Improvements in equipment over the last 20 years?

[Jashue]

I have an acute longing of late to get back into the game. It's been quite a while!
I've been wondering for some time how my current equipment stacks up to what's out there now. I have three Head Ti Radicals that I purchased in (I think) the late 90s.
When I took up tennis in the late 70s, I was on the precipice of what proved to be a revolution in tennis equipment. In a very short time I went from a Head Pro (aluminum) to a Head Vilas (still have that work of art), to a Head Legend to the Ti Radicals that I currently have. The progress in that 20 year span was dramatic indeed!
So I find myself wondering: have the advances in racket technology tapered off as much as I suppose they have? Given the amount of years I've been away from the game, it shouldn't matter. The important thing is to just get on the court. But I'm really curious to know how things have improved and how much?

 

[socallefty]

They’ve figured out ways to make racquets stiffer while putting in better dampening to not decrease comfort as much as in the past. It seems like sweet spots are bigger also. Those are probably the two changes I can think of. If you don’t need help on power and are good enough to not hit outside the sweet spot much, you can stick with your old racquet. Make sure you restring before you play it - if you try poly for the first time, learn the dos and donts of playing with poly.

 

[Jashue]

They’ve figured out ways to make racquets stiffer while putting in better dampening to not decrease comfort as much as in the past. It seems like sweet spots are bigger also. Those are probably the two changes I can think of. If you don’t need help on power and are good enough to not hit outside the sweet spot much, you can stick with your old racquet. Make sure you restring before you play it - if you try poly for the first time, learn the dos and don’ts of playing with poly.

One thing I noticed while looking at a few manufacturer websites was that the recommended string tension is a lot lower than it used to be. Back in the day, a the string tension for a wood racquet was typically 45-55, and an oversized racket was 70-80. I see now 100 inch sticks with a recommended tension of 48-57. That seems weird to me. I used to love geeking out on this stuff. I guess I still do.

 

[am1899]

Difficult to quantify in exact terms. But I’ll say this. On one hand, i don’t perceive that the actual “technology” has changed all that much. However, the trend as you probably know is racquets tend to be lighter and stiffer these days than in the past. Where racquet manufacturer's seem to have made advancements is in making racquets like this feel better and more comfortable in spite of their generally lighter weight and increased stiffness. The mere existence of countless “pleener” 98ish sq in racquets and “tweener” 100ish sq in racquets, many of which are reasonably comfortable and solid feeling for what they are, seems to illustrate current trends and perhaps some improvements along the lines of what I’ve suggested.

That said, I don’t pretend to know the inner workings of racquet manufacturing. Perhaps @dr325i and @vsbabolat could shed some further light.

 

[am1899]

One thing I noticed while looking at a few manufacturer websites was that the recommended string tension is a lot lower than it used to be. Back in the day, a the string tension for a wood racquet was typically 45-55, and an oversized racket was 70-80. I see now 100 inch sticks with a recommended tension of 48-57. That seems weird to me. I used to love geeking out on this stuff. I guess I still do.

For me that is rooted in two things;

1. The existence of polyester/monofilament strings - these generally do better tensioned lower than what we were accustomed to with gut, nylon, and other string materials from the past.

2. Modern day stringing machines are more commonly the electric constant pull type, which generally result in a stiffer string job compared to string jobs from crank/lockout stringing machines more common in the past.

 

[socallefty]

One thing I noticed while looking at a few manufacturer websites was that the recommended string tension is a lot lower than it used to be. Back in the day, a the string tension for a wood racquet was typically 45-55, and an oversized racket was 70-80. I see now 100 inch sticks with a recommended tension of 48-57. That seems weird to me. I used to love geeking out on this stuff. I guess I still do.

it is because 20-30 years ago, the strings used were soft material like gut, syngut or multifilament - these are strung at higher tensions to get control. Nowadays most players string with stiffer poly strings which need to be strung low to have enough comfort - also, power/control seem less affected by small tension changes for poly compared to soft strings and so, you can string very low.