When I just re-started playing tennis, I was not sure if I still liked the game or how often I would play. Neither did I know if I will be as particular about strings as when I was playing fanatically last time.
With all these uncertainties, the natural thing to do is to just play with whatever strings I found my old rackets with. And then take it from there, right?
Well, my 30+ years old "Woody" has natural gut about the same age. The stringbed felt nice and tight. So I hit with it for a while. It felt bouncy, like a trampoline. The most distinct feeling was how much vibrations it had. No matter where the ball contacted on the stringbed, the vibrations were huge!
Then, there was my old Pro Staff Classic with 10+ years old multifilaments. It felt flat. Absolutely no liveliness nor trampoline. And very low-powered. Huge vibrations again.
Another racket with 10+ years old synthetic gut also generated earthquakes down my arm with every hit, sweetspot or not.
After I've restrung the rackets, the vibrations almost disappeared. Off-centre hits were very manageable, especially with a dampener.
Thinking back, I'm glad I was fussy about strings. That's probably what saved my arm, elbow and shoulder from injuries. To me, paying for new strings is a much better deal than paying the doctors for scans, jabs or operations to fix tennis elbow.
So far, my experience with strings' playability and tension holding (based entirely on my feel) is:
- poly strings (hybrid) strung quickly lasts less than 4 hours
- poly strings (hybrid) strung slowly lasts about 8-10 hours
- multifilaments strung quickly remains playable about 3-4 hours
- multifilaments strung slowly remains playable about 6-8 hours
- synthetic gut strung quickly is playable for about 4-6 hours
- synthetic gut strung slowly remains playable up to 8-10 hours
I know it sounds strange that the time taken to re-string a racket would affect playability and tension holding, but my playing partner feels the same too.....
Should we continue to be fussy?
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