Nanoray Z-Speed
Model NR-ZSPEED · Carolina Marin, Tan Boon Heong
Price history
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26 verified transactions on record · USD · methodology
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Nanoray Z-Speed: the 493 km/h record racquet behind Marín’s first two world titles
493 km/h in a test, not a match
The Nanoray Z-Speed arrived with a world record already attached. In a Yonex test that Yonex Japan later dated to May 2013, Tan Boon Heong hit a smash with it that left the strings at 493 km/h, and on July 28, 2013, Guinness World Records certified it as the fastest badminton hit by a man. It replaced the 421 km/h Tan had reached with Yonex’s ArcSaber Z-Slash, certified in 2010. When Yonex announced the racquet on August 23, 2013, the number led the release. Like the earlier mark, it came from a measured test hit rather than a rally, and smashes in matches are far slower. The record stood for almost ten years, until Satwiksairaj Rankireddy reached 565 km/h with the Nanoflare 1000 Z at Yonex’s Tokyo factory on April 14, 2023.
The smallest frame Yonex had made
Yonex released the Z-Speed worldwide in mid-September 2013, aimed at advanced players and priced in Japan at ¥26,000 before tax. Everything in the design served swing speed. Yonex cut the head to the smallest frame it had made and shaped the cross-section around a 45-degree angle, which it said is where a badminton swing spends the most time. The shaft was its thinnest and longest, with the nano-carbon materials Nanometric and X-Fullerene, and Yonex claimed 10% more swing speed, with comparison diagrams set against the Z-Slash. To offset the small head, its Horizontal-A Concept turned the grommets horizontal so the strings could move more near the top, enlarging the sweet area by about 11%. The shaped frame sides, called SBZ for Snap Back Zone, used EX-HMG, which Yonex called its highest-modulus carbon, so the frame would bend and snap back. Yonex’s global page called it “the world’s fastest racquet,” rated the flex stiff, and listed 3U and 2U, made in Japan in High Orange.
Tan, Koo and Carolina Marín
Tan took it into competition that autumn. Yonex lists him and Koo Kien Keat on the Z-Speed as quarterfinalists at the October 2013 Denmark Open and as French Open runners-up, beaten 21–16, 21–18 by Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Markis Kido. Its biggest wins came with Carolina Marín. Yonex lists her on it when she became Spain’s first European champion in April 2014 and when she won the 2014 World Championships, 17–21, 21–17, 21–18 over Li Xuerui. It names the Z-Speed again for her 2015 All England title and her second world title in Jakarta, both finals against Saina Nehwal, who played the Nanoray 900. No Yonex report names her racquet at Rio 2016, but Yonex lists her on the Z-Speed at the All Englands of March 2016 and March 2017, so the Olympic gold falls inside her documented run. Her titles are sometimes credited to the Nanospeed 9900, which no Yonex source puts in her hands. She had moved to the Duora Z-Strike by the India Open at the end of March 2017.
Two designs under one code
Yonex sold two designs as NR-ZSP. The launch frame was High Orange. By February 2016 Yonex Japan’s list carried a “new design” Z-Speed, the Lime Yellow frame that Yonex’s global site showed from 2018, with the same listed frame and shaft materials. Some Japanese resale listings call a High Orange Z-Speed a limited reissue of the first design; no Yonex record of a reissue is documented. Yonex rated the High Orange stiff and the Lime Yellow extra stiff, and its Japanese gauge put the first slightly toward head-light and the second at even. Yonex’s match reports name the model, never the color, so which design Marín played at Rio, months after the new one appeared, is not documented. Around it sat the rest of the Nanoray family, which Yonex billed as head-light, including the Nanoray 900 of 2014, on which Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan won the 2015 world men’s doubles title.
Ten years on sale, two designs priced together
Verified sales of the Z-Speed so far are pre-owned frames from Asia resale, and the price panel above lists them; they cover both designs, since most listings don’t say which one they offer. The High Orange is the 2013 launch frame of the record announcement, and the Lime Yellow is the later design, which stayed on Yonex Japan’s price list into 2024, more than a decade after launch. A listing tied to Marín or Tan needs more than a name. No Yonex player edition of the Z-Speed is documented, and no particular frame from the record test or from any final has been documented.
Fakes and spec mismatches
No counterfeit specific to the Z-Speed has been documented, so the usual Yonex checks apply. Internal consistency is the more useful test. Both genuine designs are made in Japan, and Yonex listed both in 3U and 2U only. Yonex’s pages list the High Orange as stiff and only the Lime Yellow as extra stiff, so a listing that pairs the launch color with extra stiff has mixed up the two designs, or the racquet. Balance is not a reliable check either: Yonex billed the series as head-light, while one experienced reviewer found the Z-Speed head-heavy in hand.
From record holder to predecessor
Yonex Japan’s 25th-anniversary timeline lists the Z-Speed among its landmark racquets as the model that broke the Z-Slash’s world record, with Tan and Marín as its players. Reviewers were cooler. UK coach Paul Stewart gave it two and a half stars, called it “perhaps the most disappointing racquet I have ever tested,” and found it head-heavy and less stiff than its label. Yonex’s own Hawk-Eye table shows the gap between test and match, putting Marín’s fastest smash at the 2016 All England at 356 km/h. The line of record racquets runs from the Z-Slash through the Z-Speed to the Nanoflare 1000 Z, which took the record in 2023 and which Marín herself played from that year.
Yonex’s item code is NR-ZSP, and both designs are marked Made in Japan. Yonex listed 3U (85–89.9 g, average 88 g) and 2U (90–94.9 g, average 93 g), each with grip 4 or 5. High Orange (Yonex Japan color 752) is the 2013 launch design, rated stiff; Lime Yellow is the later design, rated extra stiff. Yonex lists a high-modulus graphite frame with Sonic Metal and EX-HMG, and a shaft with Nanometric and X-Fullerene. Yonex’s own checks: the production code on the cap above the handle is laser-engraved, the hologram sticker resists peeling, the O in YONEX is not wide and round, and the butt cap is Yonex’s green.
Decide which Z-Speed you want before looking: the High Orange launch frame of the 2013 record, or the Lime Yellow redesign that Yonex Japan sold into the 2020s. Ask for photographs of the color, the Made in Japan marking and the cone code. Treat any claim that a frame was used in the record test or by Marín in a final as unproven without documentation. Players should expect a stiff frame with a small head that rewards a fast swing.
Verified prices last updated Sep 2026. All data based on tracked secondary market transactions.