Strings Explained
Matt Fellingham is dedicated to offering the best possible service to his customers. He has over 6 years experience in stringing all types of racquets including squash and badminton.
Selecting the Right String
Introduction
The performance of you racquet depends on two critical decisions. Which string you choose and the stringing tension.
The Down Side
The wrong decisions can make a new £50 - £200 racquet function far below it’s potential. Bad set-up is capable of canceling out the benefit of good equipment.
Even good racquets perform terribly with dead string or when someone cuts corners on stringing. Dead strings and/or bad stringing hurts your consistency. Shot response can be unreliable. Bad stringing or old string can hurt your arm by making it work harder to produce power and spin.
The Up Side
String selection and tension tailored to your equipment and individual needs will improve the overall performance of any racquet – old or new. String and tension decisions can address your personal preferences for power, control, or vibration damping.
The Perfect Racquet is Not Enough
Make sure you choose the right string and string tension to complement your racquet choice and playing preferences. Good equipment with the proper set-up makes tennis easier to play. Regardless of your skill level, you’ll have more fun and success on the court.
There are over a dozen string manufacturers making over 500 different types of string. The vast array of choices is understandably confusing for the average tennis consumer.
If you have questions, I am just a phone call or email away.
Synthetic String with Solid Core / Single Wrap
This type of string construction is common in many well-known products, including basic nylon and standard synthetic gut strings.
A solid center core provides durability and helps maintain tension. The gauge or the thickness of the string is based on the combination of the core and the outer wrappings.
In it’s most basic form, strings of this construction offer a practical combination of playability and durability at a very low cost. The low cost makes it especially popular with amateur players who go through strings quickly.
Some fancier performance-oriented products like Gamma TNT also use a solid core/single wrap construction.
In general, engineers can vary the core thickness and outer wrappings of the basic design to target a price point or desired playing characteristics.
Advantages
Allows engineers to design in wide range of playability, power, or control; based on materials and process.
Low cost - especially practical for players who go through lots of string.
Strings Like This Available
Head Synthetic Gut
Prince Synthetic Gut
Prince Synthetic Gut w/ Duraflex
Tecnifibre Synthetic Gut
Synthetic String with Multifilament Construction
Synthetic multifilament string is not the cheapest string you can buy, but it is the best value. This type of string offers the most performance and benefit for the money.
Synthetic multifilament string is a performance-oriented product. This type of string attempts to reproduce the optimal playing characteristics found in natural gut string at a lesser cost.
String manufacturers began making multifilament synthetics in an effort to copy the multifilament construction of natural gut. Typically, natural gut string is made up of 1,000 twisting fibers or more! Today’s modern multifilament synthetics have a similarly coreless construction with 1,000 – 1,800 twisted fibers!
A multifilament string is a much more elastic than other types of string. Elastic string is powerful string that plays with a soft feel.
Multifilament construction is also a natural vibration killer. The tiny 1,000+ individual fibers of varying thickness in a multifilament string work as a shock absorber, dissipating vibration before it can aggravate your arm or wrist.
For this reason, a multifilament string is a smart choice for anyone nursing an arm problem and for frequent players who are at a higher risk of injury.
In general, multifilament strings do not hold tension as well as other types of strings. The way they play will change more dramatically as they age and/or wear. Even so, the difference isn’t as great as it was in the first multifilament designs. New materials, resin and bonding techniques have improved how well multifilament strings hold their tension.
As a group, multifilament strings are also the most expensive type of string you can buy. Sometimes, it’s not what you pay. It’s what you get for your money. Wilson, Gamma, and Tecnifibre high performance multifilament synthetics are the overall best value in string today.
Advantages
Excellent performance in terms of power, feel, and vibration damping.
Easy on the arm and wrist. Ideal for frequent players or others looking to minimize arm and wrist fatigue.
Best available performance/price ratio.
Strings Like This Available
Tecnifibre NRG2
Tecnifibre TrC
Head Comfort Zone
Head R.I.P. Control
Wilson NXT
Wilson NXT Tour
Synthetic String with Textured Surfaces
Textured string offers increased spin capability to those players who must use a thicker gauge string for durability.
Another way of increasing spin capability is to use a thinner gauge string. Try that first. Thinner gauge string will also increase spin capability while improving feel and being more arm-friendly.
For players who must use thicker string to avoid string breakage, textured string is a way to recapture some of the spin capability found in thinner gauge string.
Typically, this type of string has an extra outer wrap with a rough surface. This gets extra bite on the ball to create more spin. Most strings of this type have a single core/single wrap construction.
Advantages
Offers the spin capability of thinner gauge string with more durability.
Strings Like This Available
Prince Topspin with Duraflex
Synthetic Aramid Hybrid String Sets
The number one priority of Aramid Hybrid strings is absolute durability. Players buying this string are either chronic string-breakers or those who prefer string with a completely dead feel.
Hybrid strings are a combination of two types of strings. The strings most prone to breakage are the mains. In this type of set-up, the mains are usually made of Aramid derivative. Kevlar is the most popular one. The choice of cross strings varies. It can be anything from nylon to synthetic gut.
The idea is that a more playable cross string will blend favorably with the much less playable Kevlar. Advertising claims offer a superior combination of durability and playability. Not exactly.
There is no other string that works well enough with Kevlar to compensate enough for its poor playability.
Unless you need the ultimate in durability because you are breaking strings very frequently, choose another type of string. This type of string offers the least feel, least power, usually the least spin capability, and least amount of vibration damping. In terms of performance, it is the worst type of string you can buy.
Advantages
Durability.
Dead feel maximizes control by minimizing any kind of trampoline effect.
Strings Like This Available
Luxilon Big Banger 16 Original
Luxilon ALU 16
Synthetic Polyester and Polyester Hybrid String Sets
In 2000 – 2001, polyester became the hot new thing in strings. It started to get attention because of its rapid adoption rate on the pro tour. On the ATP tour, which is home to the biggest hitters in the game, about a third of the men in the 2001 top 100 used polyester string.
It’s less popular on the women’s tour. Fewer women pros need to make huge sacrifices in playability to have durability of polyester.
Polyester offers durability with fewer evils than the alternative. It is something else that chronic string breakers might be able to use instead of a Aramid-Kevlar hybrid string.
Compared to Kevlar, polyester is nearly as durable, with more power capability and a less harsh feel. Less harsh is still not good.
Polyester and polyester hybrids also have a very dead feel, lack spin capability and they are not arm-friendly. Like Kevlar, it is usually installed as the mains in a hybrid set-up.
Polyester string is simple in its construction. There is a large single filament polyester core and a thin coating.
Advantages
Excellent durability rivaling Kevlar, offering more power and a less harsh feel.
Strings Like This Available
Technifibre Red Code
Natural Gut
Natural gut remains the absolute best tennis string available without regard to cost or durability.
It is simply superior to all other string types in power and feel. Arguably, a fresh set high quality multifilament synthetic approaches the performance of freshly strung set of natural gut. Generally, as the two types of string age, gut retains more of its performance for a longer time.
The best does not come cheap. Natural gut is the most expensive string you can buy. Fortunately, manufacturers like Bow Brand have made it more affordable than ever.
Natural gut is much more vulnerable to the elements than any synthetic string. Exposure to moisture and humidity will diminish its performance. Contact with water – rain, for example – will ruin a natural gut string job. Most amateur players who use natural gut have another “rain racquet” strung with synthetic string.
On the ATP and WTA tours, natural gut is the most popular string among the pros. There isn’t even a close second.
The term “gut” refers to what the string is actually made of -- animal intestines. Through the manufacturing process, these are rendered as thousands of tiny intertwined microfibers. Natural gut was the original multifilament string!
Advantages
Maximum power. Best possible feel and shot response.
Outstanding vibration damping. Best possible choice for injury prevention.
Strings Like This Available
Please ring as I need to order in.
