The Evolution of Tennis Rackets

Have you ever played Tennis?

If you have what kind of racket did you use?

If you are under the age of 30, you are probably used to a graphite racket or a semi-graphite racket.

However, imagine playing with a wooden racket that looked like this:

The size of the racket’s head was tiny, and the racket didn’t absorb vibrations as well as today. What about playing with a pure metal racket, that looked like this?

The metal racket was so heavy that most tennis players today who play with graphite rackets would not be able to swing it without getting hurt.

The Evolution of Tennis Rackets

Tennis rackets or “Lawn Tennis rackets” as it’s officially called is derived from the sport real or “Royal Tennis which was mainly played centuries ago and has evolved over centuries of technological advancements (Mann, 2023).

The First

In 1874 the one of the first ever known Lawn Tennis rackets were made, the racket was made out of solid wood and wrapped around with a leather grip (Mann, 2023).

Wooden Rackets (Frames)

Originally, these were constructed from one or more ash sticks that had been joined and formed using "animal glues." Mechanisation in the 1940s made it possible to employ  thinner "veneers," bonded using urea-formaldehyde adhesives, resulting in a multitude of layers that could be easier to bend into shape, allowing the inherent diversity in wood to be "averaged out."

In addition to ash, various wood species have also been used, such as hickory for resistance in the outer layer, and additionally maple, sycamore, and hornbeam for the main frame member's desired strength and stiffness. Beech and mahogany were used for the handle and throat details, while beche was used for a lightweight filler in the shaft.

After years of development, the industry's shape, size, and resulting weight (a compromise to provide adequate durability) became largely standardised. The controlling body, the ITF, did not specify limiting parameters until 1979 when the introduction of new materials made this necessary. Up until the early 1980s, wooden tennis rackets were produced in large quantities before metal and then.

Metal Frames

Before metal frames, wooden frames were the most popular due to the inconvenience of stringing metal rackets. 

When Lacoste developed and patented a method in 1953 that involved making the racket strings pass over metal wires connected to the frame, the challenge of stringing metal rackets was finally solved. As a result, the first non-wood racket to be commercially successful was created. Jimmy Connors played the Wilson T2000 for many years, most notably when he won the Wimbledon Singles championship in 1974 and 1981.

Due to the economic success of this racket in the early 1970s, competitors created various models, some of which were based on carbon steel for extremely strong frames and hollow aluminum alloy extrusions. Unlike the single-shafted timber frame, the racket frames were always found to have dual shafts thanks to the usage of metal tubing. This meant that, to finish the head loop, a "bridge" component had to be welded in between the shafts; however, in certain instances, a plastic molding fastened with screws was used for simplicity.

In order to protect the strings from sharp hole edges, plastic "grommets" were created. These innovations combined to create popular rackets that started to displace wooden rackets in the market. Over time, aluminum rackets have been more popular than steel ones due to their easier manufacturing process, which has increased their competitiveness in the market.

A producer named Prince created and patented a racket with a larger-than-normal or "oversize" head in the mid-1970s due to the greater rigidity and strength that metals gave. Other manufacturers then began producing rackets with a range of head sizes. The ITF did not set a cap on head size at that time, but one was later put in place in 1979. Although this made it possible to expand the stringing area by up to 100% when compared to the typical wooden racket of the time, rackets with head sizes no more than 30% to 50% larger have since become more popular. (ITF, 2019).

Graphite Racket Frames

The early 1970s saw the acknowledged success of metal rackets, which prompted the development of other unconventional materials, including glass fiber and the recently created carbon fiber (often known to as "graphite" in the sports business). Despite being exceedingly costly, carbon fiber(Graphite) was chosen because it presented considerable opportunities for future racket frame improvement because to its higher specific stiffness and strength—indeed, it was many times stronger than steel.

Due to their unidirectional strength characteristics, fibrous materials must be employed in a way that makes the most of them. Alternatively, tows of fibers can be woven into a fabric and then impregnated with a thermo-setting "epoxy" resin, or tows can be coated with such a resin and aligned to produce a "warp sheet," this is where the resin keeps the tows together in the form of a sheet. Several sheets of the impregnated warp sheet (now termed a ‘composite material’) are then placed along side one another with their tow alignments slanted to provide subsequent multi-directional strength qualities.

Lamined sheet material is formed into a tubular shape by rolling it around a plastic tube, which willbe compressed with air later on. This process is used to create composite racket frames, which are lighter and more flexible than metal rackets using uniform drawn or extruded metal tubing. The process involves a lot of hand labor, resulting in strengthened individual frame sections befire the process of molding. (ITF, 2019).

Several variants have been developed, including carbon fiber tubular braids combined into a concentric assembly, hollow tube formation, and thermoplastic matrix-based approaches. The thermoplastic matrix-based approach involves mixing "chopped" carbon fibers with a nylon matrix, hardening the compound in a mold shaped like a tennis racket, and forming a hollow molding. 

Dunlop successfully employed this system to win the Wimbledon Championships between 1980-1990.

The introduction of carbon composites has allowed for larger head sizes, stiffer, and lighter rackets. Bigger heads enable better control over off-center ball contact and create bigger "sweet-spots," contact areas where you can reach the highest possible velocities. Enhanced rigidity diminishes the energy that the frame absorbs upon ball impact, increasingthe applied ball velocity. Modern composite rackets offer a clear edge over their wooden predecessors when combined with a larger head and increased stiffness.

Rackets with various special features have been developed to offer a range of playing characteristics, such as increased shaft cross-section, weight, stiffness, balance, and shock and vibration-absorbing elements. There are many proposals on various racket aspects in patent literature.  (ITF, 2019).

Changing of how rackets were made was also hugely due to the fact that the way the game was played was also changing drastically, transforming from a more serve and volley game which didn’t require as much spin, was less demanding on the body and was much flatter compared to the type of game now.Which is much more demanding on the body, and requires much more spin. As you can see in the image below the type of game that was played has changed drastically in the 1970’s the grass at the end of Wimbledon was worn out towards the net, but as the game progressed and changed the wear and tear of the courts now is behind the baseline.

What Does This Mean? 

In conclusion, I believe that the reason that Tennis Rackets evolved so rapidly is because of the change that the game Tennis had in the late 1960’s. The change that I am taking about is of course related to the Open era, before the open era which started in 1968 Profecional Tennis players were not allowed to play at big tournaments such as the Grand Slam as the Tennis world believed that it was wrong to make money of tennis, because of this rule if you wanted to play at the most prestigious tournaments you had to not turn pro and stay amatuar(This meant you couldn’t make a living of Tennis). I believe that this led to the evolution of tennis Rackets because as Pro’s were allowed to play all tournaments after 1968, more and more good Tennis players became professional that was their lifes and their livelihood. Because of this change and because players were depending on Tennis for their income their sponsors were basically forced to start developing better rackets so that their players could perform well and so that people would still buy their rackets. 

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