So your friend or spouse is trying to get you to join them in their favorite sport, but you don’t have a tennis racquet. What racquets are there? Which one should you get? What are the differences? There is a jungle of information out there about tennis racquets, but hopefully Tennisnerd can help you navigate.
If you’re thinking about a tennis racket for a kid, I suggest you read this post or if you’re a bit more advanced I would read the post called The Best Tennis Racket For Intermediate Players. This is to get you a proper starting point in our beautiful game, because if you start with a racket that is too heavy and too difficult to play with, you might quickly become discouraged.
What characteristics should tennis racquet for beginners have then?
1. It should be light. When you don’t have proper technique you need something that is easy to swing. Anything above 300 grams is not really to recommend, but if you’re relatively strong I wouldn’t go much lower either because you want the mass of the racquet to be able to impact the ball.
2. It should preferably have a large headsize, called midsize plus or oversize. This is measured in square inches. A good size would be 98-100 sq inch or above. This will increase you sweet spot and make it easier to make a decent shot even if you don’t hit the ball in the middle of the racket.
3. It is important to choose the right grip size so you don’t play with a grip that’s too small or too big. More information about that here
4. Remember that the choice of string might not be so important from the start, but as soon as you’re learning to hit with proper technique the string will make a huge impact on how the tennis racket performs. I will go into more about different string types on the blog in a later post, but you can always consult the local tennis shop.
First you can go to Tennis Express and browse the different racket brands. They offer free shipping if you order for more than $75 and are always great to deal with.
I will list a few rackets that I think you should take a look at there:
Babolat Aeropro lite GT – great racket that offers good power and spin and is still very light to swing.
Babolat Pure Drive GT 107 – oversized racket that will offer you a giant sweetspot in a very manoeuvrable racket.
Head Youtek Five Star – also 107 sq inches, offering great power and a huge sweetspot.
Wilson BLX One Lite – smaller head size than the oversized ones but a great choice for the beginning player
Wilson BLX Khamsin-Five – a 108 sq inch racket with the new BLX technology that will offer great feel. Perfect if you’re prone to tennis elbow.
No matter which racquet of these you choose you will be on the right path to playing great tennis. For beginners I would strongly suggest finding a coach who can help you with the technique, at least in the beginning. Tennis gets more and more fun the better you get and it’s worth investing in a good start.
Good luck!
Get your new rackets and tennis gear at Tennis Express
