Selecting a racket's characteristics:

[ferrari_827]

Of all a racket's characteristics, power is actually the easiest one to change by strings and tension. Control can also be adjusted with tension, but to a lesser extent than power-some rackets just provide more inherent control. Stability is next, and can be tweaked with lead tape.

Now we come to traits which are more *innate*, things like feel, maneuverability, swingweight. These things are much more difficult to change so you definitely look for these because there's not much you can do about changing them.

Also, I do believe that a racket which excels so much in a certain area leads to a disadvantage in another, so it's important to choose rackets which do everything well pretty much. As I mentioned above, it's most important to have the innate traits first because you can tweak power/control/stability to a certain degree.
But get a racket which has an enormous swingweight, terrible feel, or maneuverability problems, and it's a dud.

 

[mary fierce]

These are taking on the inevitability of an in-law's bad jokes at a holiday gathering.

 

[thomas martinez]

You say swingweight is hard to change. To the contrary, it's actually quite easy. Every time you put lead on the sides, on the tip, and so on, you are changing the swingweight along with the balance.

 

[NoBadMojo]

to me, balance and swingweight are more critical than static weight, and it really doesnt take much weight to alter the balance of a frame which can markedly alter the swingweight

 

[ferrari_827]

That's right. The way a racket swings is very sensitive to small changes in weight, even 0.1oz of can be felt immediately.

What I meant in my original post is that if the racket has too much static/swing weight to begin with to handle, it's pretty much all over. If you can't maneuver it properly, it doesn't matter how well it plays. For me, this is an automatic strikeout.

 

[skuludo]

You play with the and adapt to it. There maybe other rackets that can perform better, but if the player wants to get the timing down with that racket it can be done. The reason I moved to a lighter racket was because I don't often restring my racket. The heavier racket didn't perform that well on serves with 3 week old strings. If I were to constantly restring that heavy racket I used to use, then it would have been manageable. Constantly restringing a racket cost too much for me, so I removed the weight off my racket. Now the balls don't tend to fly on me since the plow through effect has been decreased.

 

[AndrewD]

I would actually have said that the racquet's flex would rate above most other aspects. Although I like a trampoline- like effect I don't like the flimsy feel of a highly flexible racquet. I know I can add power by increasing weight or lowering string tension but the inate feel, for me, has most to do with flex. I like low tensions and find they almost always work better when the racquet is stiff but not overpoweringly so.
Of course there are exceptions. I used, for a time, the Rossignol F200 and Dunlop 200G (old style one) and although neither were considered stiff I never felt I lacked control (although the F200 did have the tendency to 'jump' if you weren't careful)