By Liza Horan

Back in October, world No. 14 Gael Monfils got to preview Prince's latest performance racquet, which has been under wraps until today. Four weeks after he tried the patented EXO³ technology, the Frenchman signed an endorsement deal with the New Jersey-based company.

"I knew as soon as I hit the first ball with it, there was something different, something better," Monfils said upon committing to the EXO³  Rebel 95. "It is hard to explain, but the holes and the technology made a difference. It just felt right. The racquet is vital to my work. It has to elevate my game or I am not interested in making a switch.”

Monfils' EXO³ Rebel and the EXO³ Graphite are the two high-performance racquets of today's launch of four models and six frames using EXO³  technology. This latest system extends the benefits of O-Ports, which debuted with the O³  line in 2005 to enlarge the sweet spot by 54 percent, through two innovations: Energy Bridge™, an exoskeletal structure that suspends most of the string bed to provide up to 26 percent more energy back into the ball upon contact and to reduce vibration; and Energy Channel™ that increases spin and precision for advanced players with fast swing speeds.

After years of research and design by teams in the U.S. and Italy, Global Business Director for Performance Racquets Tyler Herring said they came upon a simple conclusion: "Energy is the key to racquet design."

"We can't control the ball. We can't control the player—it's a dynamic game," Herring said during a webinar presenting the line to the media in December. "The split-second of contact at impact, 60 percent of energy is diffused through the arm, air, heat, and ball compression. We've been able to recapture 26 percent of that energy."

The impact to the player includes these benefits, Prince says: up to 83 percent larger sweet spot; up to 26 percent more spin; up to 50 percent reduction of frame vibration to increase comfort; and up to 25 percent more shot control.

Prince's initial breakthrough in racquet technology came in 1976 with the Prince Classic, the first oversized frame to hit the market. One year later, the Prince Oversize Graphite, a player frame known as "POG" at Prince HQ, was launched. The new EXO³ Graphite has the exact shape and cross-section of the POG, and the whole EXO³  line builds on the O³ platform.

O³ technology "put us back on the map," said Herring, noting that the O³  became the No. 2 racquet because it increased the sweetspot without sacrificing racquet speed. Two years later, the O3 Speedport was released with a "customized tuning" system so players could fit inserts into the frame O-Port string holes.

According to a story that appeared in The Star-Ledger last August, O³ moved Prince up a notch to the No. 2 racquet brand behind Wilson as sales increased from $70 million to $110 million, . Prince is a privately held company that does not disclose financial information.

The EXO³ line will be available on Jan. 15, except for the EXO³ Silver 118 and EXO³ Red 105, which are slated to hit shops on Feb. 15.

The web push: Today's launch of the EXO³ is accompanied by a microsite at http://PrinceTennis.com/exo3, produced by Dallas-based EMediaEFX. Turn up your speakers for the Flash intro, which introduces the marketing campaign phrase, Prince has discovered a new source of energy, along with sound effects that resemble both Light Sabers clashing and Excalibur sliding against another sword.

The online glitz is part of the wholistic marketing approach the brand takes, says Prince spokesman Zach Perles. "We have started to integrate social networking functions like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter into the microsite, making it easier for players to get and share information with one another, globally, and have even developed a chat feature where users can interact and correspond directly with our racquet product team regarding all things racquets. 

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