Clay Courter's racquets

[Ash Doyle]

Does anyone have any specs on the weight and stringing tension of any of the clay courter's (or any spanish player's) racquets? Just curious.

These guys usually play using heavy spin. Most people say that higher string tension helps produce more spin; but surprisingly, most of these guys use low tensions. Any insight on this?

 

[gustavo33]

from what i saw on brazil open, most of them play with balenced raquets.... luxilion and balistic are their favorite strings.... and their tension is about 54-60 lbs

 

[PureCarlosMoyaDrive]

Moya's racquet is like 330 grams or something, insanely head heavy, and he has Luxilon original at 55 lbs or something. They say Polymono at 55 too, but I'm quite sure it's actually big banger original.

 

[deflori]

would you guys say that a Claycourt Player with much topspin have to play with a headheavy racket?? or know you some basliners who play with headlight rackets??

I switched now to the c10 pro,but dont played on claycourt....first in summer....

WOuld you say, that i should customized something??

Play many,many spin with an extrem Westerngrip.....

what would you say

thx for any idea

 

[PureCarlosMoyaDrive]

Well, a lot and I would say the majority of clay courters user head heavy racquets. But then you have Flavio Saretta who uses an extremely head light racquet with a high string tension, and he generates some of the most spin ever it seems.

I personall use a western grip and play on clay sometimes, and I still like headlight the most because I can consistently generate a lot of top spin with pace.

 

[Feña14]

I know that Ferrero uses a head light racket, the POG range is headlight, he is in my opinion (and many others!) the best claycourter in the world. His spin is awesome.

Hope this helps!

Liam

 

[deflori]

dont forget guga,corretja and the others from the "southArmada" gg

 

[PureCarlosMoyaDrive]

Liam, for all we know, he could heavily modify his POG longbody to be extremely head heavy too. Does anyone have any more info on Ferrero's stick?

 

[ClayCourter]

Also very curious about previous post...

 

[Thunnus]

I don't buy the extremely head heavy gig. The stock PD weighs 300gr. So, even if you put all additional 30 gram on top of the head, it won't be "extremely head heavy".

Most of the current Spanish players grew up using Head Prestige or Prince Graphite variants, which are head light. Some moved to more powerful rackets such as PDs.

Because most of them use very much the same technique (kick serves, whipping forehand, dropshots, etc.), head light rackets make a lot more sense for them to use, as they allow them to attain faster swing speed for topspin. I am willing to bet that most of them use rackets that are not head heavy.

From what I have seen and heard from these guys, most of them use stock frames without a lot of modifications, regardless of paint jobs.

 

[Anonymous]

I thought that adding 1g at the tip adds 3.5 swingweight units. Have you ever added mass to the tip? I added just 3g once and its effect on swingweight was enormous. Put a new leather grip on top and see how the racket balances. Now add to that because not many leather grips are even that heavy. Hope this shows you how much 30g really is. It's easy to think of it as nothing when you hear of some pros adding that much weight to their rackets. Not counting what was under the bumper, Sampras added about 30g to his rackets at the sides and in the handle; yet, his rackets went from about 8 points head-light to darn close to even. This is largely because there was also "only" 10-20g under the bumper.

Another way, you say 30g is not much when the racket already weighs 300g stock. I agree, but only in the context of total mass, defintiely not balance. Look at it this way: If a 300g racket has equal weight distribution along its whole length, then it would have 1.) an even balance; and 2.) about 11g per inch. Since the stock racket is head-light, it has even less than 11g per inch on average along the head. Thus, adding 30g in this small area on top has a drastic effect on balance.

 

[PureCarlosMoyaDrive]

Thunnus dude, trust me, 30 g on the head, that's more than an ounce at 12 o'clock, it would be the most head heavy racquet ever. Ask people who have held Moya's racquet (Tom Martinez or Takumi), and they say it feels like the heaviest racquet ever, yet isn't actually that heavy. I've put 3 grams at 12, and trust me, even that's noticeable with counterweight in the handle.