Standardizing Multiple Racquets

[TennisJrDad]

I have just started playing around with trying to standardize multiple racquets with regards to weight, swing weight, and balance.

Which is the most important?

For example I have two racquets, where if I match the strung weight, the balance is off. If I add weight to have the balance match, then the strung weight is off.

Can anyone advise on which would be the primary metric we are trying to standardize across all racquets?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Fed Kennedy]

You’re looking for weight/balance and swingweight. Most of all swingweight. Take them to an mrt. $$ well spent

 

[bfroxen]

Yes, you want to match all three. Check out the Google Sheet I reference in the Customizing Racquets section of the Briffidi SW1 user guide. With it, you can try placing weight in different locations and see the predicted mass, balance point, and swingweight.

 

[BillKid]

TWU tools are very user friendly

Tennis Racquet Customization

A tennis racquet customization tool that calculates the amounts and locations of lead tape to place in order to achieve user defined desires for end-result racquet weight, balance, and swingweight.

twu.tennis-warehouse.com

Customization Worksheet Tool

A tennis racquet customization tool that allows the user to define the amounts and locations of lead weight to add to the racquet, and the tool then calculates the resulting weight, balance, swingweight, twistweight, plowthrough, and power.

twu.tennis-warehouse.com

 

[Mischko]

Swingweight is no 1, but if you have and play with different racquet models, then you won't necessarily like the same sw for all, or even find the common lowest sw to suit all of them

For same racquets you might find that within 2g or 3sw points it's all the same, depending on the strings, conditions, balls, opponent etc, you might even prefer having one or two that slightly diverge, just to have a hair heavier racquet if you hit against a better player or a very slightly lighter one if someone is slowballing/junior etc or if you want to try thicker strings

 

[socallefty]

What’s the point? Unless you string your racquets at the same time always, they are all going to have varying performance due to the age of the stringjobs anyway,

 

[TennisJrDad]

This was referring to identical racquets (brand and model) and string / tension.

What’s the point? Unless you string your racquets at the same time always, they are all going to have varying performance due to the age of the stringjobs anyway,

 

[socallefty]

This was referring to identical racquets (brand and model) and string / tension.

But do you string them the same day and cut them out at the same time? Otherwise they will never play the same especially if you string with poly.

 

[Mischko]

Buy a simple and cheap alu round pencil-like bar in a home improvement store, 0.5m should be enough, 0.8m is better. Put it across two identical chairs. Hang naked racquets on it through the throat. Ideally you want them all to look identical in that position, but if they diverge they wont, some will have their head up, some will hang lower. Try adding lead to 12 until they all hang the same.

Then try taking something to swing them simultaneously, like a long ruler or book. You depress them all down with a ruler, and carefully let them swing freely at the same moment. They will swing for minutes, not just seconds. If they keep IDENTICAL positions without diverging you're good more or less, for such a crude method

 

[vscope]

What’s the point? Unless you string your racquets at the same time always, they are all going to have varying performance due to the age of the stringjobs anyway,

but sw and balance defines the timing of your strokes. if 2 raquets have big difference in sw your timing is complettly off.. same for balance.

i my optionion ranking shall be: most important sw / tw, then balance and then static weight.

sw +-2 ,
tw +-0.2,
balance +- 1mm
static +- 3 gramms

then your 2 frames will be very similar

 

[Chairman3]

You should always customize a racquet unstrung and without an overgrip. Didn't see anyone else mention this.

To really start from the ground up you should also remove the base grip and ensure the weight of the base grips match.

Balance, weight, and SW are interrelated so they technically all have to match or at least be within a small margin to have it really feel and play the same.
If you have a way to measure SW it is a lot easier.
You also have to have a target spec in mind because it can be a game of finding the lowest common denominator if you don't.

 

[janelgreo]

You should always customize a racquet unstrung and without an overgrip. Didn't see anyone else mention this.

If between multiple racquets the strings and overgrip are identical, it shouldn't matter. For people who don't own a SW machine, you need strings in order to measure the SW, at least using the TWU Swingweight tool. Also having all the racquets identical to when you use them during play, will give you the true static weight, balance, and SW.

Although you are also correct, if you start from the ground up and the racquets match in all aspects while unstrung and without an overgrip it is likely they will match with OG and string.

I did the TWU SW method today for the first time with 3 racquets and it is actually quite easy, you just have to be very precise.

 

[vscope]

did you validate the results of the tw method? measure the same raquet 3 times (weight, balance and time) and check if the sw is the same? cause i tried it once and didnt have plausible results.

the problems with tw method.

balance measurement -> 0.5 mm off = sw off by 0.7kgcm2
timing off by 0.001 seconds = sw off by 0.5kgcm2 (1 swing) sure you do more swings and calc the average but you also have to consider the dampening factor.... which is not completly the same... more swings != less error...
weight off by 0.5 gramm = sw off by 0.1kgcm2

so this all sums up to a quite large error...

for instance you have a measurement error of the balance for 1 raquet +0.5mm and the other raquet - 0.5mm then you have allready an error of 1.5 sw points in total between the 2 raquets.
same goes for the other 2 params...

to get a feel of the sw of raquet that might be enough (+- 3 kgcm2 best case) but i would not say that the tw method is accurate enough to equalize 2 raquets...
since when you have +-3 error with two raquets that could be 6 sw points difference...

however thats just my experience with this method.

 

[janelgreo]

did you validate the results of the tw method? measure the same raquet 3 times (weight, balance and time) and check if the sw is the same? cause i tried it once and didnt have plausible results.

the problems with tw method.

balance measurement -> 0.5 mm off = sw off by 0.7kgcm2
timing off by 0.001 seconds = sw off by 0.5kgcm2 (1 swing) sure you do more swings and calc the average but you also have to consider the dampening factor.... which is not completly the same... more swings != less error...
weight off by 0.5 gramm = sw off by 0.1kgcm2

so this all sums up to a quite large error...

for instance you have a measurement error of the balance for 1 raquet +0.5mm and the other raquet - 0.5mm then you have allready an error of 1.5 sw points in total between the 2 raquets.
same goes for the other 2 params...

to get a feel of the sw of raquet that might be enough (+- 3 kgcm2 best case) but i would not say that the tw method is accurate enough to equalize 2 raquets...
since when you have +-3 error with two raquets that could be 6 sw points difference...

however thats just my experience with this method.

I did it multiple times and static weight and balance are easy to not mess up, a scale and measuring tape, that's not hard to mess up. As far as the swing test, I tested it about 5 times with each of my 3 racquets and if I was a bit too slow and a tenth of a second off, typically it's less, I was like +/-2 SW points... at that point I think you're good to assume it's around there and I'd say a pretty damn good estimate of your SW. Just make sure all your measurements are correct, especially the measure from the lower handle to the bottom of the top most string.

My numbers were extremely close to the SW numbers posted for the racquet itself. So I'm extremely confident that is my SW.