The importance of a tennis string is often - mistakenly - underestimated. Tennis players often spend a lot of time and money looking for the perfect new tennis racket, provided with the latest technologies, after which they string it with a random (and often cheap) tennis string. It is often said that you play better with a good tennis string on a bad tennis racket, than with a bad tennis string on a good tennis racket.
The importance of a tennis string is maybe best demonstrated by the fact that a tennis string is the only material which comes in direct contact with the tennis ball! The eventual playing characteristics of a tennis racket are primarily defined by the tennis string and the stringing!
You can classify tennis strings in 5 main categories:
1. Natural gut tennis strings
2. Nylon tennis strings
3. Polyester tennis strings
4. Kevlar tennis strings
5. Hybrid tennis strings
The graphic below illustrates what the five aforementioned kinds of string stand for: natural gut strings provide the best ball feeling, but have a short lifespan. Kevlar strings are the exact opposite: they have a long lifespan, but an inferior ball feeling. Nylon, polyester and hybride strings are situated between natural gut strings and kevlar concerning ball feeling and lifespan.
What is the ideal tennis string?
Of course this differs from player to player. When choosing a tennis string, you have to take into account the following qualities:
- high lifespan
- low price
- a lot of playability (a term which comprises the terms control, feeling and power)
Sadly, not all the qualities above can be present in one and the same tennis string. The higher the lifespan of a tennis string, the thicker, but the less power, control and feeling you will have.
You can save money by buying strings on a roll instead of per set.
When we place the 'ideal qualities' of the five kinds of tennis strings mentioned above in a table and quote them on a scale from 1 to 10 (= low to high), you will come to the following (very general) conclusions:
| kind of string |
playability |
lifespan |
cost |
| natural gut |
10 |
1-2 |
10 |
| nylon |
5-9 |
3-7 |
2-9 |
| polyester |
3-4 |
6-8 |
4-8 |
| kevlar |
1 |
10 |
3-4 |
| hybride |
6-9 |
5-8 |
6-9 |