Yonex Enters Pickleball Space With Ezone, Vcore Paddles

The rise of pickleball has hit Japanese racket maker Yonex. On July 24, the maker of tennis and badminton rackets adds pickleball paddles to the lineup, releasing Ezone and Vcore models, mimicking the nomenclature of the tennis product.

“We used the concept introduced in our tennis lineup, Ezone and Vcore,” says Shohei Deguchi, from the Yonex tennis and pickleball research and development team. “For Ezone, it is about power and a large sweet spot. For Vcore, it is about spin and control. Those same concepts are put into the paddles.”

As pickleball continues to attract new players—the sport has grown 40% since 2020 and continues to rise across a wide range of age groups—equipment makers have taken notice.

Deguchi says the current trend in pickleball play is to put more topspin on the ball during longer rallies. “Most of the paddles we see in the market are paddles with a rouged-out paddle surface to increase its spin potential,” Deguchi says. “The key piece to our paddle is the construction method using carbon graphite material that mainly focuses on the optimal paddle flex and surface contact time for targeted consumers who are looking to add more spin.

“Big paddle flex equals longer surface contact time. With longer surface contact time, the players can control the ball with more topspin.”

Using the same prototype process and data-driven research and development as Yonex has used in both tennis and badminton, the paddle construction takes insight from the other sports when selecting resin and carbon graphite layups. Both paddles feature a honeycomb core with a fiber composition, a thin glass fiber layer designed for power and pop and a responsive style of carbon fiber.

Both the Ezone and Vcore come at 15.8 inches in length with a width of 7.91 inches. Each version features a lightweight version at 7.58 ounces and a midweight design at 8.11 ounces. The main differences between the two paddles comes in the shape. The Ezone features a “modified traditional shape” meant to increase the sweet spot for additional power. The Vcore aims for an aerodynamic balance for a tight sweet spot focused on control.

Targeting intermediate to high-level players competing in tournaments, Deguchi believes the new products offer a fresh experience to players. And they’ll continually work on the next new experience through paddle development. With pickleball such a young sport relative to other racket sports, the short history has left much of the technology in the sport unexplored. “We believe our paddles,” Deguchi says, “that are made with our carbon graphite technology will help to evolve the game.”