RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Never mind wood vs. synthetic, how about traditonal vs. super sized. Today's racquets are the same dimensions as a backboard in basketball!

Learned to play the game with a wood racquet. Wilson and Head then came out with metal raquets and soon thereafter, the wood started disappearing. Prince made a graphite wood composite called the Woodie. Not quite the same as the original woods, but a nice nostalgic touch.

I was a state ranked player in high school...that was my thing other than music. Did not really do well in anything else. My lat racket was wood, and "head" had just broke with their first series of metal raquets. By then my Dad made me go to work, I was sixteen. All the wealthy kids I grew up with worked summer jobs for fun money. Mine paid for Tennis raquests, clothes or anything I wanted outside of what my parents deemed "neccessary". I could not afford the metal raquets. The folks were hard asses...but I thank them for it sometimes.

There are certainly tons of pros and cons to both wood and modern day graphite rackets. One plus for wood rackets is that when you broke a string, the racket was still quite playable, and thus, the point being played was still very winnable. Further, finesse was strongly emphasized in the days of wood, and therefore, strategy was always a premium ingredient in most every match. What's more, serve and volley tennis was extremely common in the days of wood, as typically there was still some time to get to net, however these days, lasar-like graphite returns mean minimal time for the server to pick off or even reach his first important net-rushing volley.

The game has lost a lot of its character. Everything is power now, and you have games at Wimbleton where the longest rally is 4 strokes. John McCenroe has proposed a special tournament in which the players are limited to wood racquets to bring back some of the old baseline games, and finesse games.

Plastics make it possible! (or was that fiberglass?)