A ranked tour player, RK, whom I have been working with for the past two and a half years, encountered a rare string snap during a multi-leg multi-country tour.
Down to only one racket, RK decided to send in his stick to the tournament stringer. Something he rarely does.
It was strung alright. As in the strings were filled, weaved properly, tensioned and tied-off. However, he felt it was unplayable. It was his racket indeed but somehow he could not play with it.
Everything felt wrong - feel, sweet spot size/location, stability, accuracy, control and power. His usual serve and volley game fell apart completely. He could not serve with confidence. He could not volley.
Left without any choice, RK relegated that freshly strung stick to be a backup racket of last resort.
And continued using the other racket I had strung for all practices and matches, singles and doubles, for the remaining legs of his tour!
RK was kind enough to withhold this from me until his return to Singapore. I was absolutely stunned and speechless when I heard it!!!
Then he handed me the "odd" racket. The one with green strings. Yes, it was warped. Hoop was compressed 3mm.
In the last post on the Head Prestige S, I had problems with parallax error in the pics.
So this time, I took two short video clips of the warped Vantage racket. One strung. The other with strings cut. The above two pics were screen prints obtained from the two video clips.
Please watch the two videos below and decide for yourself if the hoop warp was acceptable.
Below video with strings intact
Below video with strings cut
Apologies for the upside down video. Not sure why or how it happened :)
A chap I met recently named "MB" asked me to restring two Head Graphene Prestige S.
When MB first handed me the rackets, I immediately noticed how warped the hoops were. (Link)
The Head Prestige series have very soft hoops. That contributes their signature feel and flex. However, this soft hoop also makes it very challenging to tension properly while maintaining the hoop shape.
When strung wrongly, the hoop narrows and racket length lengthens. This greatly reduces the sweet spot size and also "shifts" the sweet spot downwards nearer the handle.
What one feels with a wrongly strung Prestige is what I would deem "hoop wobble" - a combination of vibrations and frame twisting mixed together during ball impact.
The racket also becomes very difficult to play with, and almost impossible to volley with.
When tensioned and strung well, the entire frame is very smooth and quiet. The hoop is incredibly stable and the true flex of the racket at the throat area surfaces. An incredibly sweet and addictive frame to play with!
I'll let the pics below do the talking. Note there is some parallax error in the pics. The correct readings are written in blue...
Below pics from racket #1, with snapped old strings, cut out old strings and newly strung, respectively from left to right.
Below pics from racket #2, with old strings intact, cut out old strings and newly strung, respectively from left to right.
Below pics shows a side by side comparison of the hoop shape and width of racket #1 freshly strung (left) and #2 with old strings (right). Even with the naked eye, the discrepancy is visible.
Sometimes when choosing rackets, the challenge is not just whether one can handle the frame. You need to take into consideration if your stringer can string the frame properly too.
