How can flexible racquets be powerful?

[LeeD]

Says someone who can't figure what racket to use, or how to play with his racket......
Yes, it's really really really important to know exactly why and how a flexi racket can be more powerful...
Or, maybe use nature as an example. Look at tennis player's playing tennis.
NO, of course, that would not be something you would consider....
Who cares about reality? This is a theory class, and to heck with reality.

[Ashley D]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Says someone who can't figure what racket to use, or how to play with his racket......
Yes, it's really really really important to know exactly why and how a flexi racket can be more powerful...
Or, maybe use nature as an example. Look at tennis player's playing tennis.
NO, of course, that would not be something you would consider....
Who cares about reality? This is a theory class, and to heck with reality.

Don't make me post those videos of your serve again, lol! We all know your playing level. There's no point trying to use reason or logic with you LeeD as you don't possess any. Have a nice life.

[LeeD]

Or rather, you should post them, and compare them with videos of your serve again.

[Ashley D]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Or rather, you should post them, and compare them with videos of your serve again.

I don't remember ever claiming my serve to be better than yours. I do, however, remember being surprised at the gross discrepancy between your written description of your own serve and the visual evidence of that same serve.

[MikeHitsHard93]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Let's see....
Mr.Roddick...
Biggest serves, then and now.
Groundies then..powerful.
Groundies the past 4 years, spinny and weak.
Why?
Because I TOLD YOU SO.

Roddick hasn't changed a bit. His competition on the other hand has gotten much better and more diverse. His forehand is still the same as it once was, as is his slice bh.

Pros hit with so much spin from high rhs because they are so fit. Depending on how their strokes have developed over time, they choose a racket that compliments their game. Not one that tames it.

[pug]

Originally Posted by Ashley D

I'm a bit interested in the BLX Blade Team or the Donnay Pro One Oversize Extended. Both of these racquets are much more powerful than my current stick, the Rebel 95 (2009). However, the BLX has a flex in the mid to low 50s. How is it that a soft racquet can be that powerful? I understand swingweight and headsize make a difference, but the swingweight of the blx is pretty low too. Is it just the bigger head? Is it beam width?

I think rating a racquet flexible or stiff is of little use. There are so many variables that it mitigates any generalizations about how a racquet will play based on stiffness rating. Demo until you find the one that feels right is my advice.

[corners]

Originally Posted by LeeD

I always thought it was a KNOWN fact that players with good strokes almost always hit harder with more flexible rackets, because when they use stiff rackets like PureDrives, the ball goes OUT OUT OUT, so they add more spin or swing more controlled, giving them LESS power.
On a flexi racket, the ball stays IN, so they can swing hard, and the ball goes faster.

I think one of the reasons that high-level, hardhitting players use flexible racquets is dwell time. The faster the incoming ball and the faster the racquet-head speed the shorter the time the ball is in contact with the strings. Some people find brief dwell time to be good for control, others feel that long dwell time allows them to cradle the ball on the strings and fling it where they want it to go. In order to have long dwell time with really fast swings and incoming balls you either need a flexible racquet, flexible strings, or loose strings, or some combination of those things. I look at a guy like Berdych and it makes sense that he uses a stick with sub-60 flex. If he used a stiff frame he would have little dwell time and might not be able to control his shots.

Of course, he probably grew up playing flexible racquets and developed his technique, timing and feel for the ball with them. If he had grown up with stiff frames he might be comfortable with briefer dwell time and might still be using stiff racquets.

[corners]

Originally Posted by Relinquis

nope. chicagojack's posts seem legit.

i don't know what el zed is on about though. i can't see how a properly weighted up APD can magically provide more spin unless it was attributable to one of it's physical characteristics that relates to launch angle or spin, i.e. string pattern, or such.

i don't see how it's comparative stiffness is what allows it more spin or power compared to a more flexible stick (apart from an incremental amount of power at the tip, after adding weight to the stock babolat stick to get it's swing weight in line).

You might want to check out this thread, which talks about the effect of frame stiffness in varying planes on spin generation: http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showt...96#post7196196

If the hypothesis proposed by travlerajm is correct - that stiffness in the plane of the stringbed is conducive to spin generation - then we would expect the APD, with it's very wide-beamed throat, to be spin-friendly.

I think we, as consumers, don't really understand frame stiffness very well. Racquet manufacturers are looking at stiffness in many planes while all we have is the RDC measurement to go by, which looks only at global stiffness in the plane perpendicular to the stringbed. The manufacturers don't bother to explain to us what they're doing, probably because most of us don't really care. It also may be that all their contrivances with beam stiffness don't add up to much in terms of measurable performance differences. Who knows?

[corners]

Originally Posted by MikeHitsHard93

Roddick hasn't changed a bit. His competition on the other hand has gotten much better and more diverse. His forehand is still the same as it once was, as is his slice bh.

Pros hit with so much spin from high rhs because they are so fit. Depending on how their strokes have developed over time, they choose a racket that compliments their game. Not one that tames it.

Well, in a recent interview (within the past month) Roddick revealed that he had lost RHS on his serve due to shoulder injuries, which was one of the reasons he chose to retire. If his shoulder affected his serve it definitely affected his forehand too. I think this actually solves the mystery of why Roddick's forehand lost sting from early to late in his career. From these recent comments, I suspect that Roddick may have developed something of a "dead arm." The dreaded dead arm happens to baseball pitchers and usually is a result of damage to the labrum of the shoulder joint. Damage here causes muscular inhibition, and the shoulder muscles are no longer able to contract as forcefully as they once did, resulting in a loss of "snap" and speed.

[MikeHitsHard93]

Originally Posted by corners

Well, in a recent interview (within the past month) Roddick revealed that he had lost RHS on his serve due to shoulder injuries, which was one of the reasons he chose to retire. If his shoulder affected his serve it definitely affected his forehand too. I think this actually solves the mystery of why Roddick's forehand lost sting from early to late in his career. From these recent comments, I suspect that Roddick may have developed something of a "dead arm." The dreaded dead arm happens to baseball pitchers and usually is a result of damage to the labrum of the shoulder joint. Damage here causes muscular inhibition, and the shoulder muscles are no longer able to contract as forcefully as they once did, resulting in a loss of "snap" and speed.

I stand corrected. However he DID still stay in the top 20 he will always be my tennis idol.

[corners]

Originally Posted by mikeler

It's just seems like some of the science with rackets and strings correlates well with my on court experience while other data does not. Could it just be my perception is wrong? Perhaps.

Yeah, it could totally be your perception. Two other things that could result in perceptual errors relating to stiff racquets are dwell time and shock, which are related. When the ball impacts a stiff racquet it will stay on the strings a shorter amount of time. The briefer this "dwell time" the greater the shock transmitted to the arm. In their books, Cross and Lindsey hypothesized that players associate brief dwell time and greater shock with fast shots: The ball is on the strings for a shorter time and the brain interprets this to mean that the ball rebounds with more speed as a result. But this is akin to concluding that because a train stopped only briefly at the station that it then left the station with greater acceleration. Also, the brain may interpret the "crisp" shock of a stiff racquet as indicative of a fast shot. The impact felt violent and forceful, so the resulting shot must have been very fast, right? But as the data shows, the actual difference in shot speed is very small. The difference in shock might be great but the difference in shot speed is not, at least that's what the data says. I think it's likely that our nervous systems are better at gauging shock at the hand, wrist and elbow than they are at accurately judging shot speed, particularly as it seems very difficult to isolate speed from a shot's angle, trajectory, spin and depth.

On the other hand, the physics of racquets, strings and the players using them turns out to be surprisingly complex. It could be that further experiments will turn up some error and we'll then hear that stiffness is more important than the current experimental results show. But without some new experiment, we're left with what we have now: the results of various experiments showing that stiffness doesn't make that big a difference in power, and the generally held perception by players that it does. I tend to trust data acquired in controlled experiments over my own perception because I know what a knucklehead I am, but I also don't think subjective perceptions should be ignored.

[corners]

Originally Posted by MikeHitsHard93

I stand corrected. However he DID still stay in the top 20 he will always be my tennis idol.

And he beat both Nadal and Djokovic, in their primes, even with a partially dead arm

[mikeler]

^^^ Can you expand on your reply to me? I kid, I kid.

[marosmith]

Originally Posted by pug

I think rating a racquet flexible or stiff is of little use. There are so many variables that it mitigates any generalizations about how a racquet will play based on stiffness rating. Demo until you find the one that feels right is my advice.

I agree with this in that rackets flex in different places, different composition of materials also contributes to feel etc so the RDC rating does not tell the entire story.

I think the point is the research shows that the concept that "stiff rackets are significantly more powerful and spin friendly and more suited to he modern game" is a fallacy.

I think a larger point can be made that targeting older players, and beginners, weekend warriors etc with super stiff rackets does not improve their game. All it really does is lead to a number of upper extremity injuries based on the lie that they must use those types of frames.

[anubis]

Originally Posted by ChicagoJack

No worries, anubis. I'm happy to help. I know that 4 SW digits, and 10 digit spread in stiffness doesn't seem like much, but when you've got some pain that can be a really big deal. I've got a few Pro One's in my stable that are under spec for balance, mass, SW and flex by a just a smidge. when I was nursing my TE, those slightly easier swinging frames were my favorites for sure.

I read "The Inch That Changed Tennis Forever", it's a great read.

So if my APD turns out to give me more trouble than it's worth, would you suggest a Donna Pro One as something similar, but with less stiffness?

[ChicagoJack]

Originally Posted by anubis

I read "The Inch That Changed Tennis Forever", it's a great read. So if my APD turns out to give me more trouble than it's worth, would you suggest a Donnay Pro One as something similar, but with less stiffness?

hi anubis,

1. When you've got pain in the forearm and especially the wrist, choosing an appropriate racquet is literally, a balancing act. If you go too low in swingweight and mass, the ball is just going to beat up on the racquet upon impact, and you'll feel that impact shock and vibration. Racquets with more mass feel more comfortable when you miss the sweet spot, said another way, the additional mass creates a larger sweet spot.

2. However, if your sw is too high, that's not good either, that's when you begin to "muscle" and "arm" the ball. You don't want a racquet where you are struggling to control the head, because that's when you begin to squeeze the grip too tightly, and begin to overly engage all those pesky little tie in muscles around the elbow, forearm and wrist that are screaming for a little rest. You also do not want an even balanced or HH racquet in your case. A balance of -4 to -12 points would be much better. The effect of tail weighting to impact shock, vibration, dwell time, and manuverability is a really deep topic, but suffice to say it's something that might really work for you.

3. It's really hard for me to evaluate from here, what's the correct sw window for you. That's something you'll have to experiment with. But just judging from your comments, it seems you are more comfortable with the lower sw of the APD at 318, and the open pattern suits your stroke a bit better as well. You like the on court results with that combo, it's just that the ADP is causing you some wrist pain. One solution is to shop for something in that SW window that's open pattern, and a bit more comfy. The Pro One hits like buttah, but the sw is 327. I'm thinking that's a bit high for your current situation. The first thing that came to mind when you asked was the Donnay X-P Dual Black 102. That's a really sweet hit, and has room for adding some mass with the customization kit as your injury heals. It's an easy swing for intermediates, but with the right tuning can be used effectively at the higher levels as well. You could grow into that one, it's also the same frame Courier has been using on the Power Shares tour as of late. I've a personal bias towards Donnay, Volkl and HEAD frames, but when I screen for SW under 325, open pattern, lowish flex, there's lots of really good options. I've posted just a few for you below.







-Jack

[Power Player]

Here is one thing science cant really show, but its why stiff racquets can make tennis easier for people. (i dont like stiff racquets btw).

Defensive shots for lower level players are easier to send back deep. Does that mean the racquet has more power? Honestly i do not know, but if you go grab a stock apd its just easier to get balls back by arming it compared to a flexier racquet. I think all of this is bad, but i believe it is why companies continue to make mostly stiff racquets nowadays.

Once you get your footwork down and can hit defensive shots with balance, all this goes out the window. But my main point is that tennis is such a dynamic game that it is very hard to scientifically measure how a racquet performs for every type of shot. Which is why demoing is so important to really figuring out what works for you.

[Ashley D]

Originally Posted by Power Player

Honestly i do not know, but if you go grab a stock apd its just easier to get balls back by arming it compared to a flexier racquet.

I think we now know, based on Chicago Jack and Corners posts, that it has nothing to do with the flex. It must be other qualities of the APD that make it easier to get the ball back. Unless the player is hitting the ball right at the tip or the base of the stringbed, as has been talked about.

[Power Player]

Originally Posted by Ashley D

I think we now know, based on Chicago Jack and Corners posts, that it has nothing to do with the flex. It must be other qualities of the APD that make it easier to get the ball back. Unless the player is hitting the ball right at the tip or the base of the stringbed, as has been talked about.

I think you missed my point.

There really is no way to scientifically measure how a racquet responds to every type of shot yet. What other qualities would there be? It has to have something to do with the stiffness on those types of shots.

I personally think the combo of SW and stiffness is what does it.

[Ashley D]

Originally Posted by Power Player

I think you missed my point.

There really is no way to scientifically measure how a racquet responds to every type of shot yet. What other qualities would there be? It has to have something to do with the stiffness on those types of shots.

I personally think the combo of SW and stiffness is what does it.

Sorry if I missed your point. I think the other qualities are beam width, swingweight, length, etc. If you believe Corners and Chicago Jack, then stiffness has the least to do with it and swingweight the most. Not trying to argue with you, by any means. Just trying to get my head around it too!