16 x 10 string pattern in Diablo Mid

[travlerajm]

I had thought about doing this for a long time but never tried it until now. Then last week a fellow TTW poster mentioned that the Tennis Professor had played around with the concept in some recent experiments. So I decided to give it try.

I had one of my Diablo mids strung up with every other cross string skipped, to give an extremely open and spin-friendly pattern.

Mains: Ashaway Kevlar 16 @ 35 lbs.
Crosses: Prince Tournament Poly 16 @ 60 lbs.

I strung the crosses much tighter than the mains to make sure that the stresses on the frame were distributed evenly to avoid any frame distortion. The Kevlar mains can stretch laterally extremely easily against the slippery poly crosses, while the tight crosses are relatively rigid to give the bed some stiffness.

My normal setup with 16x20 pattern is the same string combo at 45/44 lbs.
The 16x10 pattern felt slightly softer than my usual 16x20 setup.

The frame has about 15g of mass added at 10 and 2, plus about 12g added above the handle about 10" from the butt. The butt is modified to give a grip position that shortens the effective length to 26-5/8". The effective SW is about 360. The frame plays very stiff and stable, but ordinarily not that spin-friendly with this weighting setup.

I took it out for some serves today. There was a huge difference in rebound angle that took a while to adjust to. My first few serves were almost hitting the back fence in the air. Once I started adjusting by closing the face more, the serves started dropping with significantly more action than usual. It took very little effort to hit hard spin serves that bounce quite high against the fence. Twist serves that kick sideways were much easier to do reliably too.

The power level is also significantly higher than with my usual setup. I hit a few groudstrokes from dropped balls, and initially had the same issue with the unexpectedly high rebound angle - I was hitting 10 feet long on the forehands from dropped balls until I adjusted by closing the face a lot. My 2hbs from dropped balls felt more natural and controlled, with welcome added grip on the ball.

I haven't yet taken the time to tune the weight distribution against the wall like I usually do before I hit with a frame - the reduced amount of cross string reduced the SW by about 6kg-cm^2 from how I had it tuned before, so it will take a little rebalancing to get the forehand dialed in.

I'll get it balanced and hit against a partner this weekend. I really liked this super-open pattern on serves. I'm not yet sure whether I'll like it for the other parts of my game, or whether the extra bite will prove too much of a control issue for volleys.

[Soundog]

Thanks Trav. I've been curious about halving the crosses as well but haven't been game to try it yet.

the closest I got to it was in this thread : http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=276988

I noticed the same thing about rebound angle and have found even small differences in string pattern such as exist between my Tour90's and K90's make a noticeable difference where open string patterns rebound higher.

[TW Professor]

Yes, the increase in rebound angle in very open patterns is quite astonishing, as is shown in the two Rebound Angle graphs toward the bottom of the "Spin and String Pattern" page:
http://twu.tennis-warehouse.com/lear...ingpattern.php.

[ronalditop]

I would use lower tensions if the rebound angle wasn't so high. For a while I was stringing at 45lbs, it's ok when you have enough time to set up, but against super fast balls or when on the run, it just doesn't give you enough control and accuracy.

[travlerajm]

I hit serves again today before my partner showed, and again I really liked it.

But then I started out with this frame for my warmup against my partner, but I wasn't adjusting very well to the extreme rebound angle on my groundies while warming up. I switched racquets after about 20 balls to keep my partner from losing patience with my sloppy shots.

Before I give up on it, I'll take it against the wall and see if I can tune the weighting and find a way to better control the targeting.

On a separate note, I played extremely well all around today with my highly customized O3 Red. More on this in its own thread...

[Buckethead]

I am next on trying something different.I had strung my R-22 with one less cross string due to a mistake and noticed no problem at all.So my next step was going to skip a couple of crosses, but now I am going to study this article and see what is best for my rackets.

[Larrysümmers]

question. its legal to skip holes whether it be main or cross. as long as its it always over under. correct?

[federalprassi]

Originally Posted by Buckethead

I am next on trying something different.I had strung my R-22 with one less cross string due to a mistake and noticed no problem at all.So my next step was going to skip a couple of crosses, but now I am going to study this article and see what is best for my rackets.

how did one less cross feel?

[Buckethead]

Originally Posted by federalprassi

how did one less cross feel?

The one I missed was C-19 so it didn't make any difference at all.If you miss C-1 or C-19 nothing is gonna change since nobody hits the ball in that area.

[corners]

Hey Trav, I'd missed this thread initially. Did you ever get a chance to go back to the wall and groove your groundstrokes with this setup?

It seems like this would be a particularly good application of your favorite kevlar mains/poly cross hybrid, as the kevlar mains at 35 pounds would be roughly as stiff as the poly crosses at 60. Kevlar's stiffness would ensure that you'd get good and timely snapback of the mains even at such low tension.

On the rebound angle issue, having to close your racquet face would, as you've explained before, increase resulting spin even more, but also shrinks the spin window. Do you find increased framing frequency with this setup?

If so, a larger face would be nice for larger spin window, but I would also think more mains would be welcome. An 18x20 midplus might work well as an 18x10, especially with the Prince headshape (which gives a huge spin window relative to other brands). Would more mains be even better - 20x10? Does anyone drill a 20x20 or 20x22 in a midplus?

I've got a 16x18 I'm going to try as a 16x9 as soon as I get some kevlar to play with. But I think more mains would help with keeping the rebound angle down a little bit.

I did end up stringing a 16x18 as a 16x9 shortly after I wrote the above post in 2010. But I didn't have any kevlar at the time so the experiment was a disaster. To avoid hoop distortion it's necessary to string the mains at a much lower tension than the crosses. Since kevlar is more than twice as stiff as poly, using kevlar mains at about half the tension of the poly crosses would work well - the mains and crosses would be fairly equivalent in stiffness. But I strung the 16 mains at 40 pounds with a copoly and the 9 crosses at 70 with the same copoly. The result was a very high launch angle and no significant increase in spin. About 30 minutes into the playtest I noticed that the mains were getting stuck out of place, they were "moving", a clear indication that they were failing to snapback and generate extra spin. We know, from the research done by Tennis Warehouse University's Professor, exactly why this happens: In this case, the copoly mains were sliding too far out of line and were failing to snapback. This results in poor spin and a very high, uncontrollable, launch angle. The mains were simply not stiff enough and slid way too far out of line.

Wilson has corrected this problem with their 16x15 pattern racquets by building the frame to handle the strange stress of fewer cross strings without distorting. So the crosses and mains can be strung at the same tensions. I would still think that stiffer or tighter mains in a 16x15 would be a good idea, as Wilson has stated that the mains in a 16x15 pattern slide along the crosses more than twice as far as they do in a 16x19.

[2ndServe]

Any update on this, seems the steam has employed a similar theory.

[UCSF2012]

This thread invalidates Wilson's patent application. It shows that the concept was discovered long before they filed for a patent, so it invalidates the novelty requirement for a new patent.

[ART ART]

Originally Posted by UCSF2012

This thread invalidates Wilson's patent application. It shows that the concept was discovered long before they filed for a patent, so it invalidates the novelty requirement for a new patent.

Where do you think they are getting so many "ideas" this days? ...

This forum as become one "must see" for all brands these days... not only racket/products, but all other stuff related to tennis ...

All over the globe, tennis fans are connected here, and guess what?... In the ATP/WTA everyone's talking about this forum, so...

[corners]

Originally Posted by UCSF2012

This thread invalidates Wilson's patent application. It shows that the concept was discovered long before they filed for a patent, so it invalidates the novelty requirement for a new patent.

Are you sure of this?

And do you know how a person could contact the patent office and inform them of this "prior art"?

[corners]

I've got a 20x23 Pro Kennex Micro 95 on the way that I'll string up as an 18 x 13 with kevlar mains and copoly crosses. I'm hoping the large number of mains will provide a consistent response.

[UCSF2012]

Originally Posted by corners

Are you sure of this?

And do you know how a person could contact the patent office and inform them of this "prior art"?

Leave it up to Bab, Prince, Head, etc to challenge the patent in court.

The rule is that the invention has to be novel, or new. Section 1.18, if I remember the law correctly. If it existed prior to the patent appliation, the patent is invalid if granted. Actually, you have 1 yr from the date of discovery to patent it. Since this thread is from 2010, it's one indication that the knowledge existed already. Thus, Wilson's Spin Effect technology isn't patentable. Problem is that it'll be about 3 years before the patent will be granted, assuming it gets granted.

The patent may be granted, but it will likely be deemed invalid if challenged in court.

You don't need to contact the USPTO. Their patent examiners research through tons of documents to see if the invention is patentable. If they're wrong and grant the patent anyway, then it's up to the other companies to challenge the patent in court. That's how it works.

[Bartelby]

That's how its not working.

Too many specious patent claims and too few examiners equals a system that runs a government backed monopoly for corporate profiteers with the consumer paying for the pleasure.

[corners]

Originally Posted by UCSF2012

Leave it up to Bab, Prince, Head, etc to challenge the patent in court.

The rule is that the invention has to be novel, or new. Section 1.18, if I remember the law correctly. If it existed prior to the patent appliation, the patent is invalid if granted. Actually, you have 1 yr from the date of discovery to patent it. Since this thread is from 2010, it's one indication that the knowledge existed already. Thus, Wilson's Spin Effect technology isn't patentable. Problem is that it'll be about 3 years before the patent will be granted, assuming it gets granted.

The patent may be granted, but it will likely be deemed invalid if challenged in court.

You don't need to contact the USPTO. Their patent examiners research through tons of documents to see if the invention is patentable. If they're wrong and grant the patent anyway, then it's up to the other companies to challenge the patent in court. That's how it works.

Thanks for the explanation! Now, the TW Professor did experiments with various stringing patterns and concluded in this paper that fewer cross strings allowed the main strings to slide and snapback with more vigor, producing more spin. I would have thought that such research would be fair game for another party to patent, if the Professor did not. But it seems that you are saying it would not be.