If you read “Play Like a Girl,” you will have a good idea where this is headed!  This part is intended to make it possible for you to experiment without feeling “forced” so it is based on “numbers” not “feelings.”  Of course, feel is relevant to tennis players.

Two events this week make it easy to compare numbers and feeling.

1.  A racquet came in from a tournament playing junior that had the good fortune of picking up a competitors racquet and recognize the difference immediately and wanted to try it.  His racquet is a Babolat Pure Strike 16×19 with a swing weight of 302!  The racquet he picked up has a swing weight of 341!  His revised swing weight is 325.
2. A really good young lady is switching racquets and string setup, so there is a four (4) inch strip of 1/4″ tape on the inside of each side of the string bed in the 3 and nine o’clock position — total weight of about 5 grams, for a swing weight of 321.  During a training session, a coach said the racquet was too heavy and removed about 2 inches total of tape, maybe 1.5 grams, and everything was fine!  This player is strong enough to play with a 335 swing weight so was this a “visual” suggestion, and the process of removing tape convinced the payer that the racquet was now much lighter?

In case you don’t remember there are 28.35 grams per ounce.  So you can see that 1.5 grams is quite small!

Did you know that a dry overgrip is about 5 grams and a wet over grip can be as much as 12 grams?  The location of an overgrip (under your hand) has virtually no effect on swing weight so it generally goes unnoticed.

Unless agreed upon in advance most weight can be removed or re-located so don’t fear your friend…weight!