My father in law was an engineering professor and used to do some consulting to help tennis racquet companies test out their prototype designs. From this work he collected all kinds of wacky designs that were just sitting in his garage and have now been graciously passed on to me – wanted to put them online so other racquet nerds could enjoy. I’ll update this page with more comments as I get a chance to hit with them.
For comparison’s sake, I normally play with a Wilson Blade 98 v9 18×20, and these racquets were probably last strung 40 years ago.
Pretty normal racquet aside from the HEXAGONAL STRING PATTERN. Was able to generate some insane spin with this one.
Truly bizarre head shape. This thing felt like a trampoline.
Extra long mains with some spacers to ensure the string bed crossed at right angles (no idea why). This also had a lot of power and was tough to control.
The idea behind this racquet was that as you’re brushing up the ball to generate topspin, you want more margin for error, so they adjusted the angle to match that. And it worked – after hitting for a few minutes, instead of the mains sliding down as they would in a normal racquet, the ‘crosses’ of this guy slid up toward the ‘top’. This racquet was insanely heavy though, and slicing was a tough proposition. I hit some really nasty spin serves though.
The handle of this one is curved for some reason. The head is also a lot longer and skinnier than normal.
This is definitely one of the more wild ones – it’s a little tough to see in the picture, but there’s a blue tube inside the head that has liquid in it – you can see the tube is slightly darker at the bottom of the racquet by the strings where the liquid is at, and if you look super close you can see some bubbles in the tube. The idea was that when you’re at the net the racquet is light and maneuverable but when you swing for a groundy the liquid flies to the head adding more weight to the shot. You can definitely feel the swing weight change.
Just a crazy head shape
X-shaped string pattern
Another wild head shape
A reinforced throat.
This racquet has the biggest head I’ve ever seen. I think it’s like 138 sq in.
It’s a little tough to tell from the picture, but this one actually has two different sets of strings. Maybe one for the forehand and one for the backhand?
Another truly bizarre one – this racquet is strung on the white hoop inside the head, and the hoop is held in place by an inflatable tube. The racquet comes with a pump you attach to the valve at the bottom of the head to inflate/deflate the tube, which I guess helps with absorbing vibration?
Someone clearly thought the throat was pointless.
Another one where the mains are strung all the way to the handle.
Why not
This is probably the wackiest one – the head shape is a heptagon and it’s strung with X-shaped pattern instead of the more typical Ts. Beyond that, the strings are looped around a bar in the handle and there’s a screw on the bottom allowing you to loosen or tighten the strings mid-match. The black plastic piece in the bottom of the picture is the Allen-wrench that comes with the racquet to adjust string tension.
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