Asics Introduces New Gel-Resolution 9 Tennis Shoe

The Asics Gel-Resolution has a new flagship model. The top-selling line in Asics performance tennis footwear has concentrated on stability for eight generations. The Gel-Resolution 9 furthers the focus.

Whether Iga Swiatek or Matteo Berrettini, two players wearing the silo, the diversity of players moving side-to-side across the baseline fits the design of the stability-minded Gel-Resolution, now with a reshaped Dynawall and improved lateral braking time.

“It is important to feel stability,” Berrettini says, “especially when moving side to side for a long time.”

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Asics has three main lines of shoes, with the Gel-Resolution focused on the baseline player, the Solution Speed crafted at a lighter weight for those playing aggressively toward the net and the Court FF serving as a combination of the two for the brand’s most technological version in an all-court design.

Asics defines a baseliner as players spending more than 70% of their time moving laterally along the back of the court. Mining match data and research from the brand’s Japanese-based Asics Institute of Sports Science, Asics placed a singular emphasis on the goal of providing players the confidence to stably move laterally while helping them quickly recover to the middle of the court.

The first step was an updated Dynawall. The technology, introduced in 2020 in the Gel-Resolution 8, offers a stiff support on the sidewall of the shoe. The Gel-Resolution 9 version went through a variety of iterations, says Peter Hermanns, Asics tennis product manager, that increased the strength of the material in some areas while reducing the intensity in others to help designers focus on a key objective: reduce the player’s braking time.

“When you slide, you are braking, and if you reduce the time you are braking, you are able to return to the center of the court earlier,” Hermanns says. “We have updated our full-length outsole to make sure you brake faster.” Asics says the Gel-Resolution 9, as researched at the Asics Institute of Sports Science, improves braking time 4.6% versus the previous version.

The Dynawall makes it all happen. Hermann says too much Dynawall technology could restrict a player ready to return to the center of the court, so the updated version has a new cut-out of the support in the front to make it quicker for a player to move from outside the court back to the middle without losing the stability needed during the side-to-side movements.

Gary Raucher, Asics executive vice president, says he understands that Asics may have more elements in their shoes than other brands, but “every single component plays a functional role in improving performance.”

The evolving Dynawall technology currently lives only in the Gel-Resolution silo, as the brand develops both the Gel-Resolution and Solution Speed independently to focus on unique playing styles of tennis athletes, Raucher says.

The Gel-Resolution 9 launches on Jan. 1, 2023.

“I think the number-one thing that people are surprised about is that the shoes are made with a particular purpose and function,” he says. “Every product that Asics creates is built for a particular purpose. If you understand what type of player you are and what type of movements you make, we have a shoe built specifically for you.”