How does putting lead on a tweener make it a player's racquet?

[emcee]

I've seen this in a lot of TW reviews/descriptions like...."The Pure Storm is a tweener/player's racquet but with some lead it could be a good player's racquet" and stuff like that. People seem to agree that putting lead on powerful player's racquets or control-oriented tweeners like the Pure Storm, Pure Drive, etc. makes them players racquets?

Why? Wouldn't the extra weight make those racquets even more powerful? I know it'll be harder to swing and more stable against big hitters, but I just don't get how adding lead to a tweener makes it a player's racquet.

Like I just added some lead to my Radical Tour and now I can hit a heavier ball with the same swing. It's more powerful. It didn't become more advanced.

I'm really confused about this.

 

[snoflewis]

imo, the general definition of a player's racket is a certain combination of weight, swingweight, balance, and headsize. all the other factors such as stiffness, beam width, and stringpattern can all vary depending on the racket.

that being said, when you have an 11 ounce, 98 sq in. frame like the Pure Storm, you can make it similar in specs to say an LM prestige just by adding an ounce of lead on the head and handle and making it slightly more headlight. the extra weight would make the racket more stable and solid but it wouldnt necessarily make it more powerful, or else, everyone who's struggling to generate power w/ their frames would be going for heavier frames, not lighter ones.

as for your case w/ your radical tours, it may have been that your rackets were lighter than what you can really handle. btw, how much lead did you add?

 

[emcee]

About 3 inches at 3+9 and 4 inches at the top of the handle. The same thing happened to my PS 6.0 95. It was too underpowered, I put some lead on it, it became heavy as heck, I got used to it, and the racquet was more powerful than before.

With my Radical Tour though, I'm getting controllable power, not rocket-launcher power but still. I'd think that adding lead to a Pure Drive or the like would make it TOO powerful, no?

 

[Amone]

Emcee- The way that the Pure Drive is designed is to be spinny-- why else is it that every single person using them hits a heavy topspin stroke? The driving power behind the racquet is that it's designed to be rotated around your body in topspin. To add more weight to the head, say an ounce, would really INCREASE this effect, and while the feeling would be more stability, and the ability to really drive on that topspin, because of the high stiffness you'd have to have the stroke production of Rafael Nadal to get it in. On the other hand, if you were to centalize the weight more (perhaps in the throat or top of the handle) then the swingweight would not be signifigantly higher (maybe 10 points as opposed to 100) but the static weight would be; the ability to hit a nice flat ball would be increased, but the ability to really torque it through a windshield wiper forehand would be decreased.

The simplest explaination I can think of is from a comic called "Blade of the Immortal," and since the whole thing is in one page, I'll just link it, and if you like the explaination of its advantages: here.
((Copyright 96, 97 Hiroaki Samura and Dark Horse Comics))

With a racquet which has most of it's weight at the tip, it spins hard but one has only to start its motion to get it to swing through just about anything. But if one wants to drive through, flat, then it's much better to have the weight spread out, or even centralized. You have a problem that it's too powerful because you're using a 'weird axe' with so much power in the head that you can swing it through and shatter the ball. However, on the tennis court, you have a limit to how shattered the ball can be, so topspin is the answer. If you remove the weight from the head, or spread it out, then you have much less of that ability to shatter and therefor more precise control.

 

[emcee]

So if you add weight evenly, the increase in static weight doesn't significantly increase power? And if you add weight to the head, you can get more topspin?

It's just that in my experience, adding lead makes a racquet easier to use.

 

[Amone]

So if you add weight evenly, the increase in static weight doesn't significantly increase power? And if you add weight to the head, you can get more topspin?

It's just that in my experience, adding lead makes a racquet easier to use.

Not exactly. What I'm saying is that with a racquet that is less powerful to begin with, adding weight to the head adds some of that crushing power. Adding it any other places decreases how much it changes.

What I was trying to say about topspin was that with that extra power needed top be controlled, and by a strange coincidence, higher swingweight (which is what adding weight closer to the head increases by a greater margin than other places) means that the racquet also has greater inertia through the swing; you just have to start it swinging, and as long as you don't make any signifigant changes in energy (such as stopping the stroke) then it almost wants to swing through the ball. So it adds more power, and makes a circular stroke path (such as the windshield wiper) take more energy to start and stop, but less energy to maintain.

I oversimplified it earlier, I think, because you were right in the things I said, but I know they're not 100% right..



Regarding the commentary on even distribution-- It does add power, but not in the same way. Swingweight and static weight both effect power, but swingweight does it differently. Think about it this way-- if two sumo wrestlers ran into each other, then it'd be like the sprite commercial. Now imagine that one of those sumo wrestlers were to, instead of running, slide into the other who was running, then all the force of the slider would be in the space of the runner's legs: a greater pressure would be applied (same weight, smaller space). Now imagine that a sumo wrestler and Lleyton Hewitt ran into each other: Lleyton would go flying because the sumo wrestler would have such a difference in weight. That's what happens with the ball and the racquet. The racquet weights upwards of 200g, and the ball weighs 56.7. The ball goes flying. But if the sumo were to get even bigger, then lleyton would go flying further, ne? But even still, it wouldn't be as far as he would if the sumo wrestler were to tuck his shoulder in and focus all his weight around Lleyton's chest.

The added weight will increase power, but not quite so much, just like the bigger sumo threw Hewitt further, but not like he'd concentrated the weight.

 

[snoflewis]

About 3 inches at 3+9 and 4 inches at the top of the handle. The same thing happened to my PS 6.0 95. It was too underpowered, I put some lead on it, it became heavy as heck, I got used to it, and the racquet was more powerful than before.

With my Radical Tour though, I'm getting controllable power, not rocket-launcher power but still. I'd think that adding lead to a Pure Drive or the like would make it TOO powerful, no?

so if im correct, you used 16 in. of 1/4" leadtape in total right?

if so, that's not enough leadtape to change the static weight, and differences will be negligible. as for your experience, it only feels heavy because you added lead at the head and didnt counterbalance it. the result of that would be a more head heavy stick, which in turn would swing heavier. that would definitely help your racket feel more stable and help you create a more solid/heavy shot if you were able to handle the weight.

back to your original question, when people add lead to tweener's to match player's specs, it would require much more lead than the amount you used. if you used 16" of leadtape, you only changed the static weight by 0.04 oz

 

[emcee]

Amone...

Thanks for taking the time to write that up. I'm going to have to read it again, but it seems to make sense and is taking away some of my confusion.

Snoflewis...

But doesn't the weight at the top of the handle help to counterbalance the weight in the head? It seems to be a little more even-balanced before but is still head light. I guess I should try sticking that weight IN the handle and not be lazy.