Buying a tennis racket, what should you pay attention to?

You want to buy a new tennis racket, but what should you actually pay attention to? A few handy tips!

Material
There are actually 3 materials that are used as the basic material for rackets. Aluminum for the simplest senior rackets or for most children's rackets. Aluminum is light and cheap, but it twists easily (so it is not stable) and does not have good damping properties. Composite rackets combine graphite and aluminum. These rackets are already somewhat stronger and made from one piece. Composite rackets can be an option for a beginning player who does not yet know whether he/she will continue with tennis. For a small extra investment you can now have a completely graphite racket. Graphite is light, strong and has excellent damping properties. The advantage of this material is also that you have much more feeling about steering and placing the ball. All better rackets (such as we also offer in the mijnracket.nl webshop ) are made of this material. In the competition rackets, in addition to graphite, for example, kevlar, carbon or basalt fibers are used with the aim of extra stability or feeling and vibration damping.

Leaf size
The larger the blade, the more power, but less precision. The smaller the blade, the more control, but less power. Advanced players usually choose a smaller blade for optimal ball control. Recreational, quiet players with a somewhat shorter compact swing often choose a somewhat larger blade for more power and a generous, forgiving ball contact zone, because they themselves get little speed from their swing. For starting players it is advisable to choose an average blade size , around 100 sq/inch. Many tennis instructors also recommend this. With this average blade size you are forced to finish your stroke nicely, which promotes learning a good stroke. So don't choose a blade size that is too large too soon. At first it is super easy to hit, in the second instance you make less progress quickly.

The Babolat Pure Drive has a nice average 100 sq/inch blade size

There are actually 3 types of blade sizes: Midsize (smallest sizes), Midplus (average sizes) and Oversize (large blade sizes). Internationally, the most commonly used unit for blade sizes is the American one: in square inches. This is the unit we use on our site. What these blade sizes do in square centimeters, you can find out from the overview below.

Weight and balance
Modern (senior) rackets weigh roughly between 240 and 350 grams. A light racket offers more maneuverability and is easier to get 'round', which means you get tired less quickly. However, a heavy racket gives more stability and feel and more mass through the ball.

Balance is the weight distribution in a racket. In general, heavier rackets are head light , which means that there is relatively more weight at the bottom of the racket (in grip/handle). This is to keep the heavier rackets manoeuvrable. In the lighter rackets that are common today, the majority of the weight is usually higher in the racket, to keep enough mass to be able to swing through the ball. We call this head heavy or top heavy . The group of rackets with the balance exactly in the middle of the racket, we call even balance . The balance is expressed in centimeters from the bottom/buttcap of the racket.

For example: the Babolat Pure Aero of 300 grams has a balance of 32.0 cm. If even-balance is 34.25 cm, the Pure Aero has the balance point lower and the racket is head light. The Prince Textreme Premier 120 on the other hand has a balance of 35.5 and is therefore head heavy. This is necessary because this racket is quite light at 255 grams. In a small overview, based on rackets with a standard length:

Grip size
To determine the correct grip size, measure the distance from the top of your ring finger to the 2nd hand line of your racket hand. See the image below. The number of millimeters then corresponds to the grip size in the diagram below.

When in doubt between two grip sizes, always choose the smaller grip! This can be thickened if necessary, a thicker grip cannot be made smaller. Another, but less accurate method to determine your grip size is to hold the racket in your racket hand in a normal way with your fingers slightly spread. There should be a small margin of maximum one centimeter between the fingertips and the ball of the thumb.

Racket length
The standard length for senior tennis rackets is 27 inches, approximately 68.5 cm. There are also longer tennis rackets with up to 1.5 inches (almost 4 cm) of extra racket length. A longer racket gives more reach and power, but less maneuverability. For the kids there are different youth sizes, see below.

Racket stringing patterns
Nowadays, many different stringing patterns are used for the different rackets, each with different specific playing characteristics. 16x19 (16 main strings/19 cross strings) for example in the Babolat Pure Drive , 16x18 or 16x20 are the most commonly used string patterns. These offer a good mix of power, control and spin. The more open stringing patterns such as 14x16, 16x16, 18x16 in the or 18x17 in the Wilson Burn FST 99S give more power, dynamics and spin. The more dense stringing patterns such as the 18x20 string pattern of the Wilson Blade 18/20 gives more control, ball feel and more durability for the string bed.

The Wilson Blade 98 18x20 with the compact stringing pattern

Youth rackets
Youth rackets are available in inch sizes, just like adult rackets. A single racket is available from 17 inches, but most from 19 inches. After 19 inches, 21, 23, 25 and 26 inches follow, which is the largest youth size. Most rackets up to 25 inches are made of aluminium. In 25 and 26 inches, there are also fully graphite rackets available for the better youth. These offer more stability, control, ball feel and a clearly better vibration damping. How do you measure youth rackets? Hold the racket in the hand you hit with. Stand upright and keep the hitting arm stretched out along the body. The end of the racket may then come to approximately the ankle. The grip thickness 'grows with junior rackets' with the racket length: a longer racket automatically has a slightly thicker grip.