Nanospeed 9000X
Model NS-9000X · Jens Eriksen
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.
Nanospeed 9000 Type X: the extra-stiff gold frame Jens Eriksen called ‘just right’
Stiff by choice
The Nanospeed 9000 came in two flexes, and the Type X was the stiffer one, rated Extra Stiff and aimed by Yonex Japan at power hitters. The player Yonex named on it most consistently was a Danish doubles veteran. At the Yonex Open Japan in September 2007, Yonex Japan’s player page listed Jens Eriksen, a 2004 Olympic bronze medalist in mixed doubles, on the Nanospeed 9000 Type X. He said he had always liked stiff racquets, that the Type X was just the right stiffness for him, and that at the net it pushed the shuttle without wobbling, which let him attack. Yonex’s global and Japanese staff pages listed the same racquet for him that autumn. The Type X is often described as a Lee Chong Wei racquet, a link that comes from fan histories rather than from Yonex’s records.
Rubber metal from a Toyota lab
Yonex Japan launched the Nanospeed 9000 on April 2, 2006, under the line “for the TOP,” in two types at one price, ¥25,000 before tax. Its new material was what Yonex Japan called rubber metal, a titanium alloy developed at Toyota Central R&D Labs, the Toyota group’s research institute. Yonex’s table gave it an elastic modulus of 40 GPa, against about 90 for conventional titanium alloy, with higher strength, so it flexed more easily without being weaker. Set into both sides of the frame, the alloy, denser than carbon, raised the head’s moment of inertia, and Yonex said the face recovered precisely even on off-center hits. Fullerene ran through the whole shaft, which let Yonex thin the wall and move weight toward the grip for a head-light balance “that advanced players like.” Yonex’s export pages called the alloy Elastic Ti.
The Lee Chong Wei question
Fan histories put Lee Chong Wei on a Nanospeed 9000 in 2006, and some listings call the Type X the racquet of his rise to No. 1. Yonex’s records show another path. Its Japanese staff page, written in 2005, lists the MP-80. At the Yonex Open Japan in October 2006, Yonex Japan named his racquet as the Nanospeed 8000 and quoted him on it. From May 2007 its reports had him on the Armortec 900 Power, and that September he said it gave him more power than “the Nanospeed series I used before,” naming no model. No Yonex page or report puts him on a 9000 of either type. The only gap in that record runs from the 9000’s launch in April 2006 to that October, which includes June 29, when he first reached No. 1. The story traces to a 2009 BadmintonCentral post offered as a guess, “MP88 -> NS8000 -> NS9000 -> NS8000,” and to later blogs, none citing a match. The 2007 date sometimes given is wrong twice over: by then he played the 900 Power, and his record run at No. 1 began in August 2008.
One model, two flexes
Yonex sold the 9000 as a single model in two flexes, item codes NS9000X and NS9000S. Both had the same high-modulus carbon frame with rubber metal, the same fullerene shaft, the same 3U and 2U weights, the same recommended tension of 19–24 lb for 3U and 20–25 lb for 2U, the same Glorious Gold finish and the same price. Yonex rated the X Extra Stiff and the S Stiff. On court the S was far more common. It appears in 17 of the tournament reports Yonex posted between January 2007 and mid-2008, the X in only two: Eriksen in the 2007 Swiss Open final, and Zhang Jiewen at the 2008 Asia Championships, though Yonex listed her on the S in the reports just before and after. Yonex’s staff pages also put Thailand’s Saralee Thoungthongkam on the X, while its 2007 Singapore Open report had her on the S. Yonex made no third type, new color or player edition.
Two years in production
Verified sales of the Type X so far are a handful of pre-owned frames from Asia resale, and the price panel above lists them; each of those listings names the type. It was not made for long. Yonex Japan ended production in 2008, two years after launch, although Yonex’s export site still listed the 9000 in March 2010 and had dropped it by November. Any unused frame is old stock from that run. Because the X and S share a finish and a price, check which type a listing actually offers. A listing that calls it Lee Chong Wei’s racquet is repeating the fan story above; the Type X’s documented users are Eriksen and, on one Yonex page, Saralee Thoungthongkam.
Copies and claims
No counterfeit reports specific to the 9000 have been found. Nanospeed frames were copied early, as the NS-8000 page describes, and Yonex’s warning of the period said many imitations sold on internet auction sites were crude copies that broke easily. The larger risk with the Type X is provenance. A frame sold as Lee Chong Wei’s carries a claim that no record supports, and Yonex never made a Lee Chong Wei or other player edition of the 9000, so no marking on the frame can back it up.
The top of the Nanospeed line
The 9000 headed Yonex’s Nanospeed list from late 2006 until the Nanospeed 9900 arrived in February 2009. Yonex’s March 2010 export chart still shows the two side by side, the 9900 Extra Stiff with X-Fullerene in its frame where the 9000 had Elastic Titanium. A 2011 blog review remembered the Type X as a racquet for back-court doubles smashers, one that demanded a player get behind the shuttle for a full overhead swing, which fits both Yonex’s pitch and Eriksen’s use. For a Nanospeed collection it is the stiffer half of a matched pair; the NS-9000S page tells the story of the half that China’s women’s team played.
Yonex documents one finish for both types, Glorious Gold (color 507), so confirm that the frame is the Type X (Extra Stiff, item NS9000X) and not the Type S. Both are made in Japan, in 3U (85–89.9 g) or 2U (90–94.9 g); Yonex made no 4U. There is no player or signature edition, so “Lee Chong Wei” in a listing is a description, not a model. Yonex’s counterfeit guidance of the period gives four checks: a hologram sticker, if present, should resist peeling; the O in the YONEX logo should be narrow, not wide and round; the production code on the cap above the handle should be laser-engraved, not printed; and the butt cap should match Yonex’s green.
In Yonex’s records the Type X is the less-played half of the Nanospeed 9000 pair, and it is the half that fan lists attach to Lee Chong Wei. Buy it as the stiffer version of Yonex’s rubber-metal flagship, with Jens Eriksen as its documented player, and treat any Lee Chong Wei provenance as unproven without a dated photo or report. Confirm the type, since both came in the same gold. Unused frames are old stock from a Japanese run that ended in 2008, so inspect the head, grommets and joint closely.
Verified prices last updated Aug 2026. All data based on tracked secondary market transactions.