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Steve Crandall's Racquetball Stringing Tips

Stringing Trends at the 2017 US Open Racquetball Championships

By Steve Crandall
Vice President, Sales & Marketing
Ashaway Racket Strings


Ian Titus and Tommy Troutman
Ian Titus of Lawler Sports and Ashaway sponsored player Tommy "Turbo" Troutman in the Ashaway booth at the 2016 US Open Racquetball Championships.
As we have for several years now, Ashaway again teamed up with Lawler Sports' Ian Titus to provide stringing services for this year's US Open Racquetball Championships in Minneapolis, MN. We have had a lot of fun providing this service over the years. We've strung a lot of racquets, met a lot of very nice people, and not coincidently, learned a great deal about the types of strings top racquetball players prefer and how they like them strung. Here's some of what we learned.

As many of you know, the US Open is racquetball's premier event and the largest racquetball tournament in the world. It features the top professional players from the IRT and LPRT and offers the largest prize money purse in the sport. It also offers opportunities for amateur players of all age and skill levels to compete in both singles and doubles, and this year included over 750 players from throughout the world!

So the stringing booth was busy, stringing over 200 racquets during the five days of play. Of these, some 50% were strung with Zyex®-based multifilament strings, while the majority of the other 50% were strung with two types of nylon string. Of this latter segment, some 35% were multifilament nylon and the other 15% multi-stranded monofilament nylon.

In total, these figures are quite consistent with the trends in Ashaway's overall sales for racquetball and string selection by Ashaway sponsored players. Both reflect a 70/30 preference of Zyex over nylon. Thus, we see a continuing strong trend toward strings that use this PEEK (polyetheretherketone) material, which provides superior feel, more power, and improved tension stability.

In terms of string gauges used, we also saw a continuing trend towards thinner strings. Some 70% of all racquets strung used 17-gauge string. An additional 20% used even thinner 18-gauge string, and only 10% a heavier 16-gauge string. These numbers are a bit surprising for racquetball, as racquetball has historically used thicker string. We think this reflects the increased durability of newer string materials, which allow players to use thinner strings in competition with more confidence.

Racquet tension was also a bit of a surprise and somewhat counter intuitive. On average, 16-gauge strings were strung between 32 - 35 lbs. tension, 17-gauge strings between 33 - 36 lbs., and 18-gauge at 34 - 38 lbs. tension. Overall, the mean tension of racquets strung was 35 lbs., which is the highest we've seen at the Open.

What does this mean? For a start, it's clear that newer string materials like Zyex provide greater elongation and resiliency, which allows players to use higher tensions. Second, newer racquet designs require longer string lengths and you need to string with higher tension to compensate for that greater length.

But there is also something of a puzzler here: the old rule of thumb is to string at low tension for power, higher tension for control. Thus, if you use a 16-gauge string, which is inherently more powerful than a thinner gauge, you would expect to string it tighter to gain more control with that power. Conversely, you would expect to string an 18-gauge string with less tension to add power to what is inherently a finesse or control string.

Yet this is not what we see in the tension data. Could it be that the newer string materials and/or larger frame designs are changing the old power/control equation? Is it that styles of play are becoming more pronounced, that power players really want power, and finesse players really want control? I'm not sure what the answer is, but I would welcome any thoughts.

Finally, a couple of general observations: First, strings with multifilament construction - either using Zyex or nylon - now account for some 85% of the racquetball market, while the popularity of multi-stranded monofilament string appears to be sliding. I take this to be the result of the greater flexibility of multifilament construction, which is reflected both in better playability and superior durability on off-center hits.

The other thing that struck us was that while Zyex-based strings continue to grow in popularity, there is still a strong base of multifilament nylon string adherents, even among the world's top players. This tells us that despite nylon's chief liability - tension loss - it still has properties that make an excellent racquetball string. Players like the way it feels and wears. More importantly, there are also some material innovations involving multifilament nylon that promise to make it an even better racquetball string. But more on that in our next column, Trends in Racquetball Stringing, Part II.

ZYEX® is a registered trademark of Victrex Ltd.


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