Information About Stringing a Tennis Racquet Head
The art of stringing a tennis racquet is often left unappreciated, particularly amongst inexperienced or amateur players. Many players who are new to the game are comfortable enough with their racquet's stock strings, and almost never come across a broken string and/or a situation which calls for a re-stringing of his tennis racquet. Even when a string breaks, most novice players take it to the cheapest pro shop that they can find, and ask the pro to string it at whatever tension with whatever string is cheapest.
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Choosing The Correct Tension For Your Racquet
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Exceeding the prescribed tension for your racquet risks damaging the frame. As a general rule of thumb, it is always best not to exceed the tension which is given on the inside of your racquet's throat, as higher tensions run the risk of causing your frame to crack or snap, possibly every stringer's worst nightmare. That being said, higher tensions create more rebound at the point of contact with the ball, therein giving the player more power on her shot. However, lower tensions create more of a trampoline effect when the ball comes in contact with the racquet, therein giving the player more control over his or her shot. Finding the correct middle ground is your challenge, and can only really be done by trial and error.
Choosing The Correct Strings For Your Racquet
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The type of string which you should use depends on how you like to hit Most amateur players usually choose to string their racquets with Synthetic Gut, a nylon imitation of the more expensive cow or sheep intestine, called Natural Gut, which many professionals use. Synthetic Gut holds a reasonable amount of tension, is fairly durable for players who do not hit very hard, and give the player a good amount of control over the ball. More durable strings such as kevlar or polyester are also available for heavy hitters. However, they are usually very stiff and don't hold tension well, and thus are typically used in "hybrid" where synthetic gut or natural gut is used for the horizontal "crosses" of the racquet, and polyester or kevlar is used for the vertical "mains" of the racquet. Also keep in mind that kevlar and polyester strings are very stiff and difficult to actually string onto the racquet, so most pros charge more for these strings.
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Why It's Important To Know How The Racquet Is Strung
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The vertical strings on the tennis racquet should be the most worn strings on your racquet. Understanding the technical aspect of stringing a tennis racquet can help you improve your game in many ways. If you have ever watched a tennis pro string a racquet, you will notice that the bulk of the string's tension is held on the vertical strings, making them much more tightly strung than the horizontal strings. What this means to you as a player is that any time you hit a ball, whether it is serving, volleying, or playing forehands and backhands, you should always be stroking the ball from low to high, with the vertical strings only. If you are trying to hit the ball via the tension on the horizontal crosses, you will have a much harder time generating pace on the ball, as there is not nearly as much tension on those strings.
Stringing Machines
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When it comes to stringing machines, you definitely get what you pay for. If you are interested in stringing your own racquet, you have a variety of choices amongst stringing machines. The more expensive machines, which your local tennis pro probably has, usually have a computer which reads the amount of tension being placed on a string This decreases the chance that the frame will crack. Cheaper stringing machines have a physical guide to tell you how far to pull the string for your desired tension, but can be inaccurate and even dangerous for your racquet frame.
Precautions
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Always check for cracks in your frame after you have your racket restrung. As you may have guessed, if you are stringing your own racquet, it is most important to be aware of how much tension your racquet can hold, and exactly how much tension you are putting on your racquet. A cracked frame can be very costly, as it pretty much means that your racquet is destroyed. Practice on a few old frames before going ahead and stringing your Andy Roddick replica Babolat Pure Drive Plus. If you discover that there is a crack in your frame after getting it back from a tennis pro, the proper etiquette would be for the pro to replace the frame for you, though I wouldn't advise continuing to go back to same pro for future restringings.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit Tennis ball image by Kavita from Fotolia.com Table tennis racket and tennis ball image by TekinT from Fotolia.com tennis image by razorconcept from Fotolia.com tennis image by Snezana Skundric from Fotolia.com tennis ball planet image by timur1970 from Fotolia.com
