Quantcast
nodot nodot
Wild Cards
June 2006 Article

Latest Wild Cards Article

Wild Cards Archives:
2004 - Present
1998 - 2003

Tennis Server
HOME PAGE

Do You Want To Be A Better Tennis Player?

Then Sign Up For A Free Subscription to the Tennis Server INTERACTIVE
E-mail Newsletter!

Tom Veneziano You will join 13,000 other subscribers in receiving news of updates to the Tennis Server along with monthly tennis tips from tennis pro Tom Veneziano.
 
Best of all, it is free!

Tennis Features Icon TENNIS FEATURES:

TENNIS ANYONE? - USPTA Pro John Mills' quick player tip.
 
TENNIS WARRIOR - Tom Veneziano's Tennis Warrior archive.
 
TURBO TENNIS - Ron Waite turbocharges your tennis game with tennis tips, strategic considerations, training and practice regimens, and mental mindsets and exercises.
 
WILD CARDS - Each month a guest column by a new writer.
 
BETWEEN THE LINES - Ray Bowers takes an analytical and sometimes controversial look at the ATP/WTA professional tour.
 
PRO TENNIS SHOWCASE - Tennis match reports and photography from around the world.
 
TENNIS SET - Jani Macari Pallis, Ph.D. looks at tennis science, engineering and technology.
 
MORTAL TENNIS - Greg Moran's tennis archive on how regular humans can play better tennis.
 
HARDSCRABBLE SCRAMBLE - USPTA pro Mike Whittington's player tip archive.
 
TENNIS EQUIPMENT TIPS.

Tennis Community Icon TENNIS COMMUNITY:


Tennis Book, DVD, and Video Index
 
Tennis Server Match Reports
 
Editor's Letter
 
Become a Tennis Server Sponsor

Explore The Tennis Net Icon EXPLORE THE TENNIS NET:

Tennis News and Live Tennis Scores
 
Tennis Links on the Web
 
nodot
Wild Cards
 
Green Dot
 
Tennis Warehouse Logo
 
Green Dot

 
nodot
Grip Tightness
by Dr. Howard Brody
Physics Department
University of Pennsylvania

It is thought by most tennis scientists and engineers that grip tightness has almost no effect on the power you get from a racket. This conclusion is based on both theoretical analysis and from data obtained in laboratory testing. Having stated a conclusion, I must now justify that position.

Theory

When a ball strikes the strings of a racket, a wave propagates down the frame toward the handle. When the wave reaches the butt end of the free racket or the hand holding the racket or a clamp holding the handle in place, part of that wave is reflected back toward the ball. The type of reflection depends on how the handle is held (free, clamped, hand-held). It is not until that reflected wave gets back to the ball that the ball can tell how the butt end of the racket is held. If the ball has left the strings before the reflected wave gets back to it, the ball CANNOT know whether the racket was free or clamped or hand-held.

For typical ball dwell times on the strings (5 milliseconds), the reflected wave does not return in time to influence the ball. Therefore, the ball will come off the strings in the same way for a clamped handle, free handle or hand-held handle.

Experiments and Observations

When a free racket is struck near the tip or the throat, it vibrates at 125 to 200 times per second (125 to 200 Hz- the stiffer the fame, the higher the frequency). When a racket with its handle clamped is struck in a similar manner, it vibrates at 25 to 50 Hz. When a hand-held racket is struck near the tip or throat it vibrates at almost the same frequency as the free racket, even when held as tightly as possible. This is strong evidence that a hand-held frame behaves in the same manner as a free racket. This result is probably due to the fact that the human palm, hand, etc are very soft and flexible compared to the stiff, graphite reinforced composite rackets in use today.

When rackets are tested in the lab for their rebound power, the freely suspended racket responds almost in the same way as the clamped racket, leading us to believe that a hand-held racket will behave in the same manner as a free racket will. For some rackets there is a slight difference in racket response (free vs clamped) when the ball impacts close to the throat where the round-trip of the propagating then reflected wave might arrive just as the ball is departing.

It is sometimes stated that a tight grip is necessary to keep the racket from twisting relative to you hand on off-axis impacts. This is not true. Just watch a 5 year-old play tennis. The kid has a very weak grip, hits the ball all over the racket head, and yet you do not see the racket twisting relative to the youngster’s hand. The racket does twist on an off-axis impact, but the hand twists along with it.

As a final test of the independence of racket power vs grip tightness, I took an old wood racket and installed a completely flexible hinge in the shaft. There was no way that the ball/racket head could know about the grip tightness since they were connected to the handle via the flexible hinge. I was able to play tennis with this (illegal by ITF rules) racket and get a great deal of power on groundstrokes and serves. I could not volley with it. I gave this racket to many players and they had little trouble playing tennis with it. (Some of this is documented in the Braden-Brody video "The Science and Myths of Tennis.")

Conclusion One needs to hold the racket only tight enough to be able to control it during the swing and to keep it from being knocked out of your hand.

Also by Dr. Brody:

The Physics and Technology of Tennis by Howard Brody, Rod Cross, and Crawford Lindsey.


If you wish to provide a comment to the author of this Wild Cards column, please use this form. Tennis Server will forward the comment to the author.

Green DotGreen DotGreen Dot

Wild Cards Archives:
1998 - 2003 | 2004 - Present


If you have not already signed up to receive our free e-mail newsletter Tennis Server INTERACTIVE, you can sign up here. You will receive notification each month of changes at the Tennis Server and news of new columns posted on our site.

This column is copyrighted by the author, all rights reserved.


 

nodot
nodot
Google
Web tennisserver.com
nodot nodot
The Tennis Server
Ticket Exchange

Your Source for tickets to professional tennis & golf events.
 
Terra Wortmann Open - Halle, Germany Tickets
 
Wimbledon Tickets
 
Infosys Hall of Fame Open Tickets
 
Atlanta Open Tickets
 
Hamburg Open Tickets
 
Mubadala Citi Open Tennis Tournament Tickets
 
National Bank Open Women's Tennis Canada Tickets
 
National Bank Open Men's Tennis Canada Tickets
 
Cincinnati Open Tickets
 
Winston-Salem Open Tickets
 
Tennis In The Land Tickets
 
UTS - Tennis Like Never Before Tickets
 
US Open Tennis Championship Tickets
 
Laver Cup Berlin Tickets
 
Erste Bank Open - Vienna, Austria Tickets
 
Dallas Open Tickets
 
BNP Paribas Open Tickets
 
Miami Open Tickets
 
Laver Cup San Francisco Tickets
 

 

Popular Tennis books:
 
Winning Ugly: Mental Warfare in Tennis-Lessons from a Master by Brad Gilbert, Steve Jamison
 
The Best Tennis of Your Life: 50 Mental Strategies for Fearless Performance by Jeff Greenwald
 
The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey
 
Most Recent Articles:
 
October 2022 Tennis Anyone: Patterns in Doubles by John Mills.
 
September 2022 Tennis Anyone: Short Court by John Mills.
 

 

 

 

"Tennis Server" is a registered trademark and "Tennis Server INTERACTIVE" is a trademark of Tennis Server. All original material and graphics on the Tennis Server are copyrighted 1994 - by Tennis Server and its sponsors and contributors. Please do not reproduce without permission.

The Tennis Server receives a commission on all items sold through links to Amazon.com.

 

Tennis Server
Cliff Kurtzman
Editor-in-chief
791 Price Street #144
Pismo Beach, CA 93449
Phone: (281) 480-6300
Online Contact Form
How to support Tennis Server as a Sponsor/Advertiser
Tennis Server Privacy Policy