Taking care of a tennis racquet is a lot easier now that graphite, resins, ceramics, and metals have replaced wood in the construction of frames. We no longer have to carefully clamp a big, heavy brace onto our racquet after each match to keep it from warping. Of course, we don't get to peer suspiciously at the racquet's side profile when the ball goes eight feet astray, either. No, your racquet's not warped. Maybe it's the strings.
Racquet care is mostly common sense:
- Don't expose it to extreme heat or cold such as by leaving it in your car in summer or winter. A hot car can soften a graphite frame enough that the string tension will pull it out of shape.
- Keep it out of the sun when not in use.
- Don't throw it, bang it, or sit on it.
- Avoid scraping it while picking up balls.
- Put protective tape over those parts of the outer surface that you might scrape reaching for low balls.
- Install a fresh overgrip whenever your grip gets slippery. Having the racquet slip out of your hand is a common cause of breakage, and it can injure another player.
- String within the recommended range. Exceeding this range can break your frame and will usually void your warranty.
Stringing is a little more complicated. I'll try to answer the three most common questions:
- How often should I restring?
- What's the best string?
- What's the best tension?
The conventional rule of thumb is to restring as often per year as you play per week, but no less often than twice per year. It won't hurt your racquet to restring less often, but your strings might lose their responsiveness.
There's generally a trade-off between resiliency and durability. The most durable strings, made of Kevlar, are extremely stiff, and the next most durable type, certain polyesters such as many of the Luxilon strings, are also stiffer than many other types. Highly resilient and/or thinner strings, which many players find offer a better feel, tend to break faster. Many strings have durability and resiliency (or playability) ratings on the package.
Some players who can tolerate a stiff string bed but want to moderate the stiffness somewhat use Kevlar main strings with synthetic gut cross strings. (Mains wear out much faster than crosses and are almost always the ones that break.) In such a hybrid system, many will string the crosses ten pounds tighter than the mains so that the stiff Kevlar in the mains won't prevent the more resilient crosses from providing some rebound effect on the ball. If the Kevlar were as tight as the synthetic gut, its stiffness would not let the ball ever "get to" the synthetic gut.
If Kevlar and its Aramid cousins are too stiff for you, the next most durable strings, polyester-based, such as the Luxilon Big Banger ALU Power 16L, are a lot more resilient.
Finding strings you really like can require some experimentation. If you start by deciding how much durability you require, then you'll be able to stick with the results of your play-testing. There's no point falling in love with highly breakable strings if you're a big spin hitter who can't afford to chew through a pair every week. The performance of Kevlar strings seems fairly consistent across different brands, but other types of string are less predictable. Two brands with similar resiliency and durability ratings can feel quite different. If you bring comments such as "too springy," "too soft," or "too stiff" to the stringing technician at your pro shop, he or she should be able to point you toward strings that feel more like what you want.
Generally, tighter strings offer more control, looser strings more comfort. Looser strings also seem to have more power because they tend to hit farther, probably due to their prolonging contact with the ball while the racquet moves upward with the stroke. String tension has a profound effect on the way a racquet performs and feels. I've seen lots of players hate a racquet strung at one tension, then love an identical frame strung differently. (This is a good point to keep in mind when trying racquets you're considering buying.) There's no single best tension, and the pros offer little guidance, with a huge range in their preferred tensions and no apparent correlation to style of play.
