Tennis Racket Stringing Patterns - Vision Research - #1

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when it’s too fast to see, and too important not to.® CASE STUDY 1 “In a controlled environment, the rackets were each subjected to a projected tennis ball, launched at the same speed from a tennis ball projectile device. Levels of oscillation (vibration) were determined through the use of a piezoelectric disk setup. A piezoelectric disk was placed upon the handle of each individual racket, and attached to an oscilloscope. Each racket was hung upon an identical apparatus as a freely moving pendulum, and tennis balls were projected upon their strings at various locations from the handle. During each test, the piezoelectric disk on each racket handle gave off a specific level of voltage to the attached oscilloscope, which then recorded the oscillations given off by each racket.” – Micah Joselow, Student at Ossining High School Levels of oscillation Vision Research high-speed Phantom cameras used to identify performance advantages of tennis racket stringing patterns. Tennis is a game of speed, agility and precision. The sport requires a significant amount of concentration and hand-eye coordination, especially when your opponent serves a felt tennis ball in your direction at speeds upwards of 120 miles-per-hour! It’s also a sport known for its subsequent injuries, especially lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow), which affects 40 percent to 50 percent of tennis players. That being said, those who take to the court are always in search of ways to reduce stress and potential injury, as long as the solution doesn’t sacrifice performance. Reassessment and modifications to tennis equipment, namely the racket, have been the focus of many manufacturers and professionals over the years, with a significant amount of attention falling on the stringing pattern, where the impact with the tennis ball actually takes place. Besides the obvious advantages yielded by high-performance, lightweight composite materials such as graphite - used in the construction of the racket frame - and the benefits of natural gut and synthetic gut (nylon) for stringing, many tennis players feel that employing a diagonal stringing pattern can effectively reduce vibration, a leading cause of tennis elbow. Diagonal stringing, a method consisting of opposite pairs of equal Phantom camera is used to characterize performance of PowerAngle® diagonaly - stru ng tennis rackets Tennis Racket Stringing Patterns