Np. I try to base my opinions with facts, numbers, evidence, etc…easy to be a skeptic when you don’t bring any facts or evidence to a discussion
Last edited:
Who Cares about Recoil Weight?
- Thread starter Brando
- Start date
InTheValley
New User
Stiff frames are not good for control and increase the risk of injury - two things that are super important for pros.
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
ATP vs WTA Racquets
I often get the question if recreational players should copy WTA player specs over the more demanding ATP specs. Let's look into ATP vs WTA racquets.tennisnerd.net
So did you go through each player. calculate the recoil weights of their racquet, and assess the correlation with their height? That would be the more rigorous approach to draw a conclusion about height and optimal RW.
Or did you use the average numbers on the webpage to calculate an average recoil weight and compare? Because if so, the average recoil weight for active ATP players is 131 kg cm^2 and for WTA it's 169 kg cm^2. I thought ATP players are taller so their recoil weights should be higher?
The fact that average RW for WTA players is significantly higher actually makes sense. For a given SW, a more polarized setup helps with plow, especially when hitting flatter ground strokes.
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
Recheck your math. The ATP is higher
Plugging in the numbers I got from the article I linked
ATP Avg RW : 176
WTA Avg RW : 164
Using this calculator
MGR/I -
MGR/I I would like to start the introduction to the MGR/I parameter, by comparing the 2 players that often get compared because of how similar their games appear to be. »I’m talking about Roger Federer and Grigor Dimitrov. It’s true that Grigor is trying to play like Roger, but everything is...
impactingtennis.com
Doesn't make sense for the WTA RW to be higher given the SW is less and balance point is higher.
This is just misinformation all around and your math is wrong.
Not sure how to proceed when you make conclusions based on wrong math.
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
I got the ATP static weight wrong, 347 g. So SW difference is 345 vs 351 and for RW it's 169 vs 176. That's a delta of 6 kg cm^2 for SW and 7 kg cm^2 for RW. Enough to conclude that suitable RW is more correlated with height than SW?Recheck your math. The ATP is higher
Plugging in the numbers I got from the article I linked
ATP Avg RW : 176
WTA Avg RW : 164
Using this calculator
MGR/I -
MGR/I I would like to start the introduction to the MGR/I parameter, by comparing the 2 players that often get compared because of how similar their games appear to be. »I’m talking about Roger Federer and Grigor Dimitrov. It’s true that Grigor is trying to play like Roger, but everything is...
Doesn't make sense for the WTA RW to be higher given the SW is less and balance point is higher.
It's 176 RW (ATP) vs 164 RW (WTA)
and
350 SW (ATP) vs 345 SW (WTA)
You are using the wrong balance point. It should be 33.5 cm for the WTA
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
You're right, long day and it's easy to make mistakes from going back and forth between numbers in a table and calculator. FWIW I did the calculation for inactive ATP and WTA (hopefully no mistakes this time), and the discrepancy comes out to 1 kg cm^2 between men and women. I'm not sure definite conclusion can be drawn from this analysis. I'd suggest going through each player's racquet, calculate the RW, and evaluate the overall correlation between height and RW.
I'm not doing all that, dude. You can do all those calculations if that's what it takes for you to try something that costs nothing. I play tennis for fun and the concept makes sense and works for me. If it doesn't work for you or you don't want to believe it that's fine. Nobody is making money off of this, it just another customization resource. There's nothing to buy or sell here so being a skeptic makes no sense in this context for no other reason than to argue. Try it out and see if it works for YOU.
The fact that you came to such a quick conclusion based off bad math tells me you already have your mind made up. So it is what it is.
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
Different ppl are interested in RW for different reasons. As a scientist/engineer, it’s intellectual curiosity for me. Not saying that the RW-height chart is wrong, just want to understand clearly in terms of physics why RW is a better indicator than SW of how unwieldy a racquet is. I admit I drew a conclusion embarrassingly fast based on an incorrect calculation on my part, but skepticism is a part of who I am. There’s so much misinformation and hand-wavy arguments around technical topics, I think a healthy dose of skepticism is merited.
Last edited:
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Just regurgitating my post
In order to get to 176 RW without making a frame really heavy you could try a 27.5 length frame like the Ezone 98 plus.Just regurgitating my post
340g, 342 SW, 32 cm balance = 176 RW
How about you just try it and give your thoughts on how it worked for you? @Brando doesn't make any commission of lead tape sales
Brando
Professional
Hi, @FuzzyYellowBalls. I don’t know where you got the notion that at 6’4” you’re supposed to be swinging a head heavy racquet, but it wasn’t from me or my theory. And 176rw (±2 points) doesn’t mean you’d have to swing “a monster.” Recent frames around this range include:
– Pro Kennex Ki Q+ 5 Pro (2021): 332g, 32cm, 334sw, 173rw, 20.30 MgR/I
– Wilson Clash 98 v2: 326g, 31.8cm, 327sw, 172rw, 20.26 MgR/I
– Wilson Clash 100 Tour: 326g, 31.5cm, 322sw, 171rw, 20.35 MgR/I
– Wilson Pro Staff 97 v14: 332g, 32cm, 332sw, 171rw, 20.37 MgR/I
– Head Prestige Tour 2021: 335g, 32.6cm, 341sw, 170rw, 20.36 MgR/I
– Prince Phantom Pro 100 18x20: 337g, 31.5cm, 326sw, 170rw, 20.63 MgR/I
– Prince Textreme Tour 100 (310) (2019): 326g, 32cm, 327sw, 169rw, 20.33 MgR/I
– ProKennex Ki Q+ 15 Pro (2021): 320g, 32.8cm, 335sw, 169rw, 20.06 MgR/I
– Dunlop SX300 Tour (2020): 332g, 32.5cm, 336rw, 168rw, 20.40 MgR/I
– Head Gravity Pro 2023: 332g, 32.4cm, 334sw, 167rw, 20.44 MgR/I
– ProKennex Ki Q+ Tour Pro 315 (2021): 332g, 32cm, 328sw, 167rw, 20.54 MgR/I
– Wilson Clash 100S: 309g, 32cm, 317sw, 167rw, 20.04 MgR/I
– Yonex Vcore 95 (2018): 326g, 32cm, 325sw, 167rw, 20.42 MgR/I
You don’t subscribe to my theory, so I don’t expect you’ll check these out. But I want other tall players to know how many lighter to mid-weight retail frames there are out there that can be easily modded into your recommended range with a wee bit of tail weight.
Last edited:
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Interesting, I used a DR98 plus years ago , created insane serves and forehand topspin that would leap off the court, slight drawback on body volleys.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
I'm open to your theory, I've got the time and why not, I did use the 18 and 21 VC95. I was just messing with different stats in the calculator and it seemed head light made it harder to bump up RW than head balanced.
How would you describe getting close to 174 but not getting there? Like currently I am 164 so thats about the Vcore , closer to that than to 174, so I'm not really following the theory even with the VC95.
@aaron_h27 which Ezone 98 plus is that, I've got different stats on it.....https://www.tennis-warehouse.com/Yonex_EZONE_98/descpageRCYONEX-EZ98PL.html
The Ezone 98 plus with modifications, not stock.
But Brando gave you an even better list with frames already close to 176 RW. I would try those
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
VCore Pro 97H has an RW of 174 kg cm^2
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Aha! thanks for the info and @Brando , I'm stuck though , stubbornly only like Yonex have ptsd from Head sticks being out of spec and the Ezone plus was already borderline not maneuverable enough for all the little touch shots I do, I'm screwed, so to speak. Quite the quandry. I might not be able to do this experiment.
The two 2021 will be too old to use/demo/they will be decayed too even if new ( I used to use the Prestige Pro, so difficult to squeeze max performance out of it , can't torture myself again lol) Clash are ok, I tried them when every teaching pro was making everyone try them, ok sticks but a little strange feeling.
Gravity Pro might be worth a try, but it's not a huge RW improvement over my current Regna.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
I only get 168 for the H when I enter 349...31.98....337.. I looked at that yesterday since I have used it as a main before.
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
Babolat Aero Storm (discontinued) has an RW spot on 176 kg cm^2. Let me know if it works out for you; I'm 6'4" too.
edit: according to TWU specs
edit: according to TWU specs
Last edited:
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
Listed SW on TWU is 343. 337 seems pretty low. RW is sensitive to SW.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Oh, which one are you looking at or where, I'm curious because I looked here....https://www.tennis-warehouse.com/Yonex_VCORE_PRO_97H_330_/descpageRCYONEX-330VD7.html
343 is beeeeefy lol, yikes!
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
Tennis Warehouse University - probably it was just a single measurement on a particularly high SW racquet
Similar Playing Tennis Racquets
An interactive tool to find similar racquets to a user-defined reference racquet in both static specs (weight, balance, swingweight) and dynamic specs (power potential and sweetspot size).
twu.tennis-warehouse.com
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Ohhh, yeah, usually those H are not quite 343 sw. They have the Percept H at 333, same in university and review, that's really strange. Imagine a new racket coming out with 10 fewer SW than the previous model, that would be revolutionary. Since TW University is used to compare rackets and do measurements and be scientific to a certain degree, I wonder why they decided to go forward entering the stats of that outlier racket and doing the measurements with it instead of getting a normal one, or it's a typo.
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
It takes time to do a set of measurements on strung racquets. The statistically rigorous way is to measurement a bunch of racquets and report the average values. But then you have to string 10+ racquets and perform measurements on each one. To save time, I bet TW measures the specs on a single racquet and those are the numbers that are reported. I’m not sure how much data is shared between TWU and TW websites.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
For fun I did some googling, tennis nerd got a beast 97 H too.....
Yonex VCORE Pro 97H – 351.5g (12.4 oz) 32 cm balance (6 pts HL), 347 SW
Guess the review one is an outlier for now. @TW Staff can you help out on this? Why is the 97H swingweight in the review different than the TWUniversity, significantly different?
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Fascinating, quite a nice variance.
bananavanman
New User
I've got 4 Vcore 95s (2021) and the RW is 172 for me:
RW: 172.45, 331 with overgrip and head tape. tape = 3 g, wilson overgrip = 5 g, unstrung 308 g.
Brando
Professional
@FuzzyYellowBalls! I very much appreciate your open mindedness to try out my theory, just as I appreciate that your pref for Yonexes might frustrate the effort. Still, if you can mod your VCOR up to 173rw or even 172, you'd be close enough to get a very good idea whether it's coming through more in tune with your arm or less. We customizers tend to be a bit over-exact with our equipment (and ourselves?). But 176 isn't some magic number for you. It's the approximate center of a range that's approximately 5-points wide because data suggests that a 5-point difference in RW is where intermediate+ players really begin to feel it. And that's end-to-end. The diff between 174 and 172, then, can be considered negligibly 'feelable'. If you want any input at all on your modding strategy, please write me in Conversations and I'll be happy to help.
Brando
Professional
Crudcakes, @aaron_h27, if i sent you a better list, good on me, but I can't find it. Mind digging it out and posting any frames I missed above, if that's not too much trouble?
bananavanman
New User
bananavanman
New User
copied for convenience:
| Babolat | Aero Storm |
| Babolat | Pure Drive GT Plus |
| Babolat | Pure Drive Roddick GT Plus |
| Babolat | Pure Storm Tour GT 2009 |
| Boris Becker | Becker 11 Special Edition 98 |
| Head | FXP Radical Team |
| Head | MicroGEL Extreme Pro 2009 |
| Head | YOUTEK Graphene Speed PWR |
| Prince | EXO3 Ignite 95 |
| Prince | EXO3 Rebel 95 w/o inserts |
| Prince | Graphite 107 |
| Prince | O3 Speedport Black Long Body |
| Prince | O3 Speedport Tour |
| Prince | O3 Speedport Tour Demo |
| Prince | Textreme Beast Pro 100 LB |
| Prince | Tour NXG Graphite Mid |
| Prince | Tour NXG Graphite OS |
| Pro | Kennex Ki Q+ 5 Pro (2021) |
| ProKennex | Ionic Ki 5 PSE (New) |
| ProKennex | Kinetic Pro 7g |
| Solinco | Protocol 325 |
| Tecnifibre | TFight 335 MP (16x20) |
| Tecnifibre | TFlash 310 (18x20) |
| Volkl | C10 Pro |
| Wilson | BLX Six-One 95 16x18 |
| Wilson | Blade 93 / 2013 |
| Wilson | Blade 98 (18x20) / 2013 |
| Wilson | Clash 100 Pro v2 |
| Wilson | Clash 98 |
| Wilson | KSix-One 95 (16x18) |
| Wilson | KSix-One 95 (18x20) |
| Yonex | VCORE Pro 97H |
Brando
Professional
Noice, @bananavanman! THAT is one impressive list! If only most of these frames were easily available today...
bananavanman
New User
a lot of options at 170 that are still available, but this list hasn't been updated in a year.
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
You can easily use Racquet Savant to filter for RW on the Discover page, select only currently available racquets, and download the resulting table. One thing to keep in mind is variation in retail specs. It's not uncommon for SW to vary by 10 points or more for the major manufacturers, so you would still need to customize afterwards to hit the RW target.
bananavanman
New User
given the movement towards lower static weight, it's no wonder there are so few choices, but just 3 - 5 grams of tape at 12 o'clock will allow most rackets 310+ g unstrung to go over 170 RW. that's how I experimented with Brandos original suggestion.
I've tried vcore pro 97h, rf 97a, Dunlop cx 200 tour, vcore 95, and prestige pro all above 170 RW with a few grams of tungsten to try and "feel" what's best.
I've tried vcore pro 97h, rf 97a, Dunlop cx 200 tour, vcore 95, and prestige pro all above 170 RW with a few grams of tungsten to try and "feel" what's best.
Justine Henin 5'6-5'7 used a 163 RW.
www.tennis-warehouse.com
Definitely one of my favorite players and one handed backhand!
Tennis Warehouse - Wilson BLX Tour Limited Racquet Review
www.tennis-warehouse.com
Definitely one of my favorite players and one handed backhand!
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
I worked through the math for how to increase the RW of a racquet by an arbitrary amount while maintaining the same balance. The formulas tell you how much mass to add to the tail and tip, respectively, given a desired increase in RW.
Last edited:
I'm 5'8"Justine Henin 5'6-5'7 used a 163 RW.
Tennis Warehouse - Wilson BLX Tour Limited Racquet Review
Definitely one of my favorite players and one handed backhand!
When I tried 166-167 feels vibrate and lack power
When increased to be 168 feels better
158 is working well for me at 5’7. I may increase to 160-162 for additional comfort since the SV95 isn’t exactly the most comfortable frame, but no issues so far
InTheValley
New User
Cool stuff @PistolPete23 !
Where did you get the data from, TWU I assume? Is it a one-time copy from there or constantly synced with it?
Also, any chance you can add mgr/i and usrsa power index?
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
Yeah, scraped from TWU’s html with open source tools. Right now I manually run a script to get the updated data, but I might set up an automated job in the future. It’s pretty easy to add mgr/i, but tbh I haven’t spent time to understand it yet, and I don’t want to add a spec that I don’t fully comprehend.
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
Also easy to add USRSA power index. The thing I don’t like about that index is that it assumes SW doesn’t affect swing speed. But if folks find it useful, I’ll add it.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
I'll try to organize some thoughts I had after playing last night, just drilling really not a match. This isn't a dismissal of the theory discussed here , just thoughts to feed into the discussion.
I was pressured a lot by the skill level of the people I was hitting with, to paint a picture, think ex college players in their late 20s. Great angles, good topspin depth with a few of them having extreme western grips, not a lot of sitters. My RW is 162 or 164 ish I think right now and target is around 174 give or take 5 RW to allow for @Brando variances he mentioned.
I found myself not wanting more maneuverability, but not wanting to diminish the maneuverability I already had. As in getting the RW up would perhaps be more of a detriment than a bonus. I am assuming more RW means more SW and less maneuverability to a certain degree, but I could be wrong.
The thought occurred to me , if the RW theory is correct and I should have much higher RW, is that for hitting balls that are easy to get to and easy to prep for OR is a real match situation different and require a slight variation? Such as the trend of more people using 100 inch rackets and tweeners. When does real match pressure alter the approach of maxing out RW ?
My reflection on what might improve play in the situation I was in, was just getting to the ball, placement, touch and accuracy, more oomph or bludgeoning effect on the ball wasn't going to improve winning situations because the opponent could handle that easily, I needed more opportunity to get to balls, more spin maybe, and more ability to hit where the opponent wasn't. Depth helped, and I already got enough depth with my lower than optimal RW. Maybe 1 in 4 shots was an easy one for me with all the time in the world to setup and kill it, where higher RW might help, but that's not often.
Then, net play. I needed all the maneuverability I could handle to get the shots back that were coming for me.
That's about it, thought it might add to the discussion.
I was pressured a lot by the skill level of the people I was hitting with, to paint a picture, think ex college players in their late 20s. Great angles, good topspin depth with a few of them having extreme western grips, not a lot of sitters. My RW is 162 or 164 ish I think right now and target is around 174 give or take 5 RW to allow for @Brando variances he mentioned.
I found myself not wanting more maneuverability, but not wanting to diminish the maneuverability I already had. As in getting the RW up would perhaps be more of a detriment than a bonus. I am assuming more RW means more SW and less maneuverability to a certain degree, but I could be wrong.
The thought occurred to me , if the RW theory is correct and I should have much higher RW, is that for hitting balls that are easy to get to and easy to prep for OR is a real match situation different and require a slight variation? Such as the trend of more people using 100 inch rackets and tweeners. When does real match pressure alter the approach of maxing out RW ?
My reflection on what might improve play in the situation I was in, was just getting to the ball, placement, touch and accuracy, more oomph or bludgeoning effect on the ball wasn't going to improve winning situations because the opponent could handle that easily, I needed more opportunity to get to balls, more spin maybe, and more ability to hit where the opponent wasn't. Depth helped, and I already got enough depth with my lower than optimal RW. Maybe 1 in 4 shots was an easy one for me with all the time in the world to setup and kill it, where higher RW might help, but that's not often.
Then, net play. I needed all the maneuverability I could handle to get the shots back that were coming for me.
That's about it, thought it might add to the discussion.
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
@FuzzyYellowBalls what's the current balance (in cm) and static weight on your racquet?
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
31.98. 326g
PistolPete23
Hall of Fame
@FuzzyYellowBalls If you add 4.38 g to 12 o'clock and 5.02 g to the butt, that'll maintain the same balance as before but raise your RW to 174 kg cm^2
SW will increase to 336 kg cm^2
SW will increase to 336 kg cm^2
