Andrey Rublev's racquet and string setup, decoded

The Head Gravity Pro paint job on Rublev's frame is, by most stringer accounts, hiding a pro-stock mold he's used for years — not the racquet hanging in your local shop with the same cosmetic.

The setup, at a glance

pro-gear listing for Rublev's bundle, plus stringer-room pickups consistent with that spec.

The frame

The retail Head Gravity Pro is a 315 g, 100 sq in, 18×20 frame with a relatively even balance and a softer-than-average RA for a player's racquet. It's a real stick. It is also, almost certainly, not the stick Rublev is hitting.

What we'd guess — and what stringer-room photos and the bundle copy both nudge toward — is a Head pro-stock layup in the PT57 family, painted to match the Gravity Pro that Head wants on TV. Pro-stock frames from Head's Austrian factory have, for two decades, been the quiet backbone of the tour: the same basic mold, customised player by player with foam fill, silicone in the handle, lead under the bumper, and a leather grip to push the balance back. Rublev has been on a Head pro-stock long enough that the cosmetic above it has changed more than the racquet underneath it.

The customisations we can speak to with any confidence are the visible ones: lead tape at 3 and 9 o'clock to widen the sweetspot and stabilise the frame on off-centre hits, and a leather grip plus an overgrip to bring the balance a touch more head-light than retail. Final static weight and swingweight aren't publicly disclosed. The common guess on tour for a player who hits the ball as heavy and as flat as Rublev is a swingweight in the 350s — but that's inference, not a number we've seen on a balance board.

The important thing for a club reader: the retail Gravity Pro is a good frame, and it is not the frame on television. The mold underneath, the layup, and the customisation package are what make Rublev's racquet behave the way it does. The paint job is the part you can buy.

The string

A full bed of Babolat RPM Blast, 1.30 mm, at roughly 24 kg. No hybrid, no gut, no shaped co-poly experiment in the crosses. This is one of the more conservative string jobs in the men's top 20 — and it's worth sitting with that, because it tells you something about how Rublev plays.

RPM Blast is a slick, octagonal co-poly: durable, spin-friendly, control-biased, and famously stiff when fresh. Players who use it full-bed are usually flat-to-heavy hitters who want the ball to come off predictably, who don't need extra power from the bed, and who re-string often enough that the dead-poly tax never gets paid. Rublev fits all three. Pickup photos from stringer rooms suggest a fresh frame every match as a baseline, and he's been seen swapping mid-match after a break of serve goes against him — the standard tell of a player who feels tension loss inside a single set.

Tension moves slightly with surface and conditions, but the band is tight. The number we keep seeing is in the 23–25 kg range. We've not seen a confirmed two-kilo clay-court drop of the kind Sinner reportedly makes; if Rublev adjusts, it's within a kilo of his hard-court reference.

Three setups, three criteria

It's easier to see what Rublev's choice means by putting it next to two neighbours: the retail Head Gravity Pro that shares its paint, and a generic club setup of a mid-stiffness 100 sq in frame with a full bed of poly at 24 kg.

Stiffness and power. Rublev's pro-stock, foam-filled and lead-loaded, sits in a different category from the retail Gravity Pro's softer flex profile — the customised frame plays stiffer and heavier through contact, which is what lets a flat ball stay flat at 140 km/h. The retail Gravity Pro is softer and more forgiving but won't drive a ball through the court the same way. A generic club frame at the same tension will feel powerful and uncontrolled by comparison; the stiffness mismatch matters more than the string does.

Spin window. Full-bed RPM Blast at 24 kg gives a narrow but reliable spin window — enough bite to hold the ball on heavy crosscourt forehands, not enough launch to bail out a late swing. On Rublev's customised frame, that window matches his swing speed. On the retail Gravity Pro it would feel similar in character but slightly lower-powered. On the generic club frame, the same string at the same tension would feel punishing — most amateur swing speeds can't load a stiff full-bed poly enough to use the spin it offers.

Comfort tax. This is where the three setups split hardest. Rublev's frame is heavy enough to absorb the shock of stiff poly; the mass does the damping. The retail Gravity Pro, lighter and softer, is a fair compromise — playable for a strong club player with a full bed of poly, more comfortable with a hybrid. The generic club setup with the same string at the same tension is the one that ends careers' worth of elbows. Same string, same number on the machine, completely different bills at the physio.

Verdict, then, by implication: the Rublev string job is the most copyable part of the package and the most misleading. RPM Blast at 24 kg on a customised pro-stock plays like a precision tool. The same numbers on a retail frame play like a warning.

What this tells you

Rublev's setup matches Rublev's game with unusual literalness: a heavy, stiff, low-powered platform asking the player to supply the speed, and a string bed that rewards full swings and punishes half-measures. He is not an outlier on tour for choosing RPM Blast or for choosing a Head pro-stock — both are common — but he is unusually committed to the full-bed-of-stiff-poly school in an era when most top-20 players have a gut or multi in the mix somewhere.

For a club reader who admires him: buy the cosmetic if you want it, but don't buy the string job. The paint is for sale. The frame underneath isn't.