for the Diadem Edge 18k. I don’t have one yet and I may hold off for when Diadem releases the pro model in the next few months so that I can talk about them both at once.

My initial impression (which was only 10 minutes while borrowing a friends) was that it was basically a Warrior Edge with more spin. In the brief time I got to hit it, that seems really overpriced for $230, but if you enjoyed the Warrior Edge and wanted more spin, that might be worth it.

Keep in mind, that was only 10 minutes of hitting and I didn’t have the Warrior Edge side by side. I’m going off my memory.

The Pickleball Apes Pro Line Energy is also on my list, but I will probably wait until they release their second shape the Pro Line Energy S.

Paddle clones

Since the latest podcast episode, I got asked a lot about which paddles are clones.

I’m going to preface this with, not all paddles are clones. I use that term a bit too loosely sometimes. There are absolutely some paddles that are identical (Volair Mach 1 and Ronbus R1.16) but a lot of the other paddles it’s hard to tell if they are 100% identical or just very similar.

When I was talking about clones on the podcast, what I was really referring to was the mass flood of generic RCF paddles into the market.

If you sort by the most recently added to the USAP paddle list you can see just how many random raw carbon fiber paddles are being added every single day.

What I want people to understand is that there is a VERY high probability that most of these are nothing new or special. Most of them are basic gen 1 RCF (Raw carbon fiber) paddles with no new additions to them.

I get questions daily about X paddle brand and usually just by looking at the specs I can tell whether or not the company tried to do anything different. Most of the time, it’s just another person trying to get in on the “easy” Pickleball money.

Now with that being said, that doesn’t mean these paddles are bad. They just aren’t unique or different. There’s already a very wide range (and affordable) list of RCF paddles that a new one popping up for <$110 isn’t special anymore. Below are all brands that sell a RCF paddle for <$110. If you own one of these, odds are you really don’t need to go try a different one. (Vatic Pro and Hisk are the only brands (that I’m aware of) in the list below that do something relatively unique with the foam injection)

• Vatic Pro

• Rev Pickleball

• Bison

• Spartus

• Ronbus

• Hudef

• Ballr Pro

• Pickleball Central Versix

• XSPAK

• Nicol Pickleball

• Professor PhD

• Hisk Pickleball (I believe this is an Amazon model, but I can’t find it currently)

If I had to bet, most (Not all, most) of those in that list probably play very similar. The differences coming down to weight and shape for most of them.

Some will probably be built slightly better than others (exposed polymer in the handle, better glue for the edge guard, etc) but by in large, they are similar performing paddles.

This is what I was primarily referring to on the podcast this week.

Also, I started seeing people talk about this Juciao paddle brand on Reddit. If you want the absolute cheapest RCF paddle possible, this is probably as good as you’ll ever find.

I don’t plan to review it for two reasons:

• It’s not USAP approved (Yes it says USA compliant, but that’s not a real thing lol). For most of you, that likely doesn’t matter, but the last thing I want to do is cause more confusion in the sport with people suddenly buying a non approved paddle. In the context of this one, I’m sure it plays identical to a regular paddle, but EVA foam is a great example of a non approved paddle causing conflict on courts.

• I’m all for people finding the best deal possible, I’m a consumer too and love when I find something good for cheap. There’s already so many affordable brands in PB that I’d much rather support a company that’s actually trying to help grow the sport over a random factory in China that’s selling direct to the consumer. Many of these companies in PB are what help keep the ecosystem of our sport alive. I can promise you that Juciao isn’t going to do anything to help grow our sport (other than give you a great deal on a paddle).

🎙️ Latest podcast

If you missed it, this week I went solo on the pod while Will was in Hawaii. I discussed paddle clones, thoughts on the Slinger ball machine, PPA copyright claims (which has since been resolved), and answered a bunch of questions!