Sports special – Does a better racquet make a better player?
In the early days of modern sports, such as tennis and hockey, the equipment used was generally made from wood; it was heavy and often splintered and broke under pressure. Since the 1980s, technology in fibreglass and other materials such as plastics has
improved to the point where the equipment is not only lighter but much stronger. The question that this raises is whether all these improvements made to sports equipment have improved player’s abilities over the years?
The tennis racquet is an invention created in Italy in the 14th century. Prior to this tennis was actually played with bare hands. The first racquet was made of strings and was gut bound in a wooden frame. The rules of tennis as we know them today
were patented by Major Walter Wingfield in London 1874. Only minor changes to tennis were made over the next few hundred years. The glue used to seal the racquet was improved but very little else until the 1970s which prevented many racquet breakages but did
not have any significant impact on improving a player’s ability.
These days there are countless different types, sizes and weights of tennis racquet to enhance players’ abilities. The professionals have been shown to choose racquets that are lightweight yet strong, with a wide head and firm grip on the handle. These qualities
are clearly important and extensive research has been undertaken into producing racquets with the optimum weight balance, the correct grip and the right combination of flexible materials that have the strength to endure impact.
To answer the question of whether all of this research has helped to improve athletes’ abilities over the years we can look at a statistical example. The current world record holder for the fastest serve in the game of tennis is Andy Roddick whilst playing
against Vladimir Voltchkov in the 2004 Davis Cup. He served 155mph (249.4kmph) and managed to beat his own previous record. This record, however, is not the fastest ever serve on record. Bill Tilden in 1931, using a wooden tennis racquet, is on record as having
served 163.3mph during one of his games. He is a man renowned for bringing tennis into the mainstream but his world record has been disregarded due to lack of adequate technology to record the serve speed and disbelief at his being able to achieve this with
a wooden racquet.
Ice hockey is another sport that has moved from using wooden sticks, to aluminium then to fibreglass materials. This evolution developed due to changes in the sport itself. Hockey changed from being just a grass sport to also be played on ice. These changes
in environment could not be withstood through the use of wood due to rotting and breakages, often unreliable during a match. Aluminium was its first replacement but this resulted in a great deal of accidents and was quickly replaced with fibreglass. The shape
has remained largely the same throughout the history of the sport, with the exception of an extended head for the purpose of ice hockey as a flat puck was used instead of a ball so a larger contact area was preferable. The practicalities of the change in the
sport itself show clear reasoning for changing and developing the material of the stick.
The same is not true for tennis. The sport itself has changed very little since the rules were patented in 1874. The statistic shown above suggests that if Bill Tilden were able to play with the same strength and agility as players of today then the tools
of their trade can only really come second to the skills of the individual. The racquet a player uses may enhance their skill but no racquet can make you a better player.
Tags: