The Bottom Line
Explains the technical side of tennis in great depth while remaining fully accessible to most readers. An exceptional resource for tennis players who want to understand the physics of how racquet, strings, ball, court surface, and strokes interact.
Pros
- Exceptional depth of information
- Scientific approach
- Considers many sides of complicated questions
- Lots of graphs, charts, and diagrams
- Accessible whether you do the math or not
Cons
- Often difficult to find answers quickly
Description
- Part 1: Racquets: materials, weight, balance, swingweight, shock, vibration
- Part 2: Strokes: racquet factors, impact points, serve, return, groundstrokes, spin, strategy
- Part 3: Strings: materials, construction, power, tension, gauge
- Part 4: Balls and Courts: ball size, pressure, bounce; interaction with racquet and court surfaces
- Appendices: glossary, units, equipment rules, mathematics, court dimensions, references
- Useful, detailed Table of Contents and Index
Guide Review - Instructional Book: The Physics and Technology of Tennis
The Physics and Technology of Tennis explores the interactions between racquet, strings, ball, court, and player from a truly scientific perspective, using experimental evidence and applications of basic principles of physics and engineering to address practical issues of great interest to serious tennis players. In its 437 large pages, this book goes into considerable depth on almost every factor, from racquet construction to stroke selection, in which physics influences a player's performance. Formulas, diagrams, charts, and graphs abound, but you can ignore most of them if you're not mathematically inclined. The prose is designed to make the concepts accessible to a wide spectrum of readers.
It's not easy, though to find a quick answer to a question such as "Which racquet weight would suit me best?" You'll have to do a fair amount of reading, and you'll find that on questions like this, many trade-offs come into play. The authors, two physics professors and the editor of Racquet Tech magazine, consider each question with the thoroughness and objectivity of careful scientists, leaving the final judgments to you. You'll be ready to make well-informed choices.
