Pickleball Apes Zen S+ Review: Light, Forgiving, Demanding

Updated October 7, 2026

The Pickleball Apes Zen S+ is a 16 mm hybrid that the brand currently sells for
$188.88, down from a $199.99 list. It is the third foam paddle Pickleball Apes has put out
and the first one worth stopping for, because two separate testing benches measured it and
both came back with the same unusual pair of numbers: a swing weight in the 107–109
range, which is light, and a twist weight of 7.0, which is the highest of any paddle in our
recent coverage. Those two things do not normally travel together.

We have not played this paddle. What follows synthesizes measurements
published by Pickleball Effect and Pickleball Playbook, plus specifications published by
Pickleball Apes, each attributed where it is used. Where the numbers disagree, the
disagreement is the useful part.

Who this paddle is for

Buy it if you swing through the ball. Pickleball Effect’s review is blunt about this: the
Zen S+ produces “big power when you swing through the ball, but less pop at slower speeds,”
and it measured a 57.4 MPH serve speed against a 36.8 MPH pop speed. That is a
paddle that rewards a committed stroke and gives back very little to a short, blocky one.
If you drive, roll and take big cuts at the ball, the light swing weight means you can do
all of that without a heavy paddle slowing your hands down at the line.

Skip it if you want a paddle that bails you out. Pickleball Effect names that group
explicitly — players who want “easy, always-on pop,” who “rely on the paddle to bail
you out when you’re late,” or who block rather than swing through touch shots. A paddle
whose power has to be activated is a worse paddle for someone who is late to a lot of
balls, however forgiving it is off-centre.

What it actually is

A 16 mm hybrid on a foam core, with what Pickleball Apes calls a SilverBack grit
surface — a peel-ply bonded textured layer rather than bare raw carbon. Handle length
is 5.75 in and the grip circumference is 4.25 in. Pickleball Playbook measured
the face at 16.2 in long by 7.8 in wide, which is a genuinely hybrid footprint
rather than an elongated paddle with a hybrid label on it.

The grit surface is the part with real data behind it. Pickleball Effect’s abrasion
testing gave the SilverBack face an 88% weighted spin-retention score, against roughly 80%
for typical raw carbon fiber and 97% for 11SIX24’s HexGrit. So it holds its texture better
than most of the field and not as well as the best of it. Measured spin is 2,093 RPM on
Pickleball Effect’s rig — a third-party rig, not USA Pickleball’s certification
protocol, and the two are not interchangeable.

The measurements, and who took them

The two benches agree on the paddle’s shape and dimensions and disagree by 0.11 oz on
static weight and by just over two points on swing weight. Two points of swing weight is not
nothing — it is the difference between calling this the lightest-swinging serious power
paddle we have written about and calling it merely light — but it is within the spread
you see whenever two rigs weigh two retail samples. What matters is that neither number is
anywhere near the 114 average Pickleball Playbook quotes for its own database.

On twist weight the two agree almost exactly, 7.00 against 7.03, and that is the number to
pay attention to. If you want the background on why these two figures describe a paddle better
than static ounces do, our explainer on
swing weight and
twist weight covers it, and our piece on
paddles
with the largest sweet spot explains why twist-weight figures from different sources
sometimes cannot be compared at all.

The number that makes this paddle unusual

Forgiveness off-centre comes from mass distributed away from the paddle’s long axis, and
mass out at the edges usually also makes a paddle heavier to swing. That trade shows up
plainly in our own recent coverage. The Proton Project Coyote measures a 116.8 swing weight
with a 5.9 twist weight. The Six Zero Boulder Opal is 116 and 6.28. The Six Zero Coral hybrid
is 112 and 6.52, and the Coral Pro 114 and 6.79. The pattern is that the more stable paddles
are also the heavier-swinging ones.

The Zen S+ sits outside that pattern: the highest twist weight of the group at the lowest
swing weight in it. At 4.7 DUPR the practical consequence of a figure like that is narrow but
real — it is the difference between a ball caught an inch off-centre in a hands battle
coming back somewhere useful and it coming back short. It does not make you hit the middle
more often. It changes what happens when you don’t.

One caveat from the same source: Pickleball Effect notes the paddle “needs weight tuning
to achieve full stability potential” from that 7.0 rating. A 7.76 oz paddle has room for
lead, and the review reads as though the stock configuration is the starting point rather than
the finished article.

The catch nobody puts on the spec sheet

The grip circumference is 4.25 in, and that is larger than most paddles ship at. A
grip can be built up with an overgrip and it can never be reduced, so 4.25 in is a real
constraint if you have small hands or prefer a thin handle for wrist snap. Our guide to
replacement
grips versus overgrips has the sizing arithmetic; the short version is that two overgrips
add a full grip size, so this paddle starts where many players finish.

The second catch is the one Pickleball Effect keeps returning to: soft shots take more
effort here than on a poppier paddle. Drops and resets are work. If most of your points are
decided at the kitchen line rather than off the drive, that is the wrong trade at this price.

Price: three numbers are in circulation

List is $199.99. Pickleball Apes’ own store currently shows $188.88. Pickleball Effect
quotes $180 with its code, and Pickleball Playbook quotes $169.99 with its own. None of these
is wrong; they are the same paddle at four prices depending on where you land and whether a
code is live that week. Treat $170–$200 as the band and do not assume the discounted
number is permanent — codes expire, and the honest comparison against a $195 or $220
competitor is the price you can actually pay today.

Pickleball Apes lists a 1-year manufacturer warranty and a 30-day demo period, which is
worth more than the $10 or $20 between those prices. A paddle whose power has to be activated
by your swing is exactly the kind of paddle that suits some players and not others, and a
return window is how you find out which one you are.

Certification

Pickleball Effect, Pickleball Playbook and Pickleball Apes all list the Zen S+ as USA
Pickleball approved. We have not independently confirmed it against the USA Pickleball
approved list, so if you are entering a sanctioned event, check the list for your exact model
and thickness before you pay an entry fee. We found no source claiming UPA-A approval, which
matters only if you are playing a UPA-A sanctioned event — our rundown of
banned and delisted
paddles explains why the two lists are not the same thing and why the gap catches people
out.

Two alternatives, and who each is for

Proton Project Coyote, $195 — if spin and pace matter more than stability.
PaddleReviewHub measured 2,279 RPM on the Coyote against the 2,093 Pickleball Effect
measured here, and it is an elongated rather than a hybrid, so it reaches further. You pay for
it in forgiveness: a 5.9 twist weight against 7.0 is a large gap, and it is the single reason
we called the Coyote a specialist. Our
Project Coyote review
has the full case.

Six Zero Coral, around $198 — if you want the easier paddle. The Coral
hybrid measures 8.1 oz static with a 112 swing weight and a 6.52 twist weight, and it is
the consensus all-court pick across several independent testers rather than a paddle with one
standout number. It is heavier in hand and less stable off-centre than the Zen S+, and it asks
much less of your swing. Our
Coral versus Coral Pro
comparison covers the split between the two versions, one of which is not legal in USA
Pickleball events.

If raw pace is the thing you are short of rather than stability, our
power paddle
rankings explain why three benches name a different paddle as the most powerful and what
that actually tells you.

The verdict

The Zen S+ is the most interesting set of numbers in this autumn’s releases: a paddle that
is easy to swing and hard to twist, which is the combination most builds have to choose
between. At $170–$200 it is priced against the Coyote and the Coral, and it beats both
on the stability figure while giving up spin to one and ease of use to the other.

Don’t buy this if your grip preference is below 4.25 in, if your game
is built on resets and blocks rather than drives, or if you want a paddle that works the same
whether you commit to the swing or not. This one only pays out when you do.

Check current Pickleball Apes listings on Amazon, or buy direct
from Pickleball
Apes, where the 30-day demo period applies.

Specs here come from the sources named in each section. For how we source and evaluate gear
without buying every paddle, see
how we evaluate gear.

How we review gear — including how we get the paddles we test and what the money never touches — is documented in our review methodology.