When Tim Henman gave a post-match interview following his first round victory at Wimbledon 2003, the interviewer asked him about a recent shoulder injury. Tim’s response focused on a change of strings. He said: “I strung my racquet tight with gut at Queen’s, and that put stress on my shoulder … I’ve now gone back to a mixture of synthetic in the mains and gut in the crosses … it gives you the chance to string the racquet a lot looser and gives you a bigger sweet spot.” Have you any idea what Tim was on about?
Have you ever wondered what tennis racquet strings are made from? Which ones are best, and why?
You might like to …
• carry out some research to find out what tennis racquet strings are made from; find out how the materials used have changed over the years
• find out how to measure the tension of racquet strings; investigate the effect of changing the tension of tennis racquet strings by designing and carrying out some experiments
• conduct some tests to work out how strong racquet strings are; test other materials, and decide why the current materials are used
• find out if there are any differences between the strings on different sorts of racquets (for example, badminton or squash racquets), and why.