Strings: Determining Tension (Part 1)

Choosing what string tension to use is one of the most commonly debated topic. I still have plenty to learn, but I thought I'll document my experiences to benefit whoever reads this blog and also as a reminder to myself what have I tried.

Coming back from a 10+ years hiatus, I've listened to almost everyone's advice to start with low tension. And to go even lower with poly strings. (I used to string 16g multis at almost 70 lbs regularly in a 95 sq inch 16 by 18 frame.)

Now, with multis and synthetic gut, I start at about 50 lbs. With a 20 lbs drop from my norm, the stringbed felt nice and soft. Pocketing is deep and good. Serves and volleys were surprisingly still good.

Both soft and hard poly were hybrid with synthetic gut and strung at about 45 lbs. While this felt nice, soft and controllable for stiff polys, it did not go down too well with soft polys. At 45 lbs, soft polys felt springy and a little too soft. I can feel the somewhat mushy feeling on contact, then deep pocketing but could not really tell where the ball would rebound to accurately. Tension holding wasn't too good with the soft poly too. It just got bouncier with use.

Just when I thought I had it all figured out for myself, I started playing with my friends' friends. Some were heavy topspin baseliners. Some were completely flat shot hitters with super low balls. Others were masters of spin who can literally "Bend it like Beckham" in mid-air!

With this variety of shots, I felt totally out of control with my string tensions! Returning hard flat shots seems to suffer the most with my low tension synthetic gut. Upon contact, I can feel the ball compress deep into my stringbed. As my racket continue to swing forward, the stringbed depression felt even DEEPER! It's behaving like a fishing net! I could not predict at which stage of my forward swing will the ball and strings rebound! And I am already using a stiff racket with 70+ RA! My returns sprayed everywhere - at the net, long, left, right and over the fence!

With the poly hybrid, handling shots with heavy spin was the problem. When the ball hit my stringbed, the heavy spin against my poly strings caused the ball to "kick-off" unpredictably. Where it went depended on the axis of the spin that was on the ball when I hit it. This is exactly what happened many years ago while I was trying to return serves with a very heavy side-spin. To return these shots, I had to swing hard and hit through the ball decisively to "break" the spin from the incoming shot. And again, when hitting hard, the low tension just could not give me the type of control I wanted, although poly behaved much better than synthetic gut.

I also tried playing with different balls. I tried freshly opened slazengers, new wilsons, wilson trainers and old flat balls. Among them, the dead and flat balls performed the worst. Since they were flat, we all took bigger swings and just hit harder. That depressed the stringbed more. The trainer balls felt the best with low tension strings.

So now, the immediate question for me is not what tension to use. But what type of players I'm going to be playing with regularly. And what type of balls will I be using. I think a lot of people may have overlooked this when deciding their string tension too...