The Complete Handbook of Tennis Racquet String

Chapter 1: Understanding Tennis Racquet String

What Tennis Racquet String Actually Is

Tennis racquet string is a single, continuous filament, or a set of filaments, that is woven under tension across the face of a racquet. It is the only piece of equipment that makes contact with the ball. The string bed, which is the grid of mains (the vertical strings) and crosses (the horizontal strings), is responsible for transferring the energy of your swing to the ball. It deforms on impact, stores some of the kinetic energy as elastic potential energy, and then returns that energy to the ball as it rebounds. This is the entire mechanism of a tennis shot, from a gentle slice to a full serve.

Physically, the string is a manufactured polymer or a natural fibre, drawn or extruded to a specific diameter, and then wound onto reels or coils. A typical racquet will use between 11 and 13.5 metres of string for a two-piece stringing job, depending on the head size. The string is not glued down, woven, or tied to itself in any permanent way; it is held in place purely by the tension under which it is pulled and the friction at the grommet holes where it exits the frame. The moment a string snaps or loses its tension, the entire playing characteristic of the racquet changes, often becoming stiff, dull, or unpredictable.

Understanding what a string does is not an academic exercise. The difference between a 1.25 millimetre polyester string and