ArcSaber Z-Slash
Model ARC-ZSLASH · Taufik Hidayat, Markis Kido
Price history
Chart: monthly median of verified pre-owned sales · USD · methodology
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ArcSaber Z-Slash: the slim frame behind Yonex’s 421 km/h Guinness smash
421 km/h on a practice court
On September 26, 2009, during the Yonex Open Japan, Tan Boon Heong took a new ArcSaber Z-Slash onto the players’ practice court in the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium’s sub-arena. Yonex filmed his smashes at 20,000 frames per second and worked out the shuttle’s speed just after impact: 421 km/h. Markis Kido, Nova Widianto and Koo Kien Keat hit in the same session, and Tan’s was the fastest. Guinness World Records certified the figure on February 26, 2010, as the fastest badminton hit, and handed the certificate to Yonex’s president on March 8. It was a speed test, not a match smash, and Yonex said its own development tests had already passed 400 km/h. The mark stood until Tan reached 493 km/h with the Nanoray Z-Speed, certified in July 2013.
A slim body built for head speed
The Z-Slash made its debut at that same Yonex Open Japan, where Yonex showed it as a new product and six players used it in competition. By mid-October Yonex was calling it newly released. The pitch was aerodynamic. Yonex said new shapes for the shaft and frame cut air resistance in the swing and raised head speed, and summed the design up as a “next-generation slim body.” The frame combined high-modulus and high-strength carbon with cup-stacked carbon nanotube, and the shaft added Super HMG and Ultra PE Fiber to high-modulus carbon, with a new built-in T-joint. Yonex marked it 10 mm longer than standard, made it in Japan in 3U and 2U with grips 4 and 5, rated it for advanced and intermediate players, and priced it at ¥25,000 before tax. Coach Paul Stewart, setting it beside the ArcSaber 10, found the same overall length but a head at least 5 mm narrower on each side, a shaft about 1 cm longer and a handle 2 cm shorter.
Taufik’s switch in Tokyo
Taufik Hidayat changed racquets for that tournament. Yonex’s event blog of September 23, 2009, reported the switch and quoted him saying the shuttle was coming off faster and that the racquet would suit his game the more he used it. He reached the final and lost to Bao Chunlai 21–15, 21–12, while Kido and Hendra Setiawan won the men’s doubles. Yonex singled out Kido and Taufik among its six debut users. Its 2010 reports list Taufik on “ARC-ZS / 10” for the Indonesia Open final he lost to Lee Chong Wei in June and for his Canada Open title in July, and Poland’s Robert Mateusiak on the Z-Slash for his Indonesia Open mixed doubles title with Nadieżda Kostiuczyk. Tan Boon Heong is documented with it only in the speed test. Fan chronologies that put Lee Chong Wei or a young Kento Momota on it cite no source, and Yonex’s 2010 reports list Lee on the Armortec 900 Power.
Laser Yellow, and Taufik’s red
Yonex Japan sold the standard Z-Slash in one color, Laser Yellow (color 711). The red Z-Slash is a separate product, with its own page. On July 30, 2010, Yonex released limited player models of the racquets three of its stars were using: an Armortec 900 Power for Lee Chong Wei, an ArcSaber 10 for Peter Gade and an ArcSaber Z-Slash for Taufik. His was a deep red with black at the top and bottom of the frame, white flashes at the upper left and lower right and a logo of its own, sold only in 3U with grip 5 at the standard price. From October 2010 Yonex’s reports list him on that model, the ARC-ZSTH: for his Indonesia Grand Prix Gold title, for his French Open win over Joachim Persson in November, his first Super Series title after 23 international titles, and for the Hong Kong Open final he lost to Lee in December. From 2012 Yonex also sold a cheaper sibling, the ArcSaber i-Slash, a Japan-made, Medium-flex 3U racquet for intermediate players built on the same slim-body idea; it has its own page. Japanese listings also describe a black-and-magenta Z-Slash BP, with silver, gold and purple on the head, as a limited color of Japan’s badminton specialist-shop association; a Japanese player’s blog reviewed one in June 2012, and no Yonex page for it is documented.
Reading the sales
The verified sales in the price panel above are pre-owned standard Z-Slash frames from the Asian resale market; the red Taufik model is a separate model with its own page. Two facts should frame them. The standard frame was a regular-production model with a long run: Yonex Japan still listed it in September 2014 and had dropped it by February 2015, so played examples are the normal form. And a listing that says only “Z-Slash” may be the yellow standard frame or the red Taufik model, a limited edition for which Yonex gave no quantity. Photos settle which is which. Yonex published no production figures for either.
Fakes and look-alikes
No counterfeit specific to the Z-Slash has been documented. It did sell in a period when fakes were a live problem: in June 2010 Yonex Japan warned buyers about counterfeit goods sold through overseas online shops, and Stewart warned of fake ArcSaber 10s for sale online. A Japan-made frame tied to a Guinness record and to Taufik is an obvious target. Mistaken identity is the more common risk. The Taufik model shares its red with the original ArcSaber 10, and the i-Slash shares the slim shape. Later racquets reused the “Z” prefix too, among them the Voltric Z-Force and the Nanoray Z-Speed that took the Z-Slash’s record.
ArcSaber’s speed branch
The Z-Slash is sometimes described as a head-heavy, Voltric-style smasher. The Voltric line did not exist when it launched and was still absent from Yonex Japan’s list in August 2010. Yonex printed no balance word for the Z-Slash, but its Japanese spec charts plot it at even, a shade toward the head; retail specifications give an even balance with a little weight in the head, and Stewart called it evenly balanced. Its idea was speed through the air. Yonex’s 2013 retrospective on Taufik counted it among the six racquets of his career and called it the top ArcSaber model, pairing high control with fast smashes, and Yonex’s anniversary timeline remembers it as the racquet that set the fastest smash of its day. Stewart gave it 4.5 stars and called it “a pedigree racquet that requires coaxing into greatness”: far quicker through the air than the ArcSaber 10, but hard on a player’s timing.
Confirm the model first. The standard frame is Laser Yellow (color 711), printed ARCSABER Z-SLASH with the code ARC-ZS, made in Japan, in 3U or 2U with grip 4 or 5. The Taufik model is deep red with black at the top and bottom of the frame, white flashes at the upper left and lower right and its own logo, and came only in 3U with grip 5. Yonex marks the frame 10 mm longer than standard; beside an ArcSaber 10 the head is visibly narrower and the shaft longer. Retail specifications list 85–89 g for 3U. A black-and-clear-red or deep red slim frame printed i-SLASH is the cheaper ArcSaber i-Slash (ARC-IS). Serial numbers should be laser-engraved, and Yonex’s own test is a hologram sticker that resists lifting with a fingernail.
For a player, the Z-Slash is a fast, demanding frame that reviewers say takes time to master, so condition, weight and grip matter more than year. For a collector, it has a clear story: the racquet of Yonex’s first Guinness-certified smash and of Taufik’s 2009–2010 revival. The Taufik model is the version with a limited run; ask for photos of the red finish, its own logo and the 3U grip-5 marking. Treat any claim that a particular frame was used in the speed test or in a final as unproven without documentation.
Verified prices last updated Sep 2026. All data based on tracked secondary market transactions.