ArcSaber Z-Slash Taufik Hidayat
Model ARC-ZSTH · Taufik Hidayat
Price history
Chart: monthly median of verified pre-owned sales · USD · methodology
Saw a sale? Report it →Where to find it
Search live eBay listings →Places to search for this racquet. We don't track stock, and listings and asking prices change fast, so check at the source.
ArcSaber Z-Slash Taufik Hidayat: the red player model of his first Super Series title
Taufik’s red
Yonex Japan released the ArcSaber Z-Slash Taufik Hidayat model on July 30, 2010, as one of three limited player models, alongside an Armortec 900 Power for Lee Chong Wei and an ArcSaber 10 for Peter Gade. Each was a racquet its player already used, redesigned under his supervision. Taufik’s was built on his image color, the red of fighting spirit, and Yonex was particular about the shade: not a pastel but a deep red meant to carry his pride. Black at the top and bottom of the frame stood for strength, white at the upper left and lower right was drawn like a flash of light, and the logo was made for this model alone. Yonex named it ARCSABER Z-SLASH (TAUFIK HIDAYAT MODEL) and coded it ARC-ZSTH.
A Z-Slash in his colors
Underneath is the ArcSaber Z-Slash, the slim, aerodynamic frame of Tan Boon Heong’s 421 km/h speed test, and the standard model’s page covers its design. Yonex Japan sold the Taufik model at the standard ¥25,000 before tax, but only in 3U with grip 5, while the standard frame was Laser Yellow and came in 3U and 2U with grips 4 and 5. It never joined the regular range: Yonex Japan’s racquet list of late 2010 and Yonex’s global ArcSaber page of early 2011 show only the yellow Z-Slash. The 2009 date sometimes given for the red model belongs to the standard frame, which went on sale in autumn 2009.
The model of his late revival
Taufik moved to the Z-Slash at the 2009 Yonex Open Japan, and Yonex’s reports list him on the standard frame, paired with the ArcSaber 10, through his Canada Open title in July 2010. From October they name the red model. He won the Indonesia Grand Prix Gold with it that month, beating Dionysius Hayom Rumbaka 26–28, 21–17, 21–14 in more than an hour, and was runner-up at the Denmark Open, as he had been at the World Championships in August. In November he beat Joachim Persson 21–16, 21–11 in the French Open final, his first Super Series title after 23 international titles. In December, ranked third in the world, he lost the Hong Kong Open final 21–19, 21–9 to Lee Chong Wei, who was playing his own yellow player model.
On Yonex’s player page
Yonex’s English advisory-staff page, which names each player’s current racquet, showed “ARCSABER ZSTH” for Taufik from March 2011 into 2012 and “ARCSABER ZSTH / ARCSABER 10” by September 2012. Such pages can lag real switches, so those dates are bounds rather than a match record. In March 2011 Yonex Japan also listed him with the model when he joined the Guangzhou team in China’s Super League alongside Lee Chong Wei. Yonex’s 2013 retrospective of his career pairs the Z-Slash with a French Open title it dates to 2009; Yonex Japan’s own report places that title in November 2010, on the red model. The Yonex reports found name no other player on it.
One design among several reds
Yonex issued the Taufik model in a single design, and other red frames are easy to confuse with it. The standard ArcSaber 10 of 2008 is red with a white rim, and a red ArcSaber 10 bearing Taufik’s name was on sale by October 2015, after his retirement. Both have the ArcSaber 10’s wider head: beside one, the Z-Slash head is visibly narrower and its shaft longer. The later ArcSaber 11 Taufik Hidayat of 2013 is Dove Gray and has its own page.
A limited edition of a long-running frame
The Taufik model was on sale in Japan from July 2010 and at export dealers by late that year. Yonex gave no production figure. Its interest to collectors rests on what Yonex documented: a player-supervised design on the frame Taufik chose in 2009, and his first Super Series title won with it. Listings that say only “Z-Slash 3UG5” are ambiguous, since both versions were sold in that size, and only the color settles which is which. Verified sales so far are pre-owned frames from Asia resale, and the price panel above lists them.
Copies and mistaken identity
No counterfeit specific to the Taufik model has been documented, although it sold in a period when Yonex Japan was warning buyers about counterfeit goods sold through overseas online shops. Mistaken identity is the likelier risk: a red ArcSaber 10 offered as the Taufik Z-Slash, a yellow Z-Slash described as his model, or any frame said to be one he played in a final. No individual frame has documented match use.
Yonex describes the Taufik model as deep red with black at the top and bottom of the frame, white flashes at the upper left and lower right, and a logo used only on this model. Yonex Japan sold it only in 3U with grip 5 and coded it ARC-ZSTH. The standard Z-Slash is Laser Yellow (color 711), coded ARC-ZS, and also came in 2U. The Z-Slash head is slimmer than an ArcSaber 10’s, which separates it from the red ArcSaber 10 editions. Export retail copy says Taufik’s signature is engraved on it and that it was made in Japan; Yonex’s release states neither. Serial codes should be laser-engraved, and Yonex’s hologram sticker should resist lifting with a fingernail.
For a Taufik Hidayat collection, this is the documented racquet of his late-career revival: his own design, on the frame he chose in 2009, and the model Yonex names for his first Super Series title. Confirm the red design and the 3U grip-5 marking from clear photos, ask for the cone and the engraved codes, and treat any claim that a frame was used in a final as unproven without documentation.
Verified prices last updated Sep 2026. All data based on tracked secondary market transactions.