Ti-8
Model TI-8
Price history
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Ti8 Titanium Mesh: Yonex’s 1998 “smash power titanium,” the racquet before the Ti10
Titanium mesh, before the Ti10
The Ti8 Titanium Mesh is the earliest titanium-mesh racquet in Yonex’s surviving records. Yonex Japan’s badminton homepage announced it as a new racquet on sale, on a page last revised on 1 September 1998, and linked a test report by the Barcelona 1992 Olympian Kimiko Jinnai. The report said the Ti8 had become a hit within three months of release. By late April 1999 the same homepage listed it as “smash power titanium” beside the new Ti10, “strong muscle titanium,” which took over Yonex’s advertising that spring. Yonex’s 2017 timeline of landmark isometric frames goes straight from the 1998 Isometric Swing Power 900 to the Ti10, so in the company’s own history the Ti8 is easy to miss.
Carbon, titanium mesh and an extra 10 mm
Yonex Japan’s 1998 product page listed a high-modulus carbon frame with titanium mesh, marked patent pending, a high-modulus carbon shaft, and a list price of ¥22,000 with a full racquet case. Jinnai’s report placed the mesh in the middle of the frame. Yonex Japan’s 2000 page credited the mesh with raising face stability and said vibration absorption was up 10% for a cleaner feel at impact. The racquet was 10 mm longer than standard. Later Japanese pages changed the material wording without announcing a new model: the 2000 page gave an ultra-high-modulus carbon shaft, and the 2001 page ultra-high-modulus carbon for both frame and shaft. Yonex’s export catalogs for 1999 and 2000 rated the flex Extra Stiff, and Yonex recommended 14–16 lb mains and 16–18 lb crosses for the 3U, 2 lb more for the 2U.
A test report, not a tour racquet
No professional is documented using the Ti8. The one name Yonex attached to it is Kimiko Jinnai, a Barcelona 1992 Olympian and, with Hisako Mori, the 1991 All England women’s doubles runner-up. She had expected titanium to feel hard and found it did not, praised the feel on drives and clears, said smashes dropped sharply, and credited the stable face for accurate returns of shots played tight to the net. That is a marketing test, not match use. Yonex Japan’s advisory-staff pages, archived from 2003, list no Ti8 user, though by then the model had left the lineup. The player in Yonex’s 1999 titanium advertising, Peter Gade, was named for the Ti10.
One finish, and three export siblings
Yonex Japan sold the Ti8 in one color, silver (017), in 3U (85–89 g) and 2U (90–94 g); the 1998 page offered grips 4 and 5, and the 2000 and 2001 pages added grip 3 for the 2U. Yonex made no player or limited edition of it. Outside Japan it arrived as part of a set: Yonex’s 1999 export catalog introduced four Titanium Mesh models at once, the Ti-10, Ti-8, Ti-6 and Ti-5, all marked new, with the Ti-8 rated Extra Stiff beside the Medium Stiff Ti-6 and the Stiff Ti-5. Its 2000 catalog tagged the Ti-8 as a long frame and marked the Muscle Power Frame on the Ti-10 but not on the Ti-8. In Japan the Ti8 sat ¥2,000 below the Ti10, and by April 2001 Yonex Japan’s titanium line was the Ti 10 in two lengths, the Ti 8, Ti 7, Ti 6 and Ti 4. The Ti-6, Ti-5, Ti-7 and Ti-4 have their own pages.
Three and a half years on the list
Yonex Japan kept the Ti8 in its lineup from 1998 into early 2002. It was still on the current racquet list in February 2002, before the 2002 range replaced it, and by August 2002 Yonex had filed it with the old models of the 2001 range, beside the regular-length Ti10R. Its list price never changed from ¥22,000. No verified sales are recorded yet. Its interest for a collector is historical, as the first model of Yonex’s titanium-mesh line in the company’s records; no player story is attached to it.
Mix-ups rather than fakes
No counterfeit Ti8 is documented. The realistic confusion is between titanium-mesh siblings: the Ti 7, Ti 6 and Ti 4 also carry titanium mesh, and the Ti10 and the Ti 7 add a raised Muscle Power Frame. A titanium-mesh frame described only as a Yonex “Ti” is not necessarily a Ti8, so the printed model number decides it.
The step before the muscle frame
In Yonex’s titanium range the Ti8 came first and the Ti10 followed within months, adding the Muscle Power Frame to the mesh and taking the 1999 advertising. The Ti8 stayed on sale beneath it at an unchanged price and left Yonex Japan’s lineup with the 2001 old models, a year before the long Ti10. Its place in a collection is as the opening model of Yonex’s titanium years.
Look for “Ti8 TITANIUM MESH” printed on the shaft with “LONG” lettering below it, as in Yonex’s 2000 export catalog photo, and the item number TI-8. Yonex Japan names the color silver (017). Yonex sold it in 3U (85–89 g) and 2U (90–94 g) only, 10 mm longer than standard, and its export catalogs rate it Extra Stiff. Yonex published no balance and no country of manufacture for the Ti8, so treat a made-in marking as a detail to record, not proof either way. A raised ridge between the grommets (the Muscle Power Frame) belongs to the Ti10 or Ti 7, not the Ti8. On a frame this old, check the head, grommets and joint for cracks.
The Ti8 belongs in a collection of Yonex’s titanium years as the model that came before the Ti10. Buy it on what can be checked: the printed name, the silver finish, the long frame and the weight class. No player provenance exists for it, so don’t pay for any. Expect frames that have been strung and played for years, and ask for close photos of the head and joint.