7 Benefits of Babolat Tennis Racquets

Babolat is one of the top brands you will encounter when choosing a tennis racket, and for many good reasons. The Babolat tennis racquets are preferred by professional tennis players and aspiring champions for its technology and innovative features. To understand why it may be the best tennis racquet for you, here are seven benefits of a Babolat racquet:

1. It comes with features that let you play well – Tennis racquets by Babolat are developed with the skill levels and needs of every type of player in mind. Hence, you should be able to find the perfect racquet that matches your play style, skill, and preferred level of comfort.

2. Custom racquets for advanced needs – AeroPro and Pure Aero are recommended for players who require more spin and pace on the court. A Babolat tennis racquet from any of those lines feature a combination of a lively and firm beam and a speedy feel, so you can play aggressively. The racquets come in a variety of weights to suit every level of ability.

3. More feel and control – Babolat came up with the Hybrid Beam Construction in their Pure Strike series to provide more control and feel. Hence, you get impressive stability despite the weight, and the FSI technology in 2016 models optimize the string spacing for better power and spin.

4. More power – Check out the Pure Drive series if you are looking for a Babolat tennis racquet that can give you more power. Pure Drive racquets have a lively and thick beam, a fast feel, and an open string pattern to provide best in class speed, precision, power, and spin.

5. There are racquets for every player – Beginner and intermediate tennis players need a light and user-friendly racquet, which they can get from the Lite & Drive series. Babolat has a line of junior racquets for young competitors, too.

6. Technology – Babolat invented the VS string, and since then, they have been continuously innovating to produce the best breakthroughs while improving existing products, all while ensuring that their innovations can enhance player performance.

7. Versatility – Babolat came up with the ‘Smart’ tennis racquet called, ‘Connected Racquet’, which is designed for amateur and professional players alike. It has already been tested by top players like Rafael Nadal, Li Na, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. The racquet acquires data about the player through chips and sensors in the handle, and it shows players a breakdown of incidents, such as why a forehand smash ended up on the net or why the serve went wide, so they can refer to it for improvement. It can collect information on the power of shots, the level of spin, technique, endurance, energy, consistency, and other factors.

Things You Didn’t Know About Tennis Racquets

The tennis Racquet is like your trusty partner on the court, but do you know it well? Here are 20 things you may be surprised to learn about tennis Racquets:

• Tennis Racquets used to be made of wood from the 15th century to 1965, and they had strings made from cow intestines, which have been twisted and stretched to create an elastic surface with a high tension on the Racquet’s head.

• Before the 15th century, Tennis-like games used to be played literally by hand and people wore custom-made gloves or wrapped rope around their hands.

• Rene Lacoste created the first Racquet with a steel frame, and it revolutionized the manufacture of tennis Racquets when it enabled the increase string tension and the size of the head.

• The first professional player to use steel tennis Racquets was Jimmy Connors.

• The first modification made to traditional gut string Racquets was accomplished with nylon strings.

• For years, a lot of professional players believed that wooden Racquets provided greater ball control and accuracy, so they refused to use steel frame Racquets. However, the wooden Racquets were no match to the steel framed Racquet’s power.

• Wooden Racquets typically weighed around 350 grams, and some weighed half a kilogram. Modern Racquets weigh an average of around 250 grams, with lighter versions available.

• Tennis Racquets that are supposedly made of graphite are not made using the mineral that bears the same name. Instead, ‘graphite’ pertains to the reinforced thermoplastic visco-elastic polymer, which is durable and lightweight.

• Graphite tennis Racquets were popularized by John McEnroe.

• Many of the tennis Racquets we know today are manufactured in Asia, particularly in Japan.

• Some modern Racquets have heads with tiny chambers, which contain ball bearings to absorb impact and to minimize tennis elbow.

• High-quality Racquets are sold without their strings, so experienced players have more freedom to pick the strings and tension according to their preference.

• In the 1980s, ITF banned ‘spaghetti string’ Racquets to prevent low-ranked players from consistently defeating skilled players.

• Low tension strings offer more power, and high tensions provide more control over the ball’s behavior.

• The spacing of the tennis Racquet’s strings can affect the ball’s angle of deflection. Hence, rules restrict the distance to 1.3cm.

• A modern tennis Racquet has a head with a surface area that can be as big as 137 square inches, which is almost double the maximum size of the head of wooden Racquets.

• If you choose a lightweight Racquet, you get a smaller sweet spot, more vibration, and reduced power.

• The size of the tennis Racquet’s grip is more crucial than other factors when choosing a tennis Racquet. Choose the wrong size and you risk injury and becoming easily fatigued.

• There are no laws regulating tennis Racquet length.

• The tennis Racquet evolved with reducing vibrations upon impact with tennis balls as the main goal.

Find Your Perfect Tennis Racket at Tennisracket.Me

Finding the perfect tennis racket will be one of the biggest hurdles you might encounter as a tennis player, whether you are starting out or have advanced to the intermediate stage. Even professionals may have difficulty in choosing a tennis racket due to the overwhelming amount of options available today. Moreover, the technologies used in modern tennis rackets may leave you confused when you have to compare them and find out what they do. You can scour the web, talk to your coach, and ask professional players for guidelines and tips on choosing the best tennis racket for you, or you can rely on an algorithm that can help you find the perfect tennis racket at Tennisracket.Me.

An entrepreneur, Mike Volkin and tech specialist, Thomas Jensen, are tennis players who are passionate about the sport and their game. They created Tennisracket.Me to make it easier for other players to find the right tennis racket based on algorithms and certain points. The site was born when Mike, a 4.5 singles player, was searching for a racket and explored the web for the newest rackets from different manufacturers. He is an experienced player, but he had difficulty in accurately knowing the swing speed, stiffness index, and other specs that can affect his game. Hence, he created a spreadsheet of those data points to be analyzed and looked up a service that can narrow down the selection of rackets he could pick from. Seeing that there was no such service, he got in touch with his friend, Thomas, who did some numbers on the spreadsheet and applied Excel programming to remove rackets that were unsuitable for Mike.

Mike and Thomas developed a proprietary algorithm to analyze thousands of data points and weigh them against one another to come up with the perfect tennis racket for you without any biases. Simply answer a few questions at Tennisracket.Me and you should be able to pick a racket in under two minutes.

Tennis Scoring System: The Odd 15, 30, 40

If you’re new to tennis, then you must be wondering who invented the tennis scoring system—and why it’s so odd. Even tennis veterans are befuddled by the strange scoring system. In an interview, Andre Agassi was asked about why the points were named that way. His humorous reply was that the system was invented “to cause frustration to those who play tennis.”Indeed, for many players, it’s a mystery they will never understand. The practical approach would be to simply learn the scoring rules and move on instead of stopping to wonder how the rules got that way.

Tennis historians cannot pinpoint exactly how and when the wording was used, though there are several theories. The 15, 30, and 40 scores are said to have originated from medieval French. Theory has it that a clock face was used on court; a quarter move of the hand denoted a score of 15, 30, and 45. The game was over when the hand moved to 60.

In the world of tennis, ‘love’ is the term for zero—a term that is also attributed to medieval French. The word ‘l’oeuf’in French means egg—which looks like a zero. Tennis historians theorize that English mispronunciations eventually corrupted the word and it thus became ‘love.’Oddly enough, ‘love’ is not used at all in French tennis matches. They use zero.

Linguists also theorize that ‘love’ comes the Dutch word ‘lof,’ which means honor. The basis of this theory is a 16th-century political song that describes a battle between the French and Antwerp in terms of a tennis game, differentiating those who play for ‘lof’ and those who wager. Incidentally, the word ‘tennis’ is believed to be a corruption of the word ‘tenez’ which means take heed. The umpire shouted this word at the beginning of the match back in the day.

The Ultimate Tennis Racket Sizing Guide

When choosing a tennis racket size, there are three things that need to be considered: the length of the racket, and the size of the grip and the head. This guide will explain how exactly to work out what grip size, head size and racket length is most suitable for you, to ensure you are the best you can possibly be out on the court.

Grip Size

Calculating your grip size is a very easy process, and it is also useful to know that a racket’s grip size can be altered by adding or removing grips.

To measure your grip size, all that is required is your hand and a ruler. Simply place the ruler on the palm of your dominant hand (the hand you use for your forehand) and horizontally align it with the gap between your thumb and index finger. Point the ruler vertically, and measure its length up to your ring finger in inches. Then, use the chart below to determine your grip size:

4 inches      = Grip Size 0

4 1/8 inches = Grip Size 1

4 1/4 inches = Grip Size 2

4 3/8 inches = Grip Size 3

4 1/2 inches = Grip Size 4

4 5/8 inches = Grip Size 5

Racket Length

Surprisingly, the matter of racket length for adults is not a greatly complicated subject. Anyone 150cm or taller is advised to use a 27 inch racket. There are oversized rackets made longer than 27 inches, but ultimately it comes down to the individual to decide whether or not they wish to go higher than the standard racket length. The advantage of longer rackets is their increased reach and power, but it is important to remember that the feel of oversized rackets can often be strange and unnatural. Considering this, it is best to adopt a “try before you buy” philosophy, and if a racket feels good and right in your hands, then you can invest in confidence.

Racket length for children is not such a straightforward issue. If younger players start early in the game, then they will need new rackets fairly regularly to accommodate their height growth and tennis development. The size guide below shows the appropriate racket length for children, and anyone under 150cm:

Below 105cm = Size 19

105-118cm = Size 21

118-135cm = Size 23

135-150cm (aged 9-10) = Size 25

135-150cm (aged 11-12) = Size 26

Above 150cm = Size 27

Note: Racket length is measured in inches

Head Size

The head of the racket is the part of the racket covered by the strings. As with the length of the racket, the head size also boils down to personal preference, however there are advised sizes to follow based on your tennis ability.

Beginners should opt for oversized rackets which normally are above 105 square inches. Oversized rackets have the biggest head size of all, and provide beginners with a great deal of power to assist them in getting the ball over the net when they are new to the game.

Intermediates would be wise to purchase mid-plus head sized rackets, which range between 95-105 square inches. Mid-plus rackets give players a nice blend of power and control at a stage where they will be beginning to develop these two skills to a good level.

Advanced players require mid-sized rackets, below 95 square inches. These rackets offer increased control, but are difficult to use compared with larger rackets. Players using mid-sized rackets have the ability to create all their own power through their racket speed and timing.

Although this head size guide is accurate and helpful, it certainly does not apply to everyone. Even in the professional game, players such as Andre Agassi chose oversized rackets instead of mid-plus, whereas others like Roger Federer preferred rackets around the 95 square inch mark.

The decision for the size of your rackets and grips is entirely yours, but be sure to choose wisely and sensibly.

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