Italiano
Tennis
Black Ace, a legend from 1979 to the present day
Sep
Mauro Monesi, CEO of ProKennex Europe, tell us about the origins of the Black Ace project that revolutionized the world of tennis and today still lives thanks the launch of the new series on the market.
The genius of Kunnan Lo
“In the mid-70s, a time when wooden racquets had a monopolistic power on the international circuit, Engineer Kunnan Lo, President of Kunnan Enterprise, the world’s largest woodworking industry, had a great intuition: insert the quality carbon fibre into the wood frames in order to make them stronger and improve the racquet’s response on the court. It was a brilliant idea not only from the performance racket but also from the production costs. It was a great success among the most important brands in the market, such as Slazenger, Bancroft and Donnay. Almost all ranking players (those were the times of the strong rivalry between Mc Enroe and Borg) switched from traditional wooden racquets to the new frames with graphite inserts. Kunnan Enterprise became, within a short time, the manufacturer of all racquets of major international brands.
Black Ace, the first 100% graphite racquet
Shortly, thanks in part to the exclusive contract signed between Kunnan Lo and Dupont (the largest international graphite manufacturer), we convinced that we could do something even more extraordinary. We had within us the desire and conviction that we could disrupt the tennis market and significantly improve the player’s experience and performance on the court.
We designed a one-piece open-hearted graphite racquet with a wider headsize than the market standard. We hit the jackpot! Between 1977 and early 1978 we had the first 100% racquet graphite prototype. I took it with me to Brescia to let tennis teacher Bruno Saiani try it out. Not even two days passed before he called me by phone to tell that he had never before played with such a maneuverable, powerful, and high-comfort racquet. We had no more doubts: we were about to revolutionize the tennis world forever. In 1979 we founded Kennex, which soon after a few months became today’s ProKennex, and launched the Black Ace, the world’s first all-graphite racquet. We chose black as the dominant color of the racquet and the ace of spades to emphasize its “nastiness,” power and precision.
It was an incredible success. Soon all the world brands opted to produce graphite frames. We were able to remain the market leader for so long because we used the finest fiber on the market, with performance far superior to the normal short-fiber graphite used by other brands. The Black Ace series was successful until the last series was produced in the early 1990s. A curious anecdote to understand the Black Ace worldwide’s impact: the racquet was mentioned among the 100 most innovative products of the 20th century by the Italian magazines Panorama and Espresso.”
Back to the future – The new Black Ace series
Meanwhile, we at ProKennex were focused on studying new technologies; we wanted to shake up the tennis world again. In ’94 we launched the Kinetic System, which, to this day, is still the technological benchmark for the tennis industry. A technology that completely eliminates vibrations in the handle of the racquet, gives stability to the frame and provides great shot power. But the Black Ace series we knew was not finished. It was born with ProKennex and ProKennex was Black Ace.
In 2020, we relaunched the series, and just recently the brand-new models Black Ace, Black Ace Pro, and Black Ace 105 have become available. All the racquets are developed using Aurelian Carbon and equipped with Flex Logic and Kinetic System technologies.
Today, as long ago, Black Ace remains synonymous with aggression and power applied to the modern play!”
