I started thinking about this as I made my way to a routine doctor’s appointment last week. Here is the scenario I formed while waiting:

The doctor has been seeing all sorts of patients already today and I suspect the first glance at each one elicited some sort of reaction, quielty probably, like this; “Good Greif, that guy is fat! Bad trousers, terrible shoes, nice shirt, whats with the hair, dude?” etc, etc.

So what do you think happens when a racquet shows up for a checkup?

“Good grief, that is an old racquet, who would ever buy one of those, this person is too good for that racquet,” etc, etc.

As humans we can communicate how we feel to the doctor but your racquet can not, so it has other ways to tell you if it is healthy or not. Here are a few signs of an unhealthy racquet:

1. Grommet set, and specifically the protective head bumper is worn out. If this is not fixed quicky the racquet will die!
   

   Worn Out Bumper Guard

2.  Grommet set individual barrels are broken or missing. If this is not fixed the strings will die!
3.  Overgrip is disgustingly dirty requiring exam gloves to remove it! Doctors use exam gloves too and you know what that means!
4. Under grip is essentially rendered to powder, requiring exam gloves to remove it.

Obvious!

What is not so obvious sometimes is that strings need to be replaced.  Even before they break!  What!

Yes, strings loose tension over time and in some case rather quickly!  By knowing what the original string bed stiffness was we can determine how much “stiffness” has been lost.  For most players a degradation of 20% is maximum.

Depending on the string material a loss of 8 to 9% overnight is not uncommon…so that leaves 11 to 12% for playing.

Take a look at our String Frequency Calculator to get a better idea of stringing frequency required to keep your racquet really working for you.

To keep you playing at your best you need to keep your racquet at it’s best!