customising a tennis racquet Archives

I've recently switched my main racquet from my Yonex Ai 98 (Yonex DR 98 is just as good) to the more powerful Babolat Pure Strike (Project One 7) and I'm in the process of customizing it.

I've played with the Babolat Pure Strike in stock form for a few week and it is the first racquet that I've actually enjoying “raw” and I didn't even think about adding lead tape to it for a while but now that I'm playing more frequently I've started noticing the vibrations you get when you don't hit the ball in the sweet spot and I thought that maybe some lead tape can help me reduce some of those vibrations.

The Babolat Pure Strike is labelled as a stiff racquet by many, while others, including the TW play-testers, think it's a rather comfortable racquet. I think it depends a lot on the string you use and your technique to be honest. It obviously helps if you hit the ball cleanly in the middle of the string bed on 90% of your shots, but not a lot of people do that, especially with the pace of today's game.

My first hour with the Pure Strike was a really enjoyable one but the demo was strung with Babolat RPM Blast and it had probably been sitting in the racquet for quite some time. I immediately felt the harshness of the racquet, but at the same time it has an almost perfect blend of control and power that I've been looking for for a long time. It really does justify its name as an attacker's racquet and that works really well for my game style. You can check out my review of the Babolat Pure Strike and my post on the so called Racquet Honeymoon Period.

I've strung my Pure Strikes with another favorite of mine, the Solinco Hyper-G, a spin-friendly, control-oriented but still rather comfortable string that is used by the Bryan Bros, Donald Young, Noah Rubin and quite a few other professional tennis players (click the link for a list of articles I've written about the racquets of the ATP pros. It has so far been a good match, but my plan B has been that if I start feeling any pain in my elbow or wrist, I'll try it in a hybrid setup with Babolat natural gut.

The last one or two session I have been feeling some pain in my hand and arm. It could be the Pure Strike or that the string job is already losing some of its elasticity. My first test to find out if I can eliminate some vibrations is by adding some lead tape at 3 and 9 (my preferred lead tape place, this is obviously highly personal) and add one over grip to counter-balance. Since my Pure Strikes are grip 2 and I'm usually playing grip 3, the extra over grip is not an issue. I'm trying the new Tourna Tac grips for the Pure Strikes since my usual favorite – the Yonex Super Grap would be too much white for one racquet (yes, looks matter!).

This customization of my racquets land them on around 335 grams strung with a dampener. Since I usually play with 345 grams on my Yonex Ai 98, this should be fine despite the more head-heavy balance. Will this extra weight in the hoop make the racquet more stable on off-center hits? Yes, it will. Will it help my potential wrist/arm issues? No idea.

If the pain lingers, I'll look into string choice next. I don't want to give up on the Pure Strikes because they really play beautifully but obviously I will listen to the body if the pain persists through lead tape and string changes. Then you just have to admit defeat and move on to a softer racquet, but don't give up until you've tried customizing it to work better for you.

Time to get back on the court. Will keep you posted on how it goes.

Have you played with the Babolat Pure Strike and do you have any suggestions around strings and customizations? Please comment below.

Places where you can buy the Babolat Pure Strike and other tennis racquets.

EU
Racquet Depot
Pro Direct Tennis

USA
Tennis Express
Do It Tennis
Amazon.com

Racquet buying guides

Here is a great racquet buying guide to get you started.
What tennis racquet should I buy?
Top tennis racquets to buy right now
The Gear of the Year 2016
Tennis racquets for juniors
Tennis racquets for kids

For us tennis nerds there is a period we need to beware of and that's the racquet honeymoon. Those first weeks when we believe we've finally found the one…

This might lead us into buying an extra racquet and vowing to play this racquet until the end of time because no other racquet has ever made us feel this good about ourselves and our tennis games. But just wait a few weeks and you'll have an off session and you might start finding some faults in the racquet and how it affects your game. Suddenly you're thinking, “how naive I was!” And you risk going into the mode of “I need to get a new racquet!”.

If stores allowed us to demo a racquet for a couple of months it would be a lot cheaper and easier to make a qualified decision on a racquet purchase. But we're lucky if we get to try a racquet properly before we buy it and then we might either hate it at first hit and give up on it or love it for three weeks and then have a slump and soon enough you're putting a for sale ad up on tennis forums or flea bay.

I've been around the block a few times when it comes to tennis racquets and I thought I knew this process inside out, but I was close to fall into another trap with the Babolat Pure Strike I'm using at the moment. You see, I first play-tested the racquet at a time when I was happy with what I was using so even though I was pretty impressed I didn't want to make the switch. Then when I was in a period of “it would be fun with some more power” I decided to test it again and despite it being strung with a dead poly (in this case Babolat RPM Blast) I played great and promptly decided to buy two racquets.

I've been testing out different strings for a couple of weeks and really come to enjoy the feel of the Solinco Hyper-G in the Babolat Pure Strike. It gives spin, control and impressive comfort for a polyester string in a rather firm racquet. I haven't had any arm problems whatsoever. But at this stage, a couple of weeks in, I can't be sure that this is going to be “the one”. I just need to keep playing with it. Sometimes I will play well – other times bad and I can't always blame the racquet for this. Most of the time it's in my own hands.

It's very easy to blame the racquet or the strings for a tennis player, but no matter how hard it is to accept sometimes, usually it's you. I'm not saying that you might not have the wrong racquet and that that doesn't make a difference – because it does (otherwise I wouldn't be running a site called Tennisnerd about tennis racquets and gear).

So what is the lesson of all this? Well, the best way to tackle the potential racquet honeymoon period is this:

Make sure you stick with a racquet for a longer period of time (depending on how much you play) because you need to groove with it and get to know it properly. For example 2-3 months.

There are things to try before giving up on a racquet such as: racquet customisation, changing strings, changing string tension.

Have a close look at your own game before you go back and forth between racquets. Sometimes your game can be affected in some way by a new racquet. Make sure to pay attention or ask your partner if it does.

Patience, patience, patience. (This is really the same as number one – but it's so important I'll write it twice.)

Do you have your own examples of racquet honeymooning? Please share in the comment section!

customising a tennis racquet

Customizing My Racquets

The Racquet Honeymoon Period

For us tennis nerds there is a period we need to beware of and that's the racquet honeymoon. Those first weeks when we believe we've finally found the one…