Tennis Racket FAQ:
Updated 09/26/07

1.) What's the best racket for me?

If your goal is to play the best tennis for your ability:
-Get the biggest head size to achieve the best results for off-center hits, but not so big that you hit yourself on swings.
-Everything else depends on the individual player.

If your goal is to improve your ability:
-Get the smallest head size that you can tolerate without feeling hopeless.
-Everything else depends on the individual player.

2.) What's the difference between different headsizes?

Two things:
-The bigger the head, the bigger the sweetspot.
-The bigger the head, the more it will "carry" the ball.  This is because the bigger the head, the more deflection it takes for the strings to reach the same dynamic tension as a smaller racket.  This means a bigger head will "cup" the ball more and the ball will stay on the strings longer before it bounces off.  In other words, a bigger head will "carry" the ball more.

3.) What is the best headsize for me?

Pick from the following depending on your hitting style and combine it with the answer from Q1:

Spin (amount of vertical motion in swing), Racket face angle on contact -> Ideal headsize
Less, Less -> Doesn't matter (Carry isn't a factor in this case.  Headsize depends on prefered size of sweetspot only).
Less, More -> Big headsize is better (need more carry).
More, Less -> Small headsize is better (need less carry).
More, More -> Ideal is somewhere in between large and small (need balanced amounts of carry).

4.) What is the best racket weight for me?

Don't pick a racket by weight alone.  You must consider the weight and balance together.  Considering weight alone will still create wildly different feels depending on the balance.

5.) What is the best type of racket balance (head light, head heavy) for me?

Same answer as Q4 but interchange "weight" with "balance".

6.) What is the best weight and balance for me?

It's the one that gives you the best combination of the following:
-Maximum energy delivered to the ball on contact.  Choose from the following depending on your physical makeup:

Length of swing, Muscle power -> Ideal handle weight, throat weight, head weight
Short, Low -> Medium, Light, Medium (to allow maximum racket speed since force is guaranteed to be low).
Short, High -> Medium, Medium, Medium
Long, Low -> Medium, Medium, Light
Long, High -> Heavy, Heavy, Heavy (lighter racket will "max out" the racket speed and not use all the muscle power).

Interpolate the results for in-between levels of physique.

-Maximum mobility to react quickly to balls.  Ideally you want a racket to weight nothing for this requirement, or at least be very head light.

-Allows you to move in your preferred manner.  Some players like to be jerky in their movement.  Some players like to be smoother in their movement.  The heavier the racket the smoother the movement due to inertia.

Note that there are conflicts between the requirements for different types of shots (reaction volleys and well prepared groundstrokes for example), so you have to make the compromise.  Cannot have everything.  Typically, a lighter head helps with mobility while heavier other sections help with power.  Typically, the weaker the player, the lighter the racket which achieves the maximum power.

7.) What is the best level of shock for me?

The level that allows you to feel the ball the most without injury.

8.) What is the best grip size for me?

The one that gives you:
-The most mobility (smaller is better)
-The most grip (depends on hand size)
-The most stability (depends on hand size)
-The quickest grip changes between different shots (smaller is better).

Generally, the larger the hand size, the larger is the ideal grip.  In terms of gripping power, a small hand doesn't do well with a huge grip, and vice versa; the best gripping power is achieved with a grip that matches your handsize. 

A larger grip gives you more resistance to torque (twisting) of the raquet.  This helps reduce wrist pain on mishits as well as on shots with lots of topspin since the ball tends to roll across the racket on those, creating dynamic torque.

Some evaluation is necessary for each individual.  Someone who doesn't have much variations in grips and who swings without much wrist generally only have to consider the grip level and stability.  Someone who has a lot of wrist action in their swing can benefit from a smaller grip since that increases the mobility of the wrist.  Also, someone who plays with extreme grip changes can also benefit from a smaller grip since your hand has to move less during a grip change, although some people may have trouble "finding the grip" with a smaller grip.  In both cases though, going to a smaller grip will reduce the stability.

9.) What is the best string pattern for me?

More open string patterns give you more spin and more carry.  More closed string patterns give you less spin and less carry.  Thus you have the following:

Spin desired, Racket face angle on contact -> Ideal string pattern
Less, Less -> Doesn't matter (Carry and spin aren't factors in this case).
Less, More -> More open is better (need more carry).
More, Less -> More closed is better (need less carry).
More, More -> More open is better (need both spin and carry).

10.) What is the best beam width for me?

The one that looks the best to you without being so wide as to frame the ball excessively when hitting with topspin or to hit your body during the swing.  Given the same material, a wider beam creates less flex.  So if you know the exact chemical composition of two different rackets, you can use beam width to evalute the flex.  Unless you work at the racket factory, you don't know the exact chemical composition of rackets, so beam width tells you nothing about flex or any other attribute of the racket other than the looks and dimensions.

11.) What is the best flex for me?

Bottomline is to pick the racket with your ideals of feel at contact, twisting, and shock.  The flex spec doesn't always tell you that (variance is high).

You don't pick a racket by just looking at the flex number.  What matters is how the detailed structure of the racket contributes to the softness, stability, and the shock.  Two rackets with the same flex number can differ wildly in the feel.  You really need to evaluate flex at every point in the frame to know how it's going to feel.  But then you need to know a whole bunch of equations.  Better just to play with it and see, or follow these general rules knowing that they can be wrong often:

Too flexible:
-Contact does not feel crip
-Twists too much
-Low frequency shock

Medium flex:
-Not too soft or too hard on contact
-Twists a little
-Medium levels of shock

Too stiff:
-Contact is felt immediately with a spike
-Very stable in terms of twisting
-Can have high frequency shock

The reason these rules don't always work is because a racket's frame's stiffness can be fine tuned throughout the structure.  So you can have a frame that is resistant to twisting while still having a soft feel at contact and have very little shock.  Or you can have a frame with a stiff feel but still twists too much (which would be considered a bad racket).