Strings are an important part of the equipment, but far less important than one might think or at least less important than the racket and its parameters. What is more important than what string we use is that we change it frequently enough, especially with polyester monofilaments. These strings are unsuitable for play, way before they break (under normal circumstances). Strings lose tension quickly, but more importantly, their structure changes and that is is especially the case for polyester strings. The moment we apply tension on the string, something called molecule drift starts happening. This process speeds up with stressors (hitting the ball) and the strings lose their mechanical properties. We start losing power, control, feel, spin…The strings go dead. Dead strings are also a common reason for wrist, elbow and shoulder pain. If you are experiencing this, the easiest thing to do is to string more often and try softening the stringbed.

The main difference between different string types is the stiffness or their elasticity. Elastic string equals more power, and a stiff string equals more control. Elasticity is where the strings differ the most. Natural gut is the most elastic and polyester or kevlar the stiffest and multifilament somewhere in between. Thinner gauge strings will also be more elastic, because they will stretch more under the same applied force.

Shaped and twisted strings seem to be the hot topic recently. Players have different opinions on what offers more spin and here is why. Players with light rackets or low swing speeds generally like shaped strings more, and players with fast swings or heavy rackets like non-shaped strings more. I think I don’t need to point out in which category the professional players land and why they use smooth polyester strings (full bed or hybrid). Oh, by the way, I consider RPM blast and other look-alikes as smooth poly strings.  It all has to do with the ball compression on the stringbed. The more the ball compresses, the less the string to ball friction matters, and that’s what shaped strings aim to increase. When the ball compresses on the stringbed it doesn’t move relative to strings during the contact. In this scenario, the string to string friction is way more important. We need the low string to string friction coefficient, to enables the strings to move and then snap back when the ball leaves the stringbed. Strings snapping back is what really creates spin. Another reason why professional players don’t use shaped or twisted strings is consistency. With heavy-hitting, these strings notch and lose the shape quickly and their characteristics change more with time. There is also a problem with inconsistencies of how much the string grabs the ball on touch shots etc. when there is little ball compression.

I mentioned that for spin production, what we really want, is a low string to string friction coefficient. Polyester strings have that because they are generally stiffer. A popular way to lower the coefficient, even more, is to string hybrid strings – poly/multi, poly/gut and so on. A softer and stiffer string will have an even lower coefficient of friction.

Let’s say we are set on which string we want to use. There are only 2 parameters left to consider and that is string tension and string gauge. Let’s take a look at how tension and gauge affect our game.