All about Tennis Strings

In the tennis game, tennis strings have a lot more to so with how you play than what you might think. The composition of the racquet has a lot to do with how you tight you string it, and the type of string is vital as well. In previous times, before the 1970s, natural gut was more or less the only string used. The thing is, as the name suggests, natural gut is made from cow intestines, and so you can imagine that it would be quite expensive. On average it is $30 per set, that is, to string one racquet with natural gut. So in the times of wooden racquets, when my mom played, if you broke a string, you couldn't afford a new set, so they would just add a little piece of thread to "latch up" the missing piece. This would obviously impact the true tension of the tennis strings severely, and something had to be done about it.

Then came the synthetic string. First off, there was synthetic gut, which is still around to this day. Because it provides some good feel, it doesn't last as long. That is the trade off when it comes to tennis strings. If you want to have good feel on the ball, you use a softer, usually more expensive string, but it doesn't last very long. If you want a duable string, it works out cheaper, but the way the ball feels when you hit it isn't quite that great. The most durable strings these days are made out of multi-filament polyester, and I would recommend trying Babolat Ballistic Polymono or Wilson Enduro Pro. If you have a little more to spend, the string that Roger Federer uses is the Luxilon Big Banger Original.

To combat the problem of feel versus durability, many players have started using a mix, also called a hybrid. They use the strong, durable string in the mains (the strings that run vertically down the racquet) and the softer, better feeling string in the crosses. The mains are always the strings that break first, so putting the stronger string in there helps this problem. Therefore, many players who love the feel of natural or synthetic gut but want it to last longer, use the hybrid method. Concerning synthetic gut, I would recommend the Wilson NXT String, the Babolat Hurricane, or the Wilson K-Gut. When it comes to natural gut, Babolat has been making it since 1875, and their VS series is the best out there.

When you see a 15, 16 or 17 at the end of the description, this is the thickness of the string. A 15 gauge string is 1.35 mm thick, 16 gauge is 1.3 mm, and 17 gauge is 1.25 mm thick. I would recommend the 16 gauge, as 15 gauge might be too tough and 17 might break too easily. These strings are all available at the Warehouse.

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