ABSTRACT
The official rules of tennis give the racket manufacturer tremendous latitude in the parameters allowed in the design of the racket. Because of this, there have been major changes in tennis frames during the last 20 years. Virtually everything that can be changed has been changed, including the racket weight, mass distribution, stiffness, length, head size and shape, string pattern, moments of inertia, and material. To some degree, this change in racket design was fuelled by the availability of composite materials which allow the designer to construct rackets with these new shapes, sizes and weight distributions. On the other hand, there was an awareness that the dimensions of the “standard” wood racket that had been in use for 50 years, were neither sacred or optimal. The modern tennis racket attempts to have the three “sweet spots” located close to the same place (close to the center of the head), have a predictable response (even for slight miss-hits by the player), provide good ball speed without too much effort, be easy to manoeuvre, and not be the cause of injury to the arm or hand.
