Are you serious about your tennis?
Are you a serious player?
Are you a coach of a serious player?
How in tune are you with your equipment/your players equipment?
Most brands allow a + or - weight difference on each frame they make, eg. a 300 gram racket is acceptable at 295 gram or 305 gram by the Babolats Quality Control department, Wilson allow + or - 7 grams.
Now imagine, as a serious player, you have 2 (or more rackets) and one is 295 grams and the other is 305 grams. That's 10 grams difference, that's huge. So when you break a string and go to your bag and pick up your second 'exactly the same' racket and find your game is a bit off, you now know why!
(Go ahead weigh your rackets now and see how you get on)
You might think that difference is easily fixed, throw 10 grams of lead tape on the frame somewhere and problem solved.
I'm afraid not!
The most important measurement to match on your rackets is 'Swingweight'. Different to the weight of the racket, swingweight is how heavy the racket actually feels in your hand, when you are playing.
To match swingweight you need an important piece of equipment. There are a lot of good machines on the market but two of the better kown and trusted models are Babolat RDC and Prince PTC. I use the Prince version.
This machine measures, Swingweight, Weight and Balance. By measuring this information I now know where and how much of the 10 grams is to be placed. More often than not the weight will have to be placed in a few different areas to exactly match your other racket.
It is worth noting you cannot match the lighter racket, always the heavier one.
If you would like more information on matching weights or you would like to have your rackets matched, please feel free to contact me.
