Would you as a tennis player adhere to a manufacturer’s recommendation as to when to use, or not use, one of their strings?

Over the past few years, I have done some evaluation(s) of string for manufacturers/marketers to understand when a string may not be a “good” application.  A “good” application can be performance or comfort based.  My objective is to minimize any injury potential.

I can tell you that, for example, a junior using an 18×20 string pattern should not use a string with less than a “Power Potential” of 8.0 at a reference tension of more that 40 pounds (18.1kg).  If the racquet is a 16×19 the “warning” is not as severe, and so on.  The more open the string pattern, the stiffer the string can be.  Power Potential, by the way, is a derivative of the elongation of a given string, so the higher the elongation, the higher the Power Potential.

So, would you be willing to “quit” using your current string based on the recommendation of the manufacturer, or not?  Each string package would have the recommended parameters of that application.  The difficulty is the quantification of these parameters.  Your junior may be a lot bigger and stronger than my junior, so you get the picture.

The manufacturers/marketers I work with are really trying to provide tennis players with good experiences so they need your input to make sure they are meeting your needs.

This graph shows a string that becomes quite a bit stiffer as the ball is hit harder.  The objective is to have a string that does not go into the red at any impact/deflection!