Armortec 900 Technique
Model AT-900T · Taufik Hidayat, Zhu Lin
Price history
Chart: monthly median of verified pre-owned sales · USD · methodology
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Armortec 900 Technique: Taufik’s 2007–08 racquet and Zhu Lin’s world-title frame
More than Taufik’s racquet
The Armortec 900 Technique is remembered as Taufik Hidayat’s racquet, and Yonex’s records do place him on it from April 2007 to December 2008. They also show how far its use went beyond him. At the 2007 World Championships in Kuala Lumpur, Yonex’s report lists China’s Zhu Lin as women’s singles champion on the Technique; she beat Wang Chen 21–8, 21–12 in the final. The 2008 Asia Championships women’s singles final had the Technique on both sides of the net, Jiang Yanjiao beating Wang Lin, and Du Jing and Yu Yang won the 2008 Korea and Singapore Opens with it before taking Olympic gold in Beijing, where no Yonex report names their racquets. Taufik’s own spell with it was brief, and his Olympic and world titles came earlier, on the Armortec 700.
A control racquet for the rally-point era
Yonex released the Armortec 900 in two versions worldwide on March 11, 2007, priced in Japan at ¥24,000 before tax for either. Its launch page argued that rally-point scoring had split players into power-first hard hitters and speed-first control players; the 900 Power was for the first group, the Technique for the second. Yonex gave the Technique an aero-shaped frame for quick handling, with Rubber Metal, a titanium alloy it described as elastic like rubber, set in the upper frame so the face would recover precisely and send the shuttle where the player aimed. A solid-titanium mesh, Micro Mesh, sat in the frame top, and Yonex pitched the model as the 900 for sharp counterattacks. It rated the frame stiff and made it 10 mm longer than standard. Yonex printed no balance figure, but its Japanese spec charts plot it well toward head-heavy, retail spec sheets rate it head-heavy, and Yonex called Armortec its most head-heavy series. Yonex’s 2013 retrospective captions the Technique “2006,” but its own launch pages date it to March 2007.
Taufik’s twenty months
Taufik was still on the Armortec 700 at the Yonex Open Japan in October 2006, five months before the 900 went on sale. The first Yonex record of him with the Technique is his 2007 Asia Championships title in Johor Bahru, won 21–18, 21–19 over Chen Hong, and that is the one title Yonex’s 2013 retrospective of his career attaches to the frame. In September he lost the Yonex Open Japan final to Lee Chong Wei and the 900 Power, the match described on the Power’s page. Yonex’s player page listed the Technique as his racquet from October 2007 to December 5, 2008, and the ArcSaber 10 by December 18. Such pages could lag, so those dates are bounds. The period includes his 2007 SEA Games gold, a 2008 French Open final and his 2008 Macau Open title over Lee, 21–19, 21–15, but no Yonex report names his racquet at those events.
One white frame, and the racquet it followed
Yonex made the Technique in one color, Cool White (Yonex Japan color 570), against the Power’s Fire Red. Yonex’s own photograph shows a white frame with red and black accents, and a 2009 review notes “technique” on the frame top and shaft. Both 900s were made in Japan, in 4U and 3U, at the same price. Yonex issued no special or player edition of the Technique; the yellow 2010 Lee Chong Wei edition is a Power. Early users compared it with the Armortec 800 Defensive, the control half of Yonex’s 2004 doubles pair, which had left Yonex’s global list by June 2007. At the Technique’s first tournament in Japan that April, the doubles specialist Sigit Budiarto, a Defensive user since 2004, told Yonex its head worked harder and its head speed was faster, and the same review called the Technique an improved 800 Defensive.
What the market shows
Verified sales of the 900 Technique come from the Asian resale market and are mostly pre-owned; the price panel above lists them, with new and pre-owned valued separately, and the unused figure rests on too few sales to be more than an estimate. The 900 Power is valued on its own page. The Technique was a regular production racquet for about six years, from March 2007 until Yonex Japan ended production in 2012, and like the Power it was played at club level as well as on tour, so it is not scarce in the way a numbered edition is. Listings do not always separate the two 900s, so confirm the color and the lettering first. The connection to Taufik and to Zhu Lin belongs to the model, not to any individual frame, and a seller’s claim of pro use needs documentation of its own.
Copies and misattributions
No counterfeit report specific to the 900 Technique was found. The general risk still applies: Yonex’s 2011 counterfeit warning, published while the 900s were in production, described many copies on internet auction sites as crude and easy to break. The likelier problem is the story attached to a frame. A white Armortec sold as the racquet of Taufik’s 2004 Olympic gold or 2005 world title is misdescribed, since both came before the 900 existed and Yonex itself files them under the Armortec 700. A red 900 described as a Technique is a Power.
The end of the Armortec line
The two 900s were the last models at the top of the Armortec line. Yonex’s head-heavy range moved to the new Voltric series, and Yonex Japan ended production of both 900s in 2012, the last Armortec entries on its list of discontinued models. Taufik had moved on well before that: to the ArcSaber 10, which Yonex ties to his March 2009 India Open title, then the ArcSaber Z-Slash from September 2009, in his own red edition from 2010, and the ArcSaber 11 in his final season, 2013. Looking back that year, he told Yonex he was by no means a power player, and that he always tried a new racquet from Yonex in a real match before deciding.
Check for a white frame with “Technique” lettering: Yonex Japan sold it only in Cool White (color 570), and a Fire Red frame lettered “Power” is its sister. It should be marked made in Japan. Yonex listed two weights, 4U (80–84.9 g) and 3U (85–89.9 g), and rated the frame stiff, so a 2U marking is wrong. Yonex Japan recommended 19–24 lb for the 4U and 20–25 lb for the 3U. 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 900 Technique is the documented middle of Taufik Hidayat’s Yonex years, between the Armortec 700 of his Olympic and world titles and the ArcSaber 10, and the frame of Zhu Lin’s 2007 world title. It pairs naturally with the 900 Power, its opponent in the 2007 Yonex Open Japan final. Look for a Japan-made Cool White frame with Technique lettering and a clear weight code, check the head and T-joint for cracks, and ask for clear photos of the cone and the engraved codes before paying.
Verified prices last updated Sep 2026. All data based on tracked secondary market transactions.