| There are many misconceptions out there about stringing and the greatest myth of all relates to the tension or tightness of the strings. You will often hear people complaining that their strings have gone soft and they are losing power. FALSE! Contrary to popular opinion, tighter strings will NOT give you more power, they give more feel and more accuracy, but the sweet spot in the racket will get smaller making it more difficult to play with. However, modern strings have an in-built elasticity which wears out over time and a fresh re-string will give a much livelier response with the result that you may FEEL you are hitting the ball harder. As a general guide, if you are playing twice a week you should probably be getting your racket re-strung twice a year. There are literally thousands of different strings out there to choose from but they can be broken down into a few main categories as follows: |  |
| Tennis String Types | SYNTHETIC GUT:
€20 | | Nice to play with. Good balance of playability/ durability. This is the most popular type of string used by about 60-70% of players. | TOP SPIN:
€24 | | This is basically a synthetic gut with a rougher texture giving more bite on the ball resulting in more spin, either topspin or slice. | MULTIFILAMENT
(TECNIFIBRE):
€24 | | This is the nicest string to play with giving the most feel. It is the most elastic of the strings resulting in the largest sweet spot and should be the string of choice for anyone with tennis elbow problems. | POLYESTER / MONOFILAMENT
(HURRICANE):
€20 | | This is a very hard wearing string which is the least elastic of all the string types and is only really a consideration for the heaviest hitters. It's most common use is as part of a mix (below). | POLY MIX:
€20 – Poly/synthetic
€22 – Poly/tecnifibre
€22 – Poly/topspin | | This is a combination of a polyester string in the mains and something else (synthetic/topspin/ tecnifibre) in the crosses. This is designed for people who use a good deal of topspin resulting in frequent string breakages. Usually the mains (up/down) strings and who are therefore looking for something more durable without sacrificing feel. |
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