Is it Time to Restring Your Racquet?

It’s often difficult for players to determine when they should restring their racquets. Your strings and their tension are key components of your game, as the strings are the only thing designed to make contact with the ball; the frame, not so much.

So, to restring or not to restring? – that is the question. As a tournament and USTA regular in my younger days, I didn’t have that issue. I broke my 18-gauge strings about every six to eight sets and carried five racquets, just in case. Serious players can use one of many tension measuring tools, like the Gamma Racquet String Tester, where a 25% drop in tension from the tension measured immediately after stringing suggests it’s likely time to restring. For the recreational player, likely without access to fancy tension measuring tools, the task is a bit more challenging.

You could ask your professional stringer to record the tension after restringing, Then you can have your racquet tested by your stringer when the racquet seems to be affecting your play. A loss of 25% or more in tension generally indicates it’s time to restring the racquet.

Loss of string tension will affect your play and the feel of the ball on the racquet. But the gradual loss of tension while using the same racquet is usually hard to detect. A comparison to a well-strung, unused spare racquet is one option. You should be able to feel a difference between the two racquets when hitting the ball. Alternating racquets between restringing will lead to both racquets losing tension and you will likely not be able to tell when it’s time to restring either racquet.

Playing on a set of strings until they break is a poor option for the recreational player. Strings on the verge of breaking have lost most of their resiliency, elasticity, and tension and will impact your play to a great extent. Keeping track of the number of sets you’ve played on a set of strings may help you determine when to restring if you have no other option to make the call. But it may take some trial and error. As a last resort you can use the old rule of thumb: Restring as many times a year as you play in a week.