My reply was tennis was meant to be played in dry conditions.
Nevertheless, here's my thoughts on how wet balls affect the strings...
All of the above six balls weighed 59 grams when dry.
The top three balls were soaked in water for ten minutes before weighing. The bottom three were rolled around on a wet floor.
The average weight of the top three and bottom three was about 73 grams and 68 grams, respectively, with a difference of about 5 grams.
Compared with dry balls, the top and bottom weighed an extra 14 grams and 9 grams respectively.
All these were static measures on a stationary ball. The difference is perceptible but insignificant.
However, once the ball starts moving at high speeds, the additional weight increases its momentum very significantly.
Momentum = Mass x Velocity
Without getting too much into detailed calculations, a simplified version looks like:
Dry Ball Momentum = 59 grams x 50 mph
versus
Wet Ball Momentum = 73 grams x 50 mph
And that's only for the average rally speed in tennis. For serves, the speed often increases to 100 mph, or more. Even for many recreational players.
When tensioning, I often take into account the players' footwork, tempo, racket head speed, string pattern, string gauge, choice of string, etc. And all these are based on DRY conditions.
Can you imagine what would happen, after all the weight measurements were taken, and the appropriate bungee cord attached for that single person, then three jumpers just decided to strap together to jump?
Of course there are other factors, like the wet felt on the ball reducing ball-to-string friction, the wet court affecting bounce, and the fluffed up fur changing trajectory.
But to me, the huge increase in momentum delivers the biggest impact to the stringbed. Which was why I liked using damp balls to train myself before playing with a heavy hitter last time.
In addition, after the extra stress from playing with wet balls, the stringbed would usually lose too much tension thereafter.
No comments:
Post a Comment