Measurable metrics in tennis racquets and their actual benefits to your game!

Crocodile

G.O.A.T.
Well it’s getting late here tonight as I attempt to put together a thread that hopefully makes some logical sense and usefulness.
As all of you are well aware there are many types of tennis players both from a stylistic point of view, physical prowess, age and ability and therefore when you choose your next racquet you are obviously going to choose a frame that either best suits your game or your physical character predisposition and your needs.
So what you end up with might look something like this:
1. I’m looking for a racquet that will help me express my precise game with superb feel and control and have what Granville would say, a scalpel
2. I’m looking for a racquet that is quick through the air and have the type of string pattern that will allow me to generate my power and spin through elliptical acceleration and RPM’s
3. I’m looking for a racquet that will give me more power so I get more depth and penetration for the work I put into my shots, or
4. I’m looking for a racquet that will give my arm more comfort or help me out when I get into the third set.
These are just some examples and I’m sure there are many more things people might look at or even a combination of things.
Just from my own experiences I usually gravitate to 2 metrics;
1. You choose the best racquet that allows you to play your way of tennis without hurting your body;
2. You choose a racquet that best accentuates a particular characteristic or strength you want to maximise or one that minimises a weakness so that you are more likely to win more often.
Now from a match data perspective having an excellent serve and/or return is going to give you a greater chance of winning, especially if your serve with your new racquet and string set up has given you either a significant increase in service speed or an exceptional angle or much higher consistency. If I gave you a racquet to try and we measured that your service speed was increased by 20kmph would that be of interest to you as long as your arm didn’t disintegrate? So instead of serving at 190km your opponent is now facing 210km thunderbolts. In local tournament tennis that could pose a significant difference.
This difference could probably be achieved by going from a Head Prestige Tour strung in a dead poly to a Babolat Pure Drive Plus strung in VS Touch at 50lbs or a Volkl Super G7 295.
On balance we all know that being fit, moving well and using correct biomechanics is the key factor but add that to a targeted choice of racquet could give you a measurable advantage. Has anyone had any experience like this with your racquet choice, especially with the serve and what was your finding ?
 

TennisHound

Legend
Well it’s getting late here tonight as I attempt to put together a thread that hopefully makes some logical sense and usefulness.
As all of you are well aware there are many types of tennis players both from a stylistic point of view, physical prowess, age and ability and therefore when you choose your next racquet you are obviously going to choose a frame that either best suits your game or your physical character predisposition and your needs.
So what you end up with might look something like this:
1. I’m looking for a racquet that will help me express my precise game with superb feel and control and have what Granville would say, a scalpel
2. I’m looking for a racquet that is quick through the air and have the type of string pattern that will allow me to generate my power and spin through elliptical acceleration and RPM’s
3. I’m looking for a racquet that will give me more power so I get more depth and penetration for the work I put into my shots, or
4. I’m looking for a racquet that will give my arm more comfort or help me out when I get into the third set.
These are just some examples and I’m sure there are many more things people might look at or even a combination of things.
Just from my own experiences I usually gravitate to 2 metrics;
1. You choose the best racquet that allows you to play your way of tennis without hurting your body;
2. You choose a racquet that best accentuates a particular characteristic or strength you want to maximise or one that minimises a weakness so that you are more likely to win more often.
Now from a match data perspective having an excellent serve and/or return is going to give you a greater chance of winning, especially if your serve with your new racquet and string set up has given you either a significant increase in service speed or an exceptional angle or much higher consistency. If I gave you a racquet to try and we measured that your service speed was increased by 20kmph would that be of interest to you as long as your arm didn’t disintegrate? So instead of serving at 190km your opponent is now facing 210km thunderbolts. In local tournament tennis that could pose a significant difference.
This difference could probably be achieved by going from a Head Prestige Tour strung in a dead poly to a Babolat Pure Drive Plus strung in VS Touch at 50lbs or a Volkl Super G7 295.
On balance we all know that being fit, moving well and using correct biomechanics is the key factor but add that to a targeted choice of racquet could give you a measurable advantage. Has anyone had any experience like this with your racquet choice, especially with the serve and what was your finding ?
Very good points. I was using a 100” 300g racquet with about 5g of lead at 12. This gave me plenty of stability and power on returns and volleys, without stressing my shoulder on serve. Letter on it became too heavy and I was able to get the needed mph and spin on my serve. Also when I got tired it all went downhill.

Getting older and wanting a racquet the swing fast but had stability, I ended up used a much lighter racquet (11oz strung with lead under headguard from 9.5 to 2.5) that I had in my bag. I played amazing - plenty of power, easy to serve with and just enough stability for hard volleys and returns.

So, I was able to find a racquet that allowed me to serve with increased mph and spin over the length of a match and had plenty if power/ stability for volleys and returns.
 
I have experienced the difference a serve improvement can make a few times during practice sets.
Breaking a string in my main racquet and have to dig out the backup racquet and of course it's a completely different racquet.

Most recent experience in this space was playing with a Prince Textreme Tour 100 310g, shanking badly enough to shear the string at the grommet , and bringing out the backup racquet; a VCORE 100.
That thing just hammers first serves and my last two service games became comically easy.
Treated my hitting partner to a coffee after the set as apology for the rather unfair mid-set racquet switcharoo.

When I play with the VCORE 100 I really feel invincible in my service games, the free points are everywhere.
But the feel of the racquet! The feel of the VCORE 100 just disagrees with me whenever I'm not serving with it.
So I wander away from it (and lose more sets).
 

Shroud

Talk Tennis Guru
Well it’s getting late here tonight as I attempt to put together a thread that hopefully makes some logical sense and usefulness.
As all of you are well aware there are many types of tennis players both from a stylistic point of view, physical prowess, age and ability and therefore when you choose your next racquet you are obviously going to choose a frame that either best suits your game or your physical character predisposition and your needs.
So what you end up with might look something like this:
1. I’m looking for a racquet that will help me express my precise game with superb feel and control and have what Granville would say, a scalpel
2. I’m looking for a racquet that is quick through the air and have the type of string pattern that will allow me to generate my power and spin through elliptical acceleration and RPM’s
3. I’m looking for a racquet that will give me more power so I get more depth and penetration for the work I put into my shots, or
4. I’m looking for a racquet that will give my arm more comfort or help me out when I get into the third set.
These are just some examples and I’m sure there are many more things people might look at or even a combination of things.
Just from my own experiences I usually gravitate to 2 metrics;
1. You choose the best racquet that allows you to play your way of tennis without hurting your body;
2. You choose a racquet that best accentuates a particular characteristic or strength you want to maximise or one that minimises a weakness so that you are more likely to win more often.
Now from a match data perspective having an excellent serve and/or return is going to give you a greater chance of winning, especially if your serve with your new racquet and string set up has given you either a significant increase in service speed or an exceptional angle or much higher consistency. If I gave you a racquet to try and we measured that your service speed was increased by 20kmph would that be of interest to you as long as your arm didn’t disintegrate? So instead of serving at 190km your opponent is now facing 210km thunderbolts. In local tournament tennis that could pose a significant difference.
This difference could probably be achieved by going from a Head Prestige Tour strung in a dead poly to a Babolat Pure Drive Plus strung in VS Touch at 50lbs or a Volkl Super G7 295.
On balance we all know that being fit, moving well and using correct biomechanics is the key factor but add that to a targeted choice of racquet could give you a measurable advantage. Has anyone had any experience like this with your racquet choice, especially with the serve and what was your finding ?
longer and lighter racquets are supposed to be the golden ticket for the serve. But I could never seem to do well with them on the serve. I need some mass in the racquet to serve. But TBH the serve is more technique than the racquet, at least for me.

Said another way, I tried extended sticks like the big bubba and Aeropro and could never serve with them. Even the stock RF97A was too fast to serve well with.

Here was a thread I started about the difference:
 
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Grafil Injection

Hall of Fame
Yes, I tend to go for old-school heavy rackets in the 345-365g strung range because they tend to feel better and are more solid in virtually all situations. But that doesn't work if I can't serve with them, which will happen if they have a relatively HH balance (e.g. Radical Tour) or are polarised so they have a higher SW than the balance would suggest (e.g. RF97). Hence, heavy-rackets that are head light (E.g. MW 200G) or un-polarised (E.g. MAX 200G) so the SW is not too high, generally work for me.
 
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