Nanoray 700 FX
Model NR-700FX · Birgit Michels, Sayaka Takahashi
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.
Nanoray 700 FX: the supple Toughlex twin that stayed on sale until 2019
The twin that stayed
Yonex launched its Nanoray series in Japan in mid-September 2011 with exactly two racquets, the Nanoray 700 RP and the Nanoray 700 FX. One press release announced both, at one price of ¥21,000 before tax, both made in Japan. Yonex pitched the RP at players who wanted fast, sharp drives and the FX at players who wanted a supple touch and control. The stiffer RP drew the better-known players, Saina Nehwal and Liliyana Natsir among them, and its story is on the Nanoray 700 RP page. Yet Yonex Japan recorded the RP’s production end in 2013, while the FX carried on: it gained a second color in 2012 and a new white design in 2018, and Yonex Japan’s racquet list still showed it in mid-January 2019, more than five years after the RP was retired.
A thick frame and a tougher resin
Yonex billed Nanoray as the next step from its head-light Nanospeed line. Its Japanese release called the new shape a “thick racquet” (厚ラケ) and named it the Aero frame: the frame sides are deep at the bottom of the head, for stiffness and repulsion, and slimmer toward the top, to cut air drag. Both 700s carry X-Fullerene through the whole shaft, a fullerene with four arm-like functional groups that Yonex said bonded more strongly with the resin than ordinary fullerene. The two differ in the frame. The RP has fullerene in the lower frame sides; the FX has Toughlex, a new resin Yonex described as flexible, strong and tenacious, along the frame sides, keeping high repulsion while adding suppleness so the shuttle goes easily where it is aimed. Yonex charted Toughlex above ordinary resin for strength, flexibility and how far it bends before breaking, and rated the FX’s flex Medium against the RP’s Stiff.
Michels, Takahashi and a Sudirman Cup meeting
The FX’s documented tour users come from Yonex’s global match reports, which tag each player’s racquet. Germany’s Birgit Michels is the most frequent, listed on the 700FX from 2013 to 2015. At the November 2013 Bitburger Open she and Michael Fuchs, on the Voltric 80, won the mixed doubles title, and at the 2015 Sudirman Cup the pair won their match as Germany upset Thailand. At the 2013 Sudirman Cup in Kuala Lumpur the two 700s met: Fuchs and Michels opened Germany’s tie against Malaysia by beating Chan Peng Soon and Goh Liu Ying, Goh on the 700RP, 21–17, 18–21, 21–17, and Germany went on to win the tie and reach the quarterfinals for the first time. Japan’s Sayaka Takahashi is also listed on the FX, as runner-up at the May 2012 Malaysia Grand Prix Gold and against Ratchanok Intanon at that 2013 Sudirman Cup.
Three designs under one code
Yonex sold the FX under one item code, NR700FX, in three designs. Shine Orange was the 2011 launch color, the same as the RP’s. Yonex Japan added Shine Silver/Red for mid-November 2012, in the same release that gave the RP Flash Red, and from May 2013 Yonex’s global site listed only the silver and red. In 2018 Yonex Japan’s page switched to White/High Red, marked as a new design and still ¥21,000 before tax, and by January 2019 the global page offered only that white frame. Yonex offered two weight classes throughout, 4U and 3U, and made no player or limited edition of the FX. Yonex never spells out the letters FX or RP; a US retailer sold this model as the “700FX Flexible” at launch, and the matching “Repulsion” for the RP also comes from retail copy.
Seven years on the shelf
At launch Yonex set an annual sales target of 30,000 racquets for the two 700s combined, sold in Japan and abroad; the FX’s US launch price was $245, the same as the RP’s. The FX stayed in the range far longer than its twin, and Yonex’s UK catalog for 2015 still listed the 700FX with no 700RP beside it. The verified sales shown above are all pre-owned frames from Asia resale, and there are more of them than for the RP. Condition and design vary widely across them: the orange launch frames are the oldest, and the White/High Red frames of 2018 are the last design Yonex sold. Read each listing for the letters on the frame, because a seller’s title can mix up the two 700s.
Fakes and mix-ups
No counterfeit report specific to the Nanoray 700 FX has been found, and Yonex published no guide for the model. Mix-ups with its twin are the likelier problem, since both launched in the same Shine Orange and share a shaft, a frame shape and the weight classes; the model name on the frame separates them. A 2012 blog review read the letters as “repulsion” and “flex” and described the FX as the one with the more flexible shaft, for players with long swings, and that reading still circulates. Yonex’s specification gives both models the same high-modulus graphite shaft with X-Fullerene; the difference is the frame resin and the flex rating. The Nanoflare 700 of 2019 is a different, later racquet with a similar name.
A quiet survivor
Yonex placed newer Nanorays beside the FX while it stayed on sale: the Nanoray 800 in 2012, the 750 in 2013 and the 900 in 2014. The FX remained the Toughlex model in a range otherwise built on fullerene, X-Fullerene and, in the 800, titanium. One reviewer, writing on the asmd blog in November 2012, found its feel “wooden” at first, then realized the frame was simply very damped: “Even off center shots are damped rather well.” He thought it hit as hard as the best of them but found it hard to love. Yonex Japan’s racquet list still carried the Nanoray 700 FX on January 16, 2019 and had dropped it by January 24, and Yonex’s global page was gone by February. No Yonex production-end notice for it has been found.
Yonex’s item code is NR700FX, and every Yonex listing gives Made in Japan. Yonex offered 4U (80–84.9 g, average 83 g) and 3U (85–89.9 g, average 88 g), so a 5U or 2U frame matches no Yonex listing. Yonex lists a high-modulus graphite frame with Toughlex and a high-modulus graphite shaft with X-Fullerene, flex Medium, and Yonex Japan marks the frame 10 mm longer than standard. The three Yonex designs are Shine Orange (2011), Shine Silver/Red (late 2012) and White/High Red (2018); an orange frame is the launch design shared with the 700 RP, so check that it says FX. Yonex recommends 19–24 lb for the 4U and 20–25 lb for the 3U. Yonex’s counterfeit guide says the production code is laser-engraved on the cap above the handle.
The Nanoray 700 FX is the long-lived half of Yonex’s first Nanoray pair: a Japan-made, medium-flex Toughlex frame sold from 2011 into early 2019, with Birgit Michels its most documented tour user. Choose the design you want, orange, silver/red or the 2018 white, and confirm the FX lettering, because the orange launch frames look like the stiffer RP. Ask for photographs of the weight label, the Made in Japan marking and the code on the cap, check the head and T-joint for cracks, and treat any claim of pro use as unproven without documentation.
Verified prices last updated Sep 2026. All data based on tracked secondary market transactions.