Picking a Tennis Racquet

I've been asked to offer some advice on how to pick a tennis racquet, but I figure other people might find my answer useful.

Let me briefly cover the history of tennis racquets. Once upon a time, tennis racquets were wood. They came in a standard size (about 65 square inches). You needed a wood press to prevent the racquet from getting warped due to humidity. Because they were made of wood, they were somewhat heavy. Racquets typically weight about 12 ounces or more, some as heavy as a pound.

The late 60s through the 1980s ushered a bunch of new ideas. Companies made racquets out of metal. The most famous was the unusually designed Wilson T-2000, which Jimmy Connors used for years. It used an unusual hoop of wire that the strings would weave through. By the mid 70s, racquets were made of other material, including fiberglass.

The big revolution was the oversized racquet. The Prince racquet came out at 110 square inches, or nearly twice the area of the original racquets. The earliest ones were made of aluminum. These racquets turned out to be too big for many pros who found the power too great, and so a series of "mid-sized" racquets came out. Most of these were sized about half-way, typically about 85 square inches.

The other big revolution was graphite racquets. This material was not only strong (though you can still break such a racquet, unlike metal racquets), it was also light. Unlike wood racquets, it didn't warp. Unlike metal racquets, it didn't have that clangy feel. This was so big, that once it hit, wooden racquets were on their way out. By the late 80s, you could hardly buy a wooden racquet.

By the 90s, racquets were getting bigger in size. Midsized moved from 85 square inches to 90, to 95 square inches. Indeed racquets between 95 and 100 square inches were called mid-plus racquets, a name that still exists today.

Although oversized racquets are still common, there seems to be, lately, a resurgence to slightly smaller racquets. Federer and Djokovic, the number 1 and 3 players, use a racquet about 90 to 93 square inches. Michael Chang, during his career, played with 110 square inches.

There's one revolution that came and went. Widebody racquets. The first ultra-wide racquets were introduced by Wilson. It was called the Wilson Profile. I believe the original design wasn't even Wilson. They simply bought a design. These wide-bodies were ultra-thick in the head. Many racquet manufacturers followed suit and made wide racquets, though like the mid-sized racquets, they made ones that were in between in thickness of the thin ones most people had, and the really thick one from the Wilson Profile.

For some reason, this idea has mostly disappeared. You don't see ultra-wide racquets anymore. Some are modestly wider.

OK, let's now get to picking a racquet.

First, let's start with price. Racquets fall in about three categories. Cheap, which means 40-50 dollars or less. Pro-style racquets, which are 160 dollars to about 200 dollars, and the stuff in-between. If you play reasonably well, and you have the money, I'd opt for the pro-style racquets.

Cheap racquets are typically made of metal, usually aluminum. They are painted on top, so you can almost not tell if they are metal or graphite. But lower than a certain price, it's almost surely metal.

Second issue. Racquet head size. There's midsized and there's oversized. I generally feel oversized are a bit too big, and typically opt for a mid-plus. Midsizes are typically 90 square inches. Midplusses are 95 to 100 square inches. Oversized are 110 square inches. There's a trade-off for volleying. Bigger racquets give you more to hit with, but then there is some trampolining making it harder to hit with too.

Third issue. Weight. Racquets fall in several weight categories. There are the ultra-light racquets, which are about 9 ounces or less. Most of these typically compensate on the lightness by being head-heavy. If you were to pick the mid-point of the tip of one end of the racquet to the other and put that point on a balance, then if it tips to the part with the strings, it's head heavy. If it tips to the handle, it's head-light.

Racquets typically tell you whether they are head-heavy (HH) or head-light (HL), and use a "point" system, each point being 1/8 of an inch. Head-heavy and head-light refer to "balance". Generally, people say that head-light racquets are better for volleying, but I find that the combination of weight and balance matters, not simply head-heavy or head-light.

Pros tend to use heavier racquets, leaning to 11 or more ounces. This is still generally lighter than wood racquets. I prefer to use a heavier racquet. I believe that these racquets are, in a sense, both less and more powerful than a lighter racquet. This is hard to describe. A light racquet allows you to swing faster, but then you sorta need to swing fast to get good pace. A heavier racquet lets you swing a touch slower, and still get a good pace.

If you play with a heavy and light racquet, you will notice a big difference in feel, though it is, to some extent, a matter of personal preference. I tend to prefer the heavier racquets. You can control the racquet's weight, somewhat, by adding lead tape, if you want to play with the weight.

Fourth, there is the string pattern. Usually, they fall into the 16 by 18 variety or the 18 by 20 variety. The patterns are said to be open and dense, respectively. Openly strung racquets are said to be better for spin, since the strings give a bit more. Having said that, some racquets are pretty good at spin, despite being densely strung.

Finally, there's the grip (and racquet) length. If you play with two hands, then you'll probably want a racquet with a longish grip. Otherwise, you will find your hand partly on the racquet.

There are things you can generally control when you buy a racquet. There's grip size (which go from 4 1/8 up to 4 7/8 inches, though it's hard to find at those extremes. Mostly, you can find 4 3/8 up to 4 5/8). They say you should pick the biggest size that's comfortable. Having said that, Martina had bigger hands than Chris Evert, but used a smaller grip size.

You can also pick the string and the tension of the string. I would say, if you have no preference, pick the generic string, and pick the middle of the recommended tension. In general, higher tensions provide more control, but feel more board-like, and lower tensions provide more power, but feel better. McEnroe and Borg were two ends of the extremes. Borg strung his tiny racquet at 80 pounds. McEnroe strung his at 40 pounds, where typical, for those racquets was about 50 pounds (Mac did use a mid-sized racquet throughout the 80s).

My general advice in picking a racquet is to try one for yourself. Although I've never done it, Tennis Warehouse lets you try out racquets for a week, up to 4 at a time. I would try that out, if you can.

Although I typically recommend trying out racquets, I have fallen into the lull of picking racquets used by famous players. Thus, I've used a Rossignol by Wilander (or similar), a Donnay by Agassi, which I hated, a Babolat by Roddick, which is decent, and a Yonex used by Nalbandian, which is my latest racquet.

My latest racquet, which I got very recently, is a Yonex RDS 001. It's bright yellow, and a bit slighter than my previous racquet, a Yonex RDS 003. I like both racquets a fair bit. Both were mid-plus racquets.

I tried Federer's racquet, which is the Six-One and Djokovic's racquet, which is the Wilson Blade. They were OK to me. The racquets had short grips, which I really didn't care for, so they were a no-go for me. Many years ago, I tried Wilson, and didn't care for them. I also tried some Prince racquets then, and again, felt the head was too slight. I tried one recently, and didn't care for it either.

Perhaps due to Andy Roddick's popularity, the Babolat Pure Drive Roddick seems really popular now. You aren't going to serve like Roddick, but it's got decent power and pretty good spin (well, the one Babolat racquet I have, that is). Nadal also uses a Babolat (Aeropro Drive), so that might be worth trying out.

I was planning to try a Dunlop Aerogel 2Hundred, which is the one that is used by James Blake, but have yet to try that out. I tried a Dunlop once, and that was pretty good, but the racquet is like 10 years old. Another one I might look at, but have never tried, is the Head Microgel Extreme Pro, which three pros use. These days, most pros are groundstrokers, that occasionally volley, so I think most racquets in use by pros should serve as good groundstroking racquets.

I would suggest buying two things on top of the racquet itself. If you can find it, buy head tape. You're likely to scrape the racquet, even though it has some protection on it. Also, get a vibration dampener.

There you go.