Category Archives: Tips
Use Your String
We want you to play your best, and using your string is a component of your performance.
If you have any questions about your string and the bnest stringing technique, please let us know. We can provide information that may help the tournament stringing team meet your expectations.
Big 10 Tennis Player of the Week.
Jack Anthrop has been playing extraordinary tennis for a long time and was recently named Big 10 Tennis Player of the Week after an impressive outing in Dallas!
The link below will take you to the Ohio State post; however, I want to share some of the things Jack has done to secure the game he has.
Jack uses a Head Speed SMU racquet. The head size is 96 square inches and has a swing weight of 333 kg/cm^. This inertia couples with the overall weight of 352 grams (12.4 oz) to create stability and power.
Jack uses MonoGut ZX Pro natural at a reference tension of 56 pounds and string bed stiffness of 60 pounds. This creates a dynamic stiffness of 393.6 PPI.
Jack has been using Ashaway MonoGut ZX Pro since the age of 9! Yep, that’s right, age 9! MonoGut ZX and ZX Pro material is PEEK, a unique string that offers outstanding comfort, feel, and power with better durability than some other materials.
It is our position that more players of any level should consider MonoGut ZX or ZX Pro (thinner). It really just makes sense…just ask Jack, Big 10 Men’s Tennis Player of the Week!
Let us know if you have questions about Jack’s racquet or string. We have been working with Jack since age 9, and we would like to share what we can to help achieve your tennis goal(s).
Thank you, Head and Ashaway, for your continued support!
mens-tennis-anthrop-earns-big-ten-player-of-the-week
Congratulations, Jack, your new Head Speed SMU’s are on the way.
Head Speed SMU
Head Speed SMU
NG Strings – Part Two: Natural Gut Knot Strength
Any string that goes into a tennis racquet is, at some point, going to be tied off using a knot. Creating a string knot is normally not an issue, however, some strings are more sensitive to this process than others.
This plot will show the relative difference between gauges, and other properties. We can see that NG17 gauge did not quite make it to the stress/strain ceiling of 50 pounds. That is why there is only a single line while the other two (2) go through the cycle before the knot fails.
This is a tough test for natural gut due to the coefficient of friction (COF) being pretty high meaning the overlapping strings are like sawing at each other as the knot is being pulled tight. The knot strengths in the 60 pound range are suitable and will not, typically, be a problem. Be very careful with values less than that, however.
Natural Gut Knot Strength
And, while we are talking about knots, we need to consider the best practices for tying off other strings on natural gut. The best practice is don’t! Find a grommet that can be suitable for tying off another material type on itself…not the natural gut. Obviously if the entire string bed is natural gut it is a good idea to find a suitable tie off on a cross string.
There are other considerations when typing off on natural gut and we will have look at these in a future post.
The power potential of the NG Strings has beed added to the String Power Potential page and can be seen here.
Just type in NG Strings in the search field if you don’t feel like scrolling!
Another 1000 Word Picture!
What happens to a string if it gets scuffed or slightly damaged in terms of properties?
We know the string will not go in the clients’ racquet, but how bad is it, really?
The chart below shows exactly what happens to each string until both fail. We can see precisely how the scuffing affects the string. Both strings behave nearly the same through the three (3) cycles to 50 pounds. We then see that the scuffed string gives up a little earlier than the clean string by about 15%.
So, what’s the Difference?
However, the failure force for both of these strings is very high! Only a handful of strings we have tested exhibit this tensile strength.
So we know this string would never be used in a client racquet, but you could certainly use it for some “experimentation!” And, of course, depending on how many and where the “rough” spots are you can cut that portion away!
Racquet Quest, LLC
