What racket to recommend for a 65+ recreational male player?

[peter]

The chairman of my tennis club approached my today and tried to get my opinion on what type of racket he should replace his old one with.

Background: He is 65+ of age. Around NTRP 3.0-3.5 (my guess). Plays mostly social doubles and singlehanded backhands. He has had some fairly recent problems with his right arm and is slowly getting back into shape. He prefers control over power.

My general suggestion for him was to get a not too cheap, headlight, stable (to avoid damaging vibrations for his arm) players racket - but try to find one that isn't as heavy as the one play with (Wilson ProStaff 6.0-85).

He borrowed a Wilson Hyper ProStaff 6.1 from me for a couple of days but I suspect that he'll find that racket too heavy. He probably is looking for rackets around the $100 price range.

(I also told him that the best way was to playtest a lot of rackets, but that isn't so easy to do around here - the local sports shops only carry elcheapo rackets and aren't willing to lend out rackets for playtesting).

Any suggestions for nice rackets that you might think could fit his profile? What rackets would be most similar to a HPS6.1 but lighter?

[robstar]

what about the prostaff trance, it's a lighter slightly thicker prostaff, or for an oversize maybe the volkl tour 7

rob

[peter]

what about the prostaff trance, it's a lighter slightly thicker prostaff, or for an oversize maybe the volkl tour 7

Hmm.. But isn't the Trance head-heavy? I was thinking more in the line of perhaps the ROK or the Surge 5.1.

[Ronaldo]

Yonex RDX-500

[chicubs]

Yonex RDX-500

Dont listen to Ronaldo, the rdx is great, but not meant for recreational players, especially older ones...My father uses one of those "granny" sticks from Head and likes it a lot. I also know a lot of older guys who like the babolat pure drive.

[altawolfe]

Head I Radical Oversize. This is an extremely user friendly racquet -- and it cuts across many different ability levels. Very, very comfortable, like butter. The swingweight is much lower than the 6.1. You can get it here for $99.

[Ronaldo]

Two years ago woulda recommended the PS 6.0 85 but the times are a changing, but not here.