How to Select a Tennis Racket

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Lincoln Ward and I am the director of the Austin Tennis Center as well as a USPTA Certified Teaching Pro here in Austin, Texas. Today we are going to talk about how to select a tennis racket. There are many different things you need to consider when choosing a tennis racket ranging from the weight of the racket, the head size of your racket, the strings you are going to use in your racket, the composition of your racket and the flexibility and power of your racket. The first one, the length of your racket is all going to be pretty much standard. The weight of your racket goes from very light to very heavy and head light to head heavy and that is going to depend on how you swing your racket. If you have long stroke it is o'kay to use a heavier racket, the shorter your stroke the lighter your racket wants to be and more powerful. The type of string you use will help determine what kind of spin you have as well as how powerful and how consistent or how much control you have on your shot. Your string you control by the mount of tension and the type of string you use. The composition of your racket will help you determine how much give or take the racket has as well as some of the vibration dampening. You can use an aluminum based or aluminum racket or a graphite racket or a graphite mixed in with a variety of other materials to increase or decrease the tension strength. The overall power and flexibility of the racket will be a huge consideration when you are choosing your racket. Some players who like to hit the player really hard need a little more control so they need to go for a more flexible racket. Some players don't really have a lot of zing in their pop so they want to go for a little bit heftier of a racket, one with a little more bit power. That's how you choose your tennis rackets."