Tutorial: How to spot the Fake Yonex Badminton Racquet

中文版的球拍辨別說明請按這邊

Hi, My name is Jeff, or as known as "BlueJeff". Since there are so many people asked me how to spot the fake Yonex racquets, I created this page as the tutorial to people who wants to know how to distinguish fake and real Yonex rackets.

There are a lot of fake Yonex badminton racquet sold on the internet nowadays.

The fake racquets' quality has been improved a lot, and sometimes it's just hard to spot them.

The cost of fake racquet is usually less than $20 USD, but fake racquet sellers usually sell them as the retail genuine new racquets ($100+), so the profit is very huge but dirty.

So, what's the big deal of the fakes? Let me tell you:

1. The material is bad and cheap, they will break very easily. It could break with hours of usage.

2. The grommets are made in cheap and rough plastic, so your badminton string will break a lot faster. More money on stringing!

3. The performance will be very unstable. As they are made by cheap materials, the frame could deform.

Personally, I have experienced a case with fake racquet. Last summer, I bought a Yonex-MP77 badminton racquet from eBay auction. However, the seller sent me a fake one, and it was very frustrating. I made a few phone calls to Yonex-USA and sent the fake racquets to the headquarter for inspection. It was confirmed by Yonex that the racquet I received is a fake racquet. I cooperated with Yonex-USA and Yonex-Japan to nail out the seller. The time I spent on this case was roughly about 3-4 months.

The fake one, is the greenish racquet below; and there is a genuine purple racquet for comparison; The genuine MP-77 racquet is the purple one

There are two documents at the bottom of the page indicating the MP-77 I received was a fake.

I reserve all the rights on all text and pictures in this page and this web site. You are not allowed to copy anything from here for any purposes without my permission.

DO NOT Email me if you are trying to buy something from unconfirmed sources. That's your own business, not mine.

Email: Email Me

Jeff

1. The fake MP-77 is shorter than the genuine MP-77 about 1cm long.

Since MP-77 is a long racquet, its length should be 674mm, but since the fake racquet is based on a normal racquet, its length is only 664mm.

2. The paint job on the fake racquet is un-balanced. Look at the left side (the intersection of grey paint and silver) and the right side. It is very obviously that the right side has more paints.

3. The fake racquet is at the top; the bottom one is the genuine racquet.

The real one has a little gap at the top of the frame, indicating the starting point of stringing. The top one, which is the fake one, doesn't  have that.

4. The fake (bottom) has larger font than the real one (top). Also, the size of the font is very wide; the real one is more narrow.

5. The fake racquet has the grommets cut from a little tubes, not as the real one's individual grommets.

The quality of the fake grommets is very rough and very cheap. You can spot this very easily.

6. The real one (top) has the Muscle Power strip, the fake one (bottom) doesn't have that. This is very obvious.

7. The real one (top) has narrower font than the fake one (bottom). The fake racquet has letters in bold.

8. The quality of the fake racquet is very bad. Look at the joint. That edge is very sharp!! It will cut your fingers!!

9. The real one has better printed logo. The fake one (bottom) has distorted logo. The triangles are too far away from the circles.

10. The top one is the real one with "engraved" serial numbers; The fake racquet (bottom) one is a "printed" one. You can use your fingers to feel the difference.

11. The real racquet (top) has smaller sticker; the fake one (bottom) has bigger sticker

12. The fake racquet has wrong wording on the "Titanium". It should be "Ti....", not "TA...."

That's funny!! =)

The real one will have shrink wrapping, not the loose plastic bag

Also, the material used in the handle should be more like a leather feel, the fake racquet one feels more like a thin plastic.

13 The left side is the genuine racquet and the right side is the fake one.

It is very clearly to see that the real one has more clear logo printed than the fake one. The logo printed on the fake racquet is a little fuzzy.

14. The real racquet cover should be mix of gold and blue-silver color, not the bottom one with silver color only

This is very easy to distinguish!!

Also, the quality of the fake one is really bad. See all the rough edges at the fake cover logo?

15. The left side is the document that Yonex-USA sent me, indicating the fake racquet is a fake racquet.