Yuki Mochizuki returns a ball during a rally against Cannon Kingsley during the quarterfinal match during the 2023 Illini Open in Champaign. Professional tennis players players start every match with a fresh strings in one or more of their racquets. Restringing a tennis racquet routinely is important for hitting powerful shots with pace and placement during a match.
Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks
SNS - The score is 5-4, and your opponent is up 30-15 in the second set. You need to break their serve to tie up the match, hopefully forcing a third set, where you will come back to win. After losing the first set 6-4, you fall in frustration thanks to unforced errors in the last two rallies to an opponent you normally beat easily.
Despite good footwork and technique, nearly every ball after the third game in the first set traveled the length of the court past the baseline.
One of the most overlooked aspects of tennis is the strings. Keeping your tennis racket equipped with fresh strings is essential for maintaining optimal power and control during gameplay. Like regular oil changes, restringing your tennis racquet often or at regular intervals helps players compete at a higher level confidently while avoiding injuries to their wrists, elbows, or shoulders.
After repeated impacts, the tension and elasticity of the strings in a tennis racket gradually decrease. When the strings lose their tension to the point that a ball bounces off the racket unexpectedly, players and racket stringers refer to the strings as "dead." Dead strings lack elasticity, making it more challenging to generate powerful shots and precise ball placement. This is a regular occurrence with polyester strings, also known as "poly".
If you are playing competitive tennis matches for a high school or college pprogram, or in a competitive recreational league, you will want to restring your racquets often to help you play at your best. A fresh string bed puts consistency, power, and control in the hands of a competitive player, allowing them to make shots with confidence over and over during a match effortlessly.
Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks
Bad strings can increase your chances of suffering a repetitive injury to your wrist or elbow. Getting a bad case of tennis elbow can keep you off the courts for weeks. When strings lose a significant amount of tension, most either swing harder, which can strain muscles and joints, or change their swing mechanics.
Restringing also lets you customize your racquet's performance to match your style of play, environment (temperature and humidity), and court conditions (grass, hardcourt, or clay) as well as personal preferences. You can pick different types of strings (material, gauge, tension) that offer specific benefits like durability, spin, or comfort.
A knowledgeable stringer or racquet technician can give you specific recommendations for customizing your string bed for optimal performance. Part science, part alchemy, adjusting the string's tensions, using different types of strings, or combining two different string types, it is relatively easy to find a player's Goldilock setup.
So, how often should you restring your racquets?
Professional and even club players often bring two to seven identical racquets to switch to during a match. Notably, Roger Federer and a few other top professionals switch to racquets to a fresh string job every ball change or seven to nine games. This removes the variable of string degradation to ensure they hit a quality ball on every swing to carryout their game plan.
Your playing style also contributes to how often you need to restring. Players who hit with a lot of topspin or pace put more wear and tear on their strings and may need to restring more often than players who mostly bunt, slice, or chip the ball. The most obvious answer is when you break a string.
What if you are not a frequent string breaker like professional and collegiate players? Generally speaking, there are a couple of other factors players should look at when determining if they need to restring.
Today, there is a wide variety of strings available in the market from major retailers and smaller boutique competitors. What works for a professional player or a teammate may not necessarily work for you. A racquet technician can assist you in finding the right string setup that aligns with your game or style of play while also considering performance and price.
Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks
Another obvious indicator is when you start to feel joint pain in the wrist or elbow. Playing with dead strings is detrimental to both performance and your physical health. Usually, you can tell the string bed is dying when you start overhitting consistently or missing targets on the court by a large margin.
If you are playing tennis for a high school sport or in a competitive league like the USTA, at the very least, you should aim to restring every three to six weeks, depending on your style of play and the number of times a week you play. Some players set their restringing intervals based on the number of hours they use a string job.
Someone who only plays twice a week on average for fun or exercise will want to restring every six months. If they are a ball-basher, it would be beneficial to restring every four or five months.
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