Armortec 800 Offensive
Model AT-800OF · Ha Tae-kwon, Flandy Limpele
Price history
Chart: monthly median of verified pre-owned sales · USD · methodology
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Armortec 800 Offensive: the smasher’s half of Yonex’s first doubles pair
In a final before it reached shops
Yonex unveiled the Armortec 800 at the Yonex Open Japan in April 2004, weeks before it went on sale, and the Offensive went straight into the men’s doubles final. Yonex’s list of users names the champion, Korea’s Ha Tae-kwon, and the runner-up Fu Haifeng on the Offensive, while Fu’s partner Cai Yun played its sister, the Defensive. Ha had begun adjusting to it at the All England a few weeks earlier, and Yonex described him as a solid, steady smasher. That August he and Kim Dong-moon won the Olympic men’s doubles gold in Athens, and Eng Hian and Flandy Limpele, who had played the Defensive and the Offensive at the Yonex Open, took the bronze. No Yonex report of the racquets used in Athens has been found, so their frames there are undocumented.
An industry-first doubles concept
By early April 2004 Yonex Japan listed the Armortec 800 Offensive and Defensive as new, for sale in late April at ¥23,000 before tax each. It was the second Armortec, after the 700, and Yonex billed it as an industry-first concept: a model made only for doubles, in two versions so that each partner could match a racquet to a role. Both used an ultra-high-modulus carbon frame with solid titanium at the top, the gForce Ti that Yonex USA credited with 4% more smash speed, and a high-modulus carbon shaft with Ultimum Ti. The Offensive differed in frame shape and flex. Yonex’s export page described a box-shaped frame “for OFFENSIVE play” and rated it extra stiff, a grade above the Defensive. Yonex Japan promised more smash speed, a firm flex built for power smashes and quick racquet work, and later a solid feel at impact and a head-driven power smash.
Chosen by the smashers
Yonex’s reports from that week show how the split was meant to work. Flandy Limpele, the left-handed hitter of the pair that had won the 2003 Yonex Open Japan, chose the Offensive after comparing smashes: it gave him firmer, sharper-angled smashes than the Defensive, where his old Muscle Power 90 floated the shuttle when he was jammed. His partner Eng Hian took the Defensive to control the rallies for him. Fu Haifeng, another left-handed power hitter coming from the MP-90, said the Offensive felt especially good on the smash and that he wanted to keep using it. Korea’s Ra Kyung-min won the women’s doubles on the Offensive beside Lee Kyung-won on the Defensive. Halim Haryanto, on the Offensive beside Candra Wijaya’s Defensive, welcomed the split but noted that top pairs often both hit hard, and said he was waiting for one racquet that could do both.
Bright Orange, in 4U and 3U
The Offensive came in one color, Bright Orange (Yonex Japan color 160), against the Defensive’s Shine Yellow, and both were made in Japan at the same price. Yonex Japan and its export pages listed 4U (80–84.9 g) and 3U (85–89.9 g) versions; Yonex USA’s 2005 page carried only the 4U. Yonex published no balance figure. A US retailer’s spec sheet coded the Offensive head-heavy and the Defensive even, while forum testers in 2004 found the Offensive only slightly head-heavy but stiffer and heavier in the head than the Defensive. No special or player edition was made. The nearest successor is the box-framed Armortec 900 Power of 2007, which a 2009 reviewer called an improved 800 Offensive.
A short time on sale
The verified sales in the price panel above are pre-owned examples from the Asian resale market; no unused example is recorded. The Offensive was sold new for only a few years. Yonex Japan ended production in 2006, Yonex’s global list had dropped the pair by June 2007, and a Yonex China list from March 2008 is the last on-sale record found. Surviving examples are around two decades old, so the weight code, the condition of the head and T-joint and any repairs matter more than the model name. The Olympic connection belongs to the model’s launch season, not to any frame on the market.
Copied within months
Copies of the Armortec 800 appeared within months of launch. In October 2004 a BadmintonCentral member described an “Armortec 800” bought in Indonesia that was gray-green rather than orange or yellow and 1–2 cm short, with an “SP” market code on the shaft but a “CH” code on its serial number. Once photos were posted, members called it one of the worst fakes they had seen, pointing to the wrong colors and a sticker claiming a 2U weight that Yonex never made. Another member reported an online seller offering Armortec 800s made in South China outside Yonex’s channels.
The half that faded
After its launch season the Offensive fades from Yonex’s records. Yonex’s English-language tournament reports of 2007 and early 2008 name nine different players on the Defensive and none on the Offensive, and some of its 2004 users had moved on: Limpele appears on the new 900 Technique in May 2007 and on the 900 Power in 2008. Yonex never explained the imbalance. The 900s that replaced the pair in 2007 were split by playing style rather than by doubles role. Yonex returned to role-specific doubles racquets in 2018 with the Astrox 88 S and 88 D, this time defined by court position, front and back, rather than by offense and defense, and it has not linked the new pair to the old one.
The Offensive is Bright Orange (Yonex Japan color 160); a yellow frame is the Defensive, and a gray-green “Armortec 800” matches a fake reported in 2004. It should be marked made in Japan. Yonex made it only in 4U (80–84.9 g) and 3U (85–89.9 g), so a 2U marking is wrong, and listed the frame as 10 mm longer than standard, so a short frame is a warning sign. The frame top should have the extra grommet holes at 10 and 2 o’clock that give the 800 its single-pass stringing pattern. Yonex’s 2011 counterfeit guidance gives four checks: the hologram sticker should be hard to peel; the YONEX logo should be crisp, since a wide, round O is a common sign of a fake; the production code on the cap above the handle should be laser-engraved, not printed; and the butt cap should match Yonex’s green.
The 800 Offensive is the smash half of the pair Yonex billed as the industry’s first doubles-only concept, used at its 2004 launch by players who won Olympic medals in Athens that summer and largely absent from Yonex’s records afterward. It makes most sense beside the Defensive, since Yonex designed the two for partners. Look for a Japan-made Bright Orange frame in 4U or 3U with a sound head, grommet area and T-joint, and ask for clear photos of the engraved codes before paying.
Verified prices last updated Aug 2026. All data based on tracked secondary market transactions.