Racquet specs determine performance: weight, balance point, string pattern, and stiffness. Find side-by-side comparisons and tested measurements to match your game.
Somewhere between the first racquet a shop hands a beginner and the frame an advanced player commits to for years, there is a purchase that goes wrong more often than any other: the second racquet.
You have two racquets in front of you. On paper they are nearly twins: both 98 square inches, both around 11 ounces strung, both 16x19 patterns, both listed with a mid-60s stiffness figure.
There is a habit common to anyone who has shopped for a frame online: you open the spec sheet, scan the stiffness number and the string pattern, and decide — before you have touched the racquet…
The advice you will hear in every pro shop and on every forum thread goes roughly like this: heavier racquets give you power and stability, lighter racquets give you maneuverability, and you should…
The static weight printed on a racquet's throat — 300 grams, 305, 11.2 ounces — is the least useful number for predicting how the thing will feel in your hand.
Here is a claim we will spend the rest of this piece earning: for most baseline players, the racquet spec that decides whether you like a frame is one almost nobody quotes on a product page.