As we all know, tennis racquets are crucial to a tennis game. Second only to the ball.
Earth shattering revelation I understand, but an important point to provide!
Throughout the older times, where tennis was much more about the finesse of the athlete than the engineering behind the gear he or she wielded, tennis racquets had been made out of wood.
Nowadays they are created nearly exclusively from composite supplies like Carbon Fiber, Fiberglass or even Graphite. A few companies have gone a step further, but a little more about that later on.
Head size is the single most essential feature to consider in a racquet, which is basically the size of the striking location.
All the tennis racquets have a sweet spot in which the strings supply the maximum power for the lowest level of effort. This is a tennis player’s preferred area of a racquet, and it’s larger on racquets with larger heads. Therefore, larger racquet heads tend to have larger sweet spots, providing you with far more power – but at the expense of control.
The power racquets are the best choice for newbies because they generally play with shorter and lighter strokes, leaving the racquet to accomplish all of the tough work. Poor things!
Nevertheless, should you be a novice having a lot of energy and strength (otherwise referred to as “Ripped!”), you might wish to contemplate giving the bigger head racquets a miss, and start off with a mid-sized head targeted far more toward controlling your shot.
The GT frame, exclusive to the Babolat tennis racquets including the Babolat Aeropro Drive Plus, is a braided graphite/tungsten mixed substance which reinforces the frame at key points in order to lessen torque and boost precision. This kind of reinforcement material firms the racquet whilst not adding weight to the frame. It’s a distinctive system which helps to remove one of the most significant problems talked about – the loss of precision that goes with the greater power.
Heck! It’s what Nadal has!
With all that said however, the string pattern of one’s racquet also plays a really huge factor in the power vs control discussion.
The string pattern of the racquet is calculated by the amount of vertical and horizontal strings. Open string patterns possess less strings, with 16 x 19 being a typical pattern. This provides you more control because the tennis ball embeds itself within the strings.
Closed patterns have far more strings and supply greater power by driving the tennis ball away from the racquet.
It is enough to provide you with a headache thinking about it all!
Fortunately though, the major tennis racquet businesses are already working hard to try and make things less complicated for everyone.
The Babolat Aeropro Drive Plus for example, utilizes something known as…wait for it.. WOOFER Technology!
Now just before you start barking up the wrong tree (hey, MY post, MY bad humour!), let me describe what this means.
Actually no. Their own marketing blurb explains it far better than I possibly could;
“Woofer is the 1st dynamic technology which makes the frame and the strings interact when striking the ball. Woofer delivers 10% more power than conventional racquets, and ensures that the strings retain their energy longer. It enlarges the sweetspot area for each and every racquet size. This technology enables 25% extra contact between the ball and the strings for optimal control, feel and increased spin.”
So there you have it. Modern technology at its greatest. In a tennis racquet. Makes you want to purchase one just to hang it on your wall!