What is “Soft”?
For many years, we have been testing string for elongation and subsequent power potential.
There is a new batch of strings that include the term “soft” in the promotional language, seemingly in an effort to mitigate the injuries associated with very stiff strings.
At some point, we can go into detail about how the soft version of a string compares to the non-soft version; however, for now, I want to reintroduce you to a post we did in 2016… almost ten (10) years ago!
Click on this link to go to that post
Thank you for reading this again. It is important “Play Harder not Hurter™”
Posted on July 3, 2026, in co-polyester, elbow, Elongation, Good News!, Health, Juniors, Kinesiology, Learning, Linearity, Multi-filamenmt, Natural Gut String, Pain, Polyester, Power, String, String Bed Stiffness, String Sense, Technology, Tensile Strength. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
Racquet Quest, LLC
Roger, thank you for your comment! The answer to your question is no, we don’t need more poly strings. However, if the total string market is considered, it leaves a lot of space for more sellers and more SKU’s and the “cost of entry” is not as high as other string materials and formats, i.e multifilament. Even multifilament makers have had to add polyester to their offerings, it seems.
Makes talking to a less knowledgeable customer a bit more challenging when the see packaging that say “soft” when looking at strings as a whole these poly soft strings are stiff. But too late now. Dave Bone did an article a long time ago basically saying the USRSA stringer should educate the consumer about strings. It’s a bit tough when manufactures label string packaging as something like ” great power with control”. I let him know. Gamma is an example that I have noted tends to have more accurate language and I have to say I feel it has improved over the years. Still label a poly string is slightly deceiving. Could say Tour Bite 2…. a softer version of our great playing Tour Bite string. Something that separates the two strings but just less deceiving in a way.
Yes, do we really need more poly strings on top of the poly strings. Regular and Soft? For me it’s too much and adds more confusion for the retail customer. How soft is a poly soft? Maybe a little, but really not enough. Just adding more sku’s.
Soft should be left to multifilament and natural gut string.
Thanks for the message, Roger.
We test every string to better understand the real properties. There seems to be no “rules” when it comes to string properties.