How to determine sweet spot on your racquet?

The sweet spot is the area of the racquet stringbed which permits the optimum transfer of energy from the stroke of your arm, to the shuttlecock via the stringbed.

In general, the sweetspot is usually on the upper half of a ISO frame vs in the center for a BOX frame (aka Yonex Carbonex series).

Here's how you can determine the sweetspot for your racquet.

Basically listen for a change in the sound pitch. If you hit the stringbed against the base of your palm, at the location of the sweetspot, the pitch will increase and produce a nice lively tone vs the dull sound, if otherwise.

Please came back on November to discuss how to determine if you are hitting the shuttlecock in the sweetspot aka  maxising the transfer of energy from your stroke to the shuttlecock.

Unfortunately those affordable "stuck-on" monitoring tools from China or Hong Kong can not inform if you are hitting on the sweetspot - bought one to try after reading the marketing material ... provides other useful statistics though. Will provide that review in the near future

Possible non strip grommet replacement for ZF2

Discovered a bad grommet on a clients ZF2.

If the bad grommet were not at the end of the strip, you would need to replace the entire strip. And unfortunately (for you), Yonex only sells them as an ENTIRE set for the ZF2 (as well as several other models)!!!

Luckily in this case, I could just remove the bad grommet on the last position of the strip; replace with a normal grommet. In the pix, the offending strip is nearest to my finger on the frame of the racquet.

Upper strip with last grommet removed from the end of strip and replaced with normal grommet

Please take note of the string alignment towards the top of the picture - you can then avoid string overlapping the cutoff strip, if the vertical tie-off is on the other side of the frame.

Reasons for using high tension on racquet

Always wonder why players want to use higher and higher tension on their racquet.

Guess there is 2-sides of the coin.

Players would revert.
- hit further
- better control
- sounds nice when hit shuttle
- thin strings produce nice high pitch sound
- feel more "professional" as they would be using tensions closer to the world ranking players ??

IF I own a sports shop, I would say the following instead, as it would provide  more regular revenue opportunities
- higher tension strings break faster
- racquets would be easily damaged at higher tensions, especially when they clash
- racquets tend to turn soft after several restrings at higher tensions
- thinner strings at higher tension tend to snap faster

Does anyone ever ask if you experience any elbow pain, recent pain on the upper arm or pain in the neck area after you started using a higher tension? Never heard anyone in the shop asking such questions ... I do when the client wants to use a higher tension.

All you hear in the shops are  ... wow you still using such low tension???

You as the client need to ask yourself ... do they have your interest at heart, or, are you just an atm for them?

Same string diff thickness

Was quite surprised when I performed a comparison of the Yonex BG66 Ultimax string actual physical thickness.

The red string appear to be thinner than the yellow. Also find the red string composition to be more solid when compared to the yellow.

Bought from the same wholesaler in UK as the Yonex agent for South East Asia, Sunrise apparently does not sell strings in reel form when I made the inquiry.

Could this be evidence of an OEM activity eg Yonex contracts a 3rd party to manufacture for them, since Yonex does not confirm nor deny if they have factories which produces strings?

Gosen and Ashaway proudly confirms their manufacturing facilities.

Carlton 3.7X - 1st generation non-wooden racquet

Recently acquire the Carlton 3.7X for a collector.

Was curious how heavy it would be - answer in the pix below (in grams).

The 3.7X is quite collectable as it has a midway tapered shaft. The 3.7X also differ from the 3.7 as it was an all stainless steel frame vs the 3.7 frame which does corrode and easily cracked.

I lost my own then newish 3.7X at Narita airport in the late 1980's during a stopover flight from Singapore to LA. Was pretty disappointed as the authorities was never able to locate the missing racquet.

Racquet with designed Non-traditional stringing pattern

Unique stringing pattern for a Hart Infinite OV-3000, the grommet layout facilitates a top-down approach.

Overall view before last row tensioned

Top portion of frame

Bottom portion of frame

Using phone app to monitor string tension (Part-2/2)

Based upon testing using CARLTUNE (IPhone and android), the app will display a frequency of approximately (+/-10Hz) 1144Hz if you hit the sweet-spot on your racquet against the base of your palm, for tension of 22lbs. Basically is the average after several such hits.

Approximate CarlTune reading for 22lbs tension

Verifying tension on the newly strung Yonex Aerosonic

Please perform the action as close as possible to the phone mic for best results. I did discovered the phone can be further away if you are in a enclosed and closed room. In this scenario I try to keep a shuttle in the air gently via tapping, with the app monitoring the Hz of the hits.

Tested the procedure with racquets strung with Yonex Aerosonic (0.61mm), Yonex BG66 Ultimax (0.65mm), Gosen Pro66 (0.66mm) and Ashaway Zymax62 (0.62mm) which seem to provide similar results.

In addition, I had reverified the tension using the Tension-O-Meter since I just restrung one of my racquets with Yonex Aerosonic @ 22lbs - app shows 1144.xx Hz. Sometimes the result would be within a few Hz of the above. Irregardless, the percentage of error would be small and hence negligible for the purpose of (free) monitor facility.

Thus we can use the following simple formula to determine tension via the frequency readout on the app.

1144 Hz = 22lbs

1 Hz       = 22 / 1144

               = 0.01924

Thus a x Hz  readout would mean tension of approximately = 0.01924 * frequency shown on app (tension in lbs)

True this methodology is not 100% accurate as it is meant to provide a means for monitoring, not provide absolutely accurate readings. There are such commercial app and/or tools but they won't be free!