Cutting Down Racket Length

 

With Covid-19 still raging, especially the Delta variant, many are staying home voluntarily despite full vaccinations. 

Work-from-home remains the default in Singapore. 

Probably because of this, a lot of my old friends picked up tennis. A former colleague, now in his 70s and retired, pursued tennis rigorously. Taking lessons twice a week and playing another two more days with his wife. 

We caught up and played. He used an oversized head-heavy racket recommended by his coach. 

And I noticed the strain on his face as he struggled with his timing on every forehand shot. He thought that was normal and how tennis ought to be played. His coach commended his strokes. 

When I took his racket back for measurements and restring, I was shocked! 

His second hand racket had been modified previously. At 28 inches long, it weighed 297 grams with a balance of 36.5cm and a swingweight of 381 kg/cm2! 

Despite removing all the lead tape I could find, it remained too head-heavy. I suggested to cut down by half-inch for a start and he agreed. 

Some weight was added in the handle end to rebalance. The old kevlar/synthetic gut was cut and restrung with full poly at about 40 lbs using proportional stringing. 

He loved it from the first hit! 

"So easy!" he exclaimed! 

Longer is not always better. The specs has to be within his strength ability. He immediately sent in his wife's racket to be re-worked too. 

 

 

 

Oldie: 1970s Head Master Aluminium

After decades of hearing from his old man on how well the old aluminium stick played, a young chap finally dusted off his dad's old racket and asked if I could restring it.

"With full poly", he asked.

I always have a thing for oldies, such as:
My 30+ Years Old Slazenger Woody
Another 30+ Years Old Racket By Head
Oldie: Yonex R-10
Yonex Couguss II
Exploding Woody - 1980s Slazenger Vilas

So I accepted after the usual disclaimers and upfront payment.

I'll let the pics do the talking...

I had a session with the chap. The racket was very flexible and comfy. Despite it's strung and gripped total weight of about 380 grams, it was not that difficult to whip this around. 

Even serves were good! I managed an out-wide ace!

Strangely, with a head size of probably 60+ sq inches, coupled with a dense 18x18 string pattern, the string gaps were still large enough to generate more than enough spin to match today's spin effect sticks! I attribute that to the soft flex and heavy swingweight. (link)

The young chap did not fancy this racket, so he traded it with me for something else he liked. 

Glad to add another nice find to my collection!




     

Replicating an ATP Top Ten Professional Racket Specs

Through an introduction from someone I have worked with, I met a chap who claimed to be a ntrp 4.5-5.0 player and needed some help.

Everytime I hear about someone's self-rated ntrp rating, it was always inflated. So I took it with a pinch of salt.

We met for coffee.

He requested for anonymity so I cannot post too much details. I'll call him "RX".

In a nutshell, RX was a college player who dabbled in several futures tournaments. He trained and played through pain, and is now paying the price with recurring tennis elbow. 

Surprisingly, he has never heard of ProKennex rackets. And the racket manufacturer's claim that it helps with tennis elbow! 

If you missed the test report by the professor from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it was quite impressive! (link)

The question RX kept asking was whether this comfort-oriented racket could perform for a high level player. Other than Andreas Seppi, he could not google anyone else using a ProKennex on tour. 

RX was not the first, nor the only high-level player asking me that question. So I had expected it.

Ultimately, there was only one way to find out. RX gave me his racket specs and asked if I would be willing to modify one of my ProKennex to his exact specs. Then let him test. He offered to bear all materials cost plus labour.

I accepted. 

What intrigued me was that his specs was similar to a current ATP top ten male player. I have always wondered how would such a stick wield. How could I turn away this chance to kill two birds with one stone? And I still get to keep my racket after!!!

If you are a hardcore follower of tour pro's racket specs, you will know there are only three variables that determine every other aspect of the racket.

RX allowed me to share only one digit from each of the three variables. See if you can make any sense out of it:
x6x
x5x
x2x

Here's some pics of the process...

Added three layers of lead tape under the bumper in above pic.

Added three layers of lead tape inside throat grommets.

Can still see the thick layers of lead tape after replacing the throat grommet.

This was the peek inside the butt before some silicone and lead was inserted. If you are attempting this, please remove the rusty staples first.

These were just a part of the changes made. There were others that I agreed to keep confidential.

When all was completed, I went to RX's apartment for a playtest with his hitting partner. I observed.

As RX was here on holiday and recuperating from his tennis elbow, he was a little rusty. His timing was off for some difficult shots. But during co-operative hitting, I was amazed at his consistency, depth, direction and spin. It looked so effortless!

It rained last night so I could see the ball marks where his shots landed. For that co-operative hitting, I could fit 90% of his shots within a 4 ft by 4 ft square! And they were not pushing, blocking nor dinking the ball!

Search youtube for tour pro practice videos. That's how it looked like. Very humbling for a hacker like me. With their kind of pace and spin, I would not have lasted more than 3-4 shots in their usual 15-20 shots rallies.

And the sound of their ball impacts were loud and crisp. The ball crushing came with loud distinct pops.

Then they played a match while I sat miserably staring at my phone.

Almost two hours and very little pain or discomfort. I could see RX was back to swinging the racket freely. He was no longer held back by pain, nor fear of pain. 

When I had my chance later, the racket was quite maneuverable. Heavy but not completely unwieldy. Not as difficult to use as I had imagined it to be. I liked the plowthrough and stability!

Thanks RX, I enjoyed working with you and have learnt much too!


     

Update to No More Tennis Elbow!!!

Here is "F's" stiff RA 70s flex, over-sized, head-heavy, light-weight racket restrung with full poly! (link)

Quite unheard of for someone with tennis elbow!

And a very thin gauge to add plenty of feel and ball bite.



     

String "Timing"

Being a former high string tension user myself, I now advise others to string as low as they can still control the ball with.

By high-tension in today's viewpoint, I mean 60 lbs and above with full poly or most poly hybrids.

Dropping tension has more advantages than disadvantages. While not everyone would be able to adapt, most should find no big problems, with only slight changes in their swings. 

With full permission from this chap I have been speaking with, I reproduced below what I thought was an interesting myth regarding tension and accuracy. Let's call him "K".

For as long as I can remember, K has been stringing his 16x19 stringbed with full 16g poly at 68 lbs. K is a strong guy. He hits hard and snaps thinner poly strings frequently.

Like many hard hitters, K prefers his stringbed as dead and as low-powered as possible. He believed in minimizing all power variables and allowing himself to be the sole power generator. Thus maximizing control and accuracy.

We couldn't find any paper with us, hence we drew on the back of an envelope...

Below is a graph depicting string "Pocketing Depth" vs "Time". Time "0" is when ball impacts stringbed.

"A" is a soft string, like natural gut or multifilament.
"B" is a stiff string, typically poly.
Both "A1" and "B1" show the respective string's rebound after it has lost tension. 

So, when freshly strung, the softer string "A" offers more pocketing than the stiffer "B". As a result, the dwell time, or how long the ball stays on the string, is longer for "A" and shorter for "B" too. This is true even after "B" loses tension to become "B1".

In K's opinion, the shorter the dwell time, the better. 

If you refer to the bottom half of the above drawing, it shows a right-hander hitting a ball with a racket. The contact point is "X", and "Y" is the point where the ball leaves the stringbed. So the time between "X" and "Y" is the dwell time.

K's argument was, since the ideal ball impact location is way in front of our body, a long dwell time would mean the ball leaving the strings too late. By then, the racket face would have rotated inwards. The shot would go left instead of straight.

That was the only complaint K had.

So I did some simplified calculations with him to prove my point:

Average dwell time generally accepted: 5 milliseconds
K's fastest swing speed: 78 miles per hour
5 ms = 5/1000 second = 0.005 second
78 mph = 124.8 km/h = 124800 m/h = 2080 m/min = 34.67 m/s

So, during the duration of the 5 ms dwell time, based on K's swing speed, his racket would have travelled a distance of:

34.67 metres per second  X  0.005 seconds
= 0.17335 metres or 17.335 cm or 6.82 inches

My point is, all K needed to do, was to chase the ball forward with the racket, or even upwards for topspin, after impact.

6.8 inches is slightly less than the diameter of three tennis balls. Perhaps that's why coaches keep barking:

"Hit through the ball"

"Visualize hitting through 3 or 4 tennis balls"

Whether it is a string tension problem, long dwell time problem or swing timing problem, I left it for K to mull over.




     

"Annual Pilgrimage" with Budget Natural Gut

Over Christmas, after the gift exchanges, a friend gave a set of budget natural gut to me. He received it but did not care for it.

I happily accepted it and offered to post my review. 

It was in a transparent plastic bag. No names nor labels. Just a type-written sticker pasted over the sealed bag, saying "Naturel Gut".

The gut looks very smooth and had a translucent glow, something like Klip and Babolat VS. Other than the packaging, it does not look like budget stuff to me.

After clearing most of the backlog of work and stringing requests, I thought maybe it's time for my annual pilgrimage with the ProStaff 6.0 again... (link1)(link2)(link3)...

All the standard steps were strictly adhered to. Things like cleaning clamps, prestretching gut to remove coil memory, checking grommets for sharp edges, etc.

However, the natural gut snapped during tensioning. I had only completed 6 mains when it happened. All at a modest tension of 55 lbs.

Fortunately, the snap point still left me enough gut to fill only the centre mains in the ProStaff 6.0, like in the "Lendl Pattern" (link).

So I filled the outer perimeter with poly first, then started on the mains very very carefully and slowly...

But just when I was tensioning the second last main string, the natural gut snapped again! Somehow, the first snap point triggered a second snap point in the natural gut!!!

Of the three snaps so far, none occurred at the clamps.

Could installing budget natural gut into the ProStaff 6.0 be disrespectful and blasphemous? Was that why the gut kept snapping? Because the ProStaff 6.0 rejected it?

After one hour, two failed attempts, with three snap points, I was beginning to understand why my friend was so "generous" to give me that pack. 

Since I had gone so far, I decided to continue with the remaining half-set in the pack and be done with it. Successful or not!

At last! 

Ended up with so many short pieces of snapped natural gut! 

It played very well, but I doubt I would use these budget stuff again. Really a waste of time!




     

Divorced Mains and Crosses

Despite suffering a serious bout of tennis elbow from dead poly, M still could not give up the spin. So he wanted gut/poly to see if the comfort would increase.

To isolate variables, we tried different setups on similar matched racket. Among them, there were two gut/poly hybrids that caught my attention.

Strangely, one played dead from the start while the other played perfectly.

The dead one felt too tight, like it was over-tensioned. We could not load the strings. There was no pocketing, no dwell time. The ball just "touched and flew off". 

M felt he did not have enough time to spin nor shape the shot. This was done only in the the low 50s lbs. I figured it may need some time to break-in.

The good one performed perfectly from the first hit. As expected from gut/poly, it was comfortable, powerful, fast, spinny and had great control. However, it did not last long. Maybe 2 sessions?

Since gut was not cheap, M continued playing with both.

After several sessions with others, we met up and played again. When hitting with both setups, the pocketing had grown so deep it felt like a fishing net!

But yet, after it reached it's maximum stretch, we could feel the strings deflecting the ball back out. The dwell time was long and extended. Both were still playable but rebound angle was high.

Then it dawned on us, that it could be because one string of the hybrid had completely lost tension. Most likely the poly. The other string was actually doing most of the work during ball impact!

Probably something like this chart below?

At point "A", both strings start to lose tension right off the stringing machine. Poly's loss is higher than natural gut.

"B", "D" and the other horizontal lines indicate rest periods where the racket was left unused in a room.

The second big tension drop occurs during "C", which was the first session of play after stringing.

Regardless who strings the rackets, both "A" and "C" would always register the biggest tension loss. Subsequent drops would be slow and gradual.

So, it seems that the poly in M's setup could not hold tension. And the tension gap between the gut and poly had grown too huge. So huge, that their actions during ball impact became divorced, with one string doing almost all the work and the other idling.

And how did I know this feeling? 

I once strung up only the mains on an old test racket and hit some balls with it...




     

A Very Close Shave...

A competitive player asked if I could help him fine tune his strings setup.

Both his coach and himself claimed he was hitting well. They attributed the control issues he faced to the strings.

However, he liked his current 1.10mm thin poly strings. Better bite, more feel and more spin, he said. Well, common sense dictates - thicker string, more control right?

But instead, they wanted to increase the string tension on the 16x19 frame. By 10 pounds! To 72 lbs! I felt dizzy just listening to him mentioned THAT number!

As usual, my way of dealing with this pesky behaviour was to quote an insanely ridiculous price (link), hoping to turn him away diplomatically.

But he accepted! And paid upfront! Oh my goodness!!!

Before stringing, I put on a long sleeve shirt to protect my arms. While tensioning, I kept my face away from the racket as far as possible. But it was still not enough...

While pulling the outer mains, the string snapped! The flying clamps flew!

And the string that was under tension, whipped around and lashed me across my neck, chest and left hand. If NASA recorded some earthquake-like shock waves from Asia, it was my scream! 

OUCH...!!!

My first knuckle on my left hand and ring finger turned numb. 

It felt like my skin has split open. Took off my shirt to check, and saw my neck received a lashing as well.

Super lucky it missed my face!

Next time anyone wants high tension with thin strings, it would be US$2,000,000.00. Per racket! Upfront! In cash!




     

Racket Cleanliness

After 18 months of incessant testing of new strings, an old friend, PK (link), got in touch again. He wanted to try proportional stringing with full poly. (link)

So he handed me his Babolat APD which he bought used, for a very good deal. However, the racket was so dirty.

Perhaps ingrained by my mentor many many years ago, I instinctively cleaned up the frame using an old toothbrush and rag.

Then I inspected the racket. And found two hairline cracks at the throat area, previously buried under all the dirt and grime. It doesn't show up well in the pics below, but yes, they are cracks.

Could this be why my mentor always insisted I clean rackets before working on them? I have no idea. Neither any way to check with him now.

After obtaining the green light to proceed from PK, I cut out the old strings, measured all the variables, then started work.

To me, it sure felt better working on a clean racket. The more important lesson though, is to always check used frames carefully before buying them. Clean them first if possible.

Fortunately, the cracks are very minor. It should remain playable for a good while more.

Playtest:
- After playing with it for 3 hours with his regular partners, PK was full of praise for proportional stringing. 
- In his words, he wrote:

"Yo, here is my verdict. Spin, power, comfort and control were all superb..."

- And this was what he wrote about what his playing partners commented:

"They say the spin control really good" and "A lot of pace".

- Downside was he felt he needed to make some adjustments to his grip, swing and serve. But overall, he was very satisfied.
- I replied that I had expected the adjustments because the spin-to-power ratio of this setup was very different from his regular setup of full poly. If he felt no difference and needed no changes, then why should I spend SO MUCH more time stringing his racket proportionately?
- Somehow, I get the feeling that PK is going to be asking ONLY for proportional stringing from now on...




     

Shoulder Pain

A friend of a playing partner, EC, has been suffering from shoulder pain, especially during serves.

EC is in his late-30s, been enjoying tennis for a few years and has received some coaching before. My initial impressions of him from the first few rally hits was that he is very well-built and a big, strong hitter.

When he showed me his bruises from his TCM massage therapy (link) for his upper right arm and shoulder pain, I was surprised.

Then I noticed he was using the Wilson BLX Tour Limited (link). The specs (reproduced from link):

As usual, most pay attention only to total weight when buying rackets and 315 grams strung sounds really comfortable. 

Until one looks at the very stiff flex of RA73, extended length of 27.5", high balance point of 34 cm and a very high swingweight of 345! 

The extended length would add about another 10+ SW points to make it play closer to 355-360! That is close to, or more than what is speculated online to be Federer's and Djokovic's racket swingweights!

Really reminds me of:
Swingweight Addiction
Mysterious Arm Pain

To make matters worse, it was strung tight with thick 16 gauge full poly! Now that would be amazing if his arm didn't hurt!

Even his backup racket, a Blade 98 (18x20)(link) was not very forgiving with 16 gauge full poly tightly strung too. Although much more arm "friendlier" at 27 inches, RA 64 and SW of 335, but how many recreational players can load 16 gauge full poly in a dense 18x20 stringbed? Not to mention it was dead poly.

So I suggested good old synthetic gut...

EC added a few layers of overgrips and inadvertently added some comfort by moving the balance a little lower. That also beefed up the weight to absorb some nasty vibes. His chief gripe, was still the dead, powerless, lifeless strings.

The full poly strings weighed 18 grams.

A full bed of synthetic gut weighs only 14 grams. That 4 grams difference reduced the swingweight by approximately 8 SW points. That is significant!

Another major difference is the greater elasticity of syn gut would allow EC to load the strings better, have greater dampening and a lot more power than full poly. EC could swing the racket easier now rather than forcing every shot.

Hopefully, with some rotator cuff exercises (link) I got him to do, and the much softer synthetic gut stringbed, his shoulder and arm would get better. 

In case you missed this great article written by Toby, I think it is worth a read:
http://unorthodoxstringing.blogspot.sg/2015/01/why-i-dont-like-poly.html

Play safe to enjoy tennis longer!




     

Signum Pro Poly Plasma (SPPP) ...again...

Since I was given quite a few packets of SPPP, I thought I'll just continue testing this string to see how to make it work. 

This time, I strung it straight-up at 40 lbs based on feedback from my previous attempt. (link) If you look carefully at the pic below, it was done two piece with four knots this time.

 

Even at this low tension, the extreme low-power remained. I passed this racket around my partners. None liked it. Not even those who were previously fascinated by SPPP's legendary tension holding. Neither those who gave me the string.

Comments mirror those from the previous attempt:
- too low power (note my racket's stock SW is 331)
- low spin
- stiff, uncomfortable strings
- need to bash the ball
- very difficult to serve

I persisted using this up to 8 full hours of play to see if there would be any change. Still equally dead, lifeless and very low spin regardless of type of balls used. My shoulder and elbow ached.

So I decided to try it one last time in my very open 10x19 string pattern. (link) This string pattern needed really strong strings!

Such an open pattern would really stress the strings and help me load the ball with my measly swing! Even kevlar mains (link) lasted only 2+ hours in this racket!

Well... it did perform much better! The power could easily match any string setup in an AeroPro Drive. 

Ball rebound and launch angle was only slightly higher than normal. This clearly indicated SPPP's incredible stiffness and tension holding. It did not yield much.

Once I adapted to the power and ball rebound angle, I started whipping the racket to test spin. 

It was very, very good! 

Even with its incredible power levels, almost trampoline-like, all out forward drives sent probably only 5-10% of the shots out. Most curled down in time, neatly between the service and baseline in my partner's court, then jumped about 45 degrees upwards and forward, reaching my partner's head height before descending.

By then, they were hitting the ball somewhere between the baseline and the back fence. The topspin kicked my shots about 2+ metres before my partner could hit it.

Even after 10 minutes of hitting, my partner could not get the ball timing right due to the excessive spin. It was very difficult to read and anticipate where the ball would land and how far it would jump.

Hey! Even my backhand was working super well! I could hit winners, crosscourt or down the line, when I was a little late for the ball. The power helped!

No noticeable drop in tension nor control was sensed after about 20 minutes of heavy, intense groundstrokes. So I tried serves.

Both flat and spin were good. I had little problems aiming for corners. For once in my life, I could hit topspin serves like what I saw on TV! Offensive, powerful, fast-paced and high-kicking topspin serves! The combination of power and spin in the stringbed was perfect!

My conclusion?

If you think you are a very hard hitter, this string would suit you fine. Else, reserve it for rackets with very open string patterns. Or you may find your ego very quickly and harshly tamed.




     

Signum Pro Poly Plasma (SPPP)

Someone whom I string for became curious about this string. He gave me a few sets and asked for my opinion in return.

It was strange that he asked me, a known non-lover of poly (link), to help him assess the strings.

Online reviews have been mixed. Some claim SPPP plays soft and comfortable, while others felt it played stiff and dead. Many suggested tensioning it really low, like low-mid 40s lbs since the tension holding was very good.

After examining the string and taking some measurements, I decided to do up a full bed using proportional stringing (link) averaging about 48 lbs. I need all the power and comfort I can get...

Initial Impressions
- This is a stiff poly with very good tension holding indeed.
- The texture was not as slick as newer polys but neither is it rough nor textured. Just round.
- Most other polys would "slip" through my fingers as I weaved, but this string did not. So I figured the "ball bite" friction should be good for this string.
- Overnight, tension by frequency dropped only about 15 hz, which was impressive since most polys I tried loses about 40+ hz overnight unplayed.

Warm Up Rallies
- Only a very slight softening was felt after half an hour.
- Power was low and pocketing was minimal.
- An abnormally large number of shots hit the tape on the net. To me, this was another indication of its low power and correspondingly, a very low angle of rebound. Most of my shots normally clear the net two to three feet above.
- Control was decent but I struggled with spin. As a result, when I tried to step up the pace, the ball flew long.

Game Play
- Serves were very easy to place due to the tight stringbed. While I could hit down the "T" or out wide quite often, the pace was significantly slower than with other poly strings I used. 
- From my side, the serve did not feel offensive enough. I preferred a little more power, so I reduced the spin and hit flatter serves. Then it looked better.
- Return of serves revealed something very interesting to me. When contacted right at the sweetspot, ball impacts felt exceptionally nice, soft, comfy and powerful. But the ball flew long. Not up, but low and long. Even with follow-throughs above my shoulder.
- I noticed the same problem when returning very hard flat shots from my partner. "Trampoline" came to my mind. But only dead centre on the sweetspot. Other areas felt flat and stiff.
- This "trampoline" effect could be due to string loading, string timing and racket timing. Hard incoming shots, like serves, added a lot of "punch" to the stringbed, even with my compact swings. 
- This loaded both the strings and the very flexy racket. However, there was a huge rebound timing difference between the strings and the racket, resulting in this "loss of control" feeling. Since I cannot adjust the racket flex, I need to fine tune the tension to minimize this timing gap (link).
- With almost any poly, volleys and touch shots were dead. No exception with SPPP. Totally devoid of feel and feedback even with full proportional stringing. So dead I kept volleying easy shots into the net or out long!
- Long-drawn points were disadvantageous to me since I realized the string and racket flex timings were totally out. Neither could I rely on topspin as I either could not load the strings, or I ended up hitting too clean on the sweetspot. Again, the result was either into the net or out long.
- I found it was very difficult to play with this setup. But keep in mind, I have always preferred syn gut.

Overall
- To me, the greatest strength of this string was also it's worst flaw: tension holding.
- I doubt it was the ingredients. Highly suspect this string was heavily prestretched in the factory, hence its impeccable tension stability, both overnight after stringing and after the initial session of play.
- If it was indeed prestretched, it should have been indicated on the packaging. Then I would have strung this completely differently. Discovering, or suspecting this after stringing it up was very disappointing.
- That said, all was not lost. To those very hard-hitters looking for tension stable polys, or to tame very powerful stiff rackets, this string would be an exceptionally good fit. Just a straight-up full bed somewhere in the mid-40s to mid-50s lbs would suffice.
- If I were to try this string again, I would probably go for 40 lbs or less. That's how meek my swing is!