Tennis pieces that don't slot neatly into strings, racquets, buying guides, or pro setups — broader explainers, industry notes, and gear we tested once. Browse here, or head back to the main sections in the nav above.
Every tennis ball Penn sells clears the same bar: dropped 100 inches onto concrete, an ITF-approved ball must rebound between 53 and 58 inches.
The problem that pushes most players toward a machine is not pride. It is a Thursday: you have a match Saturday, your main shifted dead a week ago, and the only shop within driving distance quotes a…
A smart shopper has heard this one: the Nike React Vapor NXT is the shoe that finally beats the cushioning-versus-responsiveness trade-off — React foam that feels plush underfoot yet springs back like…
The advice gets repeated until it sounds like fact: join a good tennis community newsletter and you will buy smarter, string better, and stop wasting money on gear that does not suit your game.
Watch tennis with anyone long enough and you will hear the received wisdom: the long rally is the soul of the sport, the thing that separates tennis from the highlight-reel games, the proof of fitness…
Roughly nine of every ten men on the ATP tour string with some form of polyester. That number gets quoted constantly, usually right before someone tells you to switch.
If you have a court, ten minutes, and no partner, the most useful tennis warm-up drills you can run are not stretches at all — they are short footwork patterns done at the lines you already see…
There is a version of this shoe that lives in forum threads and pro-shop chatter: the Nike Air Zoom Vapor X is a fast, flimsy speed slipper — great for a teenager who weighs nothing and replaces shoes…
The number you have seen is 163.7 mph. Sam Groth, an Australian qualifier, hit it at a Challenger event in Busan, South Korea, in May 2012.
A shoe that weighs 40 grams less per foot does not, on its own, make you faster. It changes how much energy each stride costs, how hot your foot runs in a third set, and how soon the outsole gives…
We cut the factory string out of a brand-new performance racquet — a 305g, 16x19 player's frame sold "pre-strung and ready to play" — and ran the bed through a Beers ERT 300 before we touched it.
Arthur Ashe Stadium seats 23,771 people. That is the number stamped on the US Open, repeated in broadcast graphics, and cited every time someone calls it the largest of the world's tennis stadiums.