Muscle Power 90
Model MP-90 · Lin Dan, Chen Hong, Gao Ling, Fu Haifeng, Flandy Limpele, Candra Wijaya, Sigit Budiarto, Xie Xingfang
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Muscle Power 90: Yonex’s first Ultimum Ti frame, listed as Lin Dan’s racquet in 2004–05
Titanium in the frame
Yonex Japan announced the Muscle Power 90 on 2 April 2002 under the headline “New racquet Muscle Power 90 is born” and put it at the top of its racquet list. The Muscle Power 100 of 2000 had introduced Ultimum Ti in the shaft. On the 90, Yonex said, the material went into the frame as well as the shaft, which it called a world first. The same month the racquet was shown at the Yonex Open Japan, where the top-seeded Indonesian men’s doubles pair began using it. Two years later Yonex Japan’s advisory-staff page listed a young Lin Dan on it.
A slimmer speed frame
Yonex pitched the 90 at the speed of the top-level game: the shuttle leaves the racquet at up to 360 km/h, it said, and a smash crosses from mid-court to mid-court in 0.2 seconds, so swing speed decides rallies. It described Ultimum Ti as a super-elastic material used in satellite parts, with about three times the strength of ordinary titanium fiber and about twice the restoring force of carbon, working with the Muscle Power Frame (the raised archways that seat the string, first used on the 1999 Ti10 and extended to the joint on the MP-100) to store energy at impact for smashes that bury themselves in the opponent’s court. Yonex made the shaft 6% and the frame 3% thinner and claimed a 5% faster swing. It listed high-modulus carbon with Ultimum Ti in frame and shaft, 3U and 2U in grips 4 and 5, one color, yellow (004), at ¥24,000 before tax with a soft case. It recommended 17–20 lb mains and 19–22 lb crosses for the 3U, 1 lb more for the 2U. Yonex Japan published no flex or balance for it.
From Wijaya and Sigit to Lin Dan
Yonex’s Yonex Open Japan 2002 page reported that Candra Wijaya and Sigit Budiarto, the men’s doubles top seeds, had begun using the new Muscle Power 90 there; Wijaya praised its handling and Sigit its fast head return. Yonex Japan’s staff pages of mid-2003 listed it for both of them, that year’s All England men’s doubles champions, for Flandy Limpele, and for China’s Gao Ling and Xie Xingfang; Gao Ling’s partner Huang Sui was listed on the Armortec 700. Zhao Tingting, Wei Yili and Denmark’s Jonas Rasmussen appear on it too. At the April 2004 Yonex Open Japan, Limpele and Fu Haifeng said they had come to the new Armortec 800 Offensive from the MP-90. From June 2004 to June 2005 the staff page listed Lin Dan, the 2004 All England champion, on the MP-90, beside Chen Hong. No Yonex page ties a title to the 90.
One yellow frame, and the export 99
Yonex Japan sold one version: yellow, 3U or 2U, grips 4 or 5, made in Japan. Its later page widened the tension ranges to 17–22 lb (3U) and 18–23 lb (2U), added a built-in T-joint to the materials and called the frame ultra-high-modulus carbon. In the 2002 lineup the 90 sat between the red Muscle Power 100 at ¥25,000 and the Muscle Power 80 at ¥23,000, the probable Japanese counterpart of the export MP-88. Yonex’s export lists carried a yellow Muscle Power-99 with Ultimum Ti in frame and shaft, rated Extra Stiff and made in Japan. Yonex never called it the 90 under an export name, and the listings differ in detail: Yonex USA showed the 99 in 3U with a G4 grip in 2004–05 (its December 2003 list added 2U), while Yonex’s global list of 2006 gave 3U and 2U in several grips. Yonex USA called the 99’s frame high-modulus graphite in 2004–05 and ultra-high-modulus from 2006.
Five years in Japan’s lineup
Yonex Japan sold the MP-90 from April 2002 and lists it among the models whose production ended in 2007, with the MP-80, MP-45, MP-40 and the Nanospeed 6000 and 8000. Its list price never changed: the 2007 page still showed ¥24,000 before tax. Yonex’s records of its use run from 2002 to 2005, so its interest for collectors rests on that period, the Lin Dan listing and its place as the first Ultimum Ti frame. An unused frame today is old stock nearly twenty years old. No verified sales are recorded yet.
Copies and lookalikes
No counterfeit specific to the MP-90 is documented. Fakes of its era did exist: a badminton forum member wrote in January 2009 that most of the fake Yonex racquets he had met were Nanospeeds, Armortecs and Muscle Power 99s and 100s, which takes in the export model closest to the 90. The more common question is identity. A yellow Muscle Power of the period may be printed 90 or 99, and the two are not documented as one racquet; the red MP-100 and the MP-80 are the other Japan-made Muscle Powers sold beside it.
Overtaken by the Armortec
The 90’s run at the top was short. By April 2004 Wijaya told Yonex he had been playing the Armortec 700, and Fu and Limpele had moved to the Armortec 800 Offensive. The staff pages lagged: they still showed Wijaya on the MP-90 that month, and in June 2005 still had Chen Hong on it, although Yonex’s Nanospeed 8000 launch release that spring said he had won the March 2005 All England with the new racquet. Lin Dan’s entry changed to the Armortec 700 by September 2005, and Yonex’s 2017 anniversary site dates his use of the 700 to 2003; he stayed with Yonex until China’s team moved to Li-Ning in 2009. Yonex named no successor to the 90. The MP-100 ended production in 2006, and the Ultimum Ti frame idea carried on in Yonex Japan’s Carbonex 30 Muscle of 2003–2011; it has its own page.
Look for a yellow frame (Yonex color 004) printed Muscle Power 90, with the raised Muscle Power Frame between the grommets and a made-in-Japan marking. Yonex Japan sold it only in 3U and 2U, grips 4 and 5, and documented high-modulus carbon with Ultimum Ti in frame and shaft and a built-in T-joint, but no flex or balance. The 4U Muscle Power of the period is the MP-80, in champagne or navy/silver; the MP-100 is red with titanium mesh in the frame; a frame printed Muscle Power 99 is the export model, which Yonex never calls the same racquet. On a frame this old, check the grommets, T-joint and grip for cracks and repairs.
The MP-90 is the Muscle Power that carried Ultimum Ti into the frame and the racquet Yonex Japan listed for Lin Dan, Chen Hong and a run of top doubles players in 2002–05. No frame has a documented match history, so it is a Japan-made frame of that era rather than any player’s racquet. Confirm the yellow finish, the weight class and the printed 90, and inspect old frames closely; a frame printed 99 is a different listing.