Babolat is a French-based tennis, badminton, and squash equipment company, best known for its racquets which are used by many top players such as Andy Roddick, Kim Clijsters, Rafael Nadal, Carlos Moya, Fernando Gonzalez, Igor Andreev, and Robby Ginepri. Babolat is a company based in France that has made strings since 1875, when Pierre Babolat created the first strings made of natural gut. Babolat continued to focus on strings, until 1994, when it became a "total tennis" company. That is, Babolat began producing racquet frames in that year and selling them in Europe. It then moved on to Japan, and then the USA in 2000. The popularity of Babolat racquets picked up extremely quickly in North America and Europe, trademarked by the easily identifiable double lines across the strings of the racquet face, and along the racquet frame itself.
Fifty years after its first natural gut strings, Babolat launched VS Brand Gut. Eighty-one years later, VS Brand Gut is still one of the most recognized brands of natural gut and is used by many top pros such as Andy Roddick.
The three models of racquets Babolat produces include the "Pure Drive", the blue racquet, and of that model includes the Pure Drive Team (used by Kim Clijsters, Carlos Moya, and the Pure Drive Team Plus. The second model is the Babolat Pure Control Team and the Babolat Pure Control Team Plus, the red racquet with white stripes used by tennis players such as Robby Ginepri and Justin Gimelstob. The third model is the Babolat Pure Storm Team, an orange and black racquet used by Fernando Gonzalez. Another model, of the 'aero' series, is the Babolat AeroPro Drive, the black one with yellow stripes once used by Rafael Nadal. The Aero Range is considered to provide the most racquet head speed and spin due to its aero modular technology. Other racquets in this range include the Aeropro control. Recently released ranges include the Pure Drive Roddick, the plus version used by Andy Roddick, and the NS and Drive Z range.
The Pure Control line has since been eliminated from the market to make way for more variations of the Pure Drive such as the Roddick signature, Oversize and the updated Team and Plus models with Babolat's new cortex vibration dampening technology. The new Aeropro Drive with Cortex will be the first "aero" model racket to be fitted with cortex technology. Although the Pure Control line has been eliminated from the market it has since revived the Pure Control Zylon 360 in a lighter form and giving it a new name to boost sales after the dismal sales of the original Zylon 360. The racquet was called the "Pure Storm" and has since gained quite a large following for its low stiffness and control level. Due to the following of the low powered and flexible Pure Storm, Babolat has decided to recreate the Pure Control Team as the Pure Storm Tour having indentical specs to the Pure Control Team except having a big difference in the flex which dropped from 70 to 63 and 62 on the extended length version. Babolat also updated the previous Pure Storm along with the new Pure Storm Tour with a new material called "Carbon Extreme" placed around the head for extra stability.
At the 2005 Australian Open, Babolat was the most popular brand of racquet used by competitors, eclipsing traditional market leaders Dunlop, Prince, Head, Wilson, Yonex, Volkl and Slazenger.