By James Waterson
(December 14, 2011) Tennis has been around for a long time, which has given would be innovators plenty of time to come up with quirky and unusual racquet designs.
Although they’re different from the norm, people who have played with some of these designs absolutely swear by them.
So to celebrate the quirky, weird and different, Tennis Now features five of the most unusual tennis racquets around.
Honorable mentions:
You can’t have a list like this without at least mentioning the Snauwaert Ergonom, which had a rotated head. The idea was if the head was rotated, it would stay in line with the path of the ball longer than a conventional racquet head.
There’s also the Topway Hexagonal and the Rival AU 700, two racquets with very unusual head shapes.
Let’s not forgot the Tretorn Speedgun, which had a string sensor that determined shot speed and then displayed it on the throat.
With all that out of the way, let’s go to our top five.
5) Blackburne Double Strung – This racquet featured not one string bed, but TWO. It also placed the strings closer to the outside of the frame to reduce the chance of framing a shot.
On paper, this idea could have made sense. After all, if you have two string beds then your strings have to last longer, right? On their website, Blackburne says the double string bed helps with tennis elbow, gives the racquet a larger sweet spot and makes it more stable upon contact.
But the double string bed made it difficult to string, and its high price point certainly didn’t help it in catching on with tennis players.
The Blackburne is ITF and USTA approved, though, so if you can track one down you could use it in a tournament.
4) The Handler – I suppose we’re still operating on the “more is better” idea. In this case, the Handler (and it’s many double handled variations we’ve seen) was designed in 1992 for the two-handed backhand player. But as you can imagine, serving and volleying is cumbersome with this racquet because both handles are off center from the frame.
There’s another variation on this theme that is currently on the market. Dubbed "The Natural," it features two smaller grips that sit on a perpendicular plane with the string bed.
These racquets have been used by ATP doubles players Brian and Dann Battistone, who reached the top 200 in 2009. They're still available today for $200.
3) Neoxxline Carving Star – These racquets feature the rotated head of Snauwaert Ergonom as well as a curved handle. It’s actually an evolution of previous attempts at incorporating these designs that goes back to the 1980’s with The Erge, which was made in Sweden.
It certainly looks weird, but Neoxxline, a German company, says the grip shape helps ease pressure on the wrist on serves and volleys, and the head shape generates more spin because of the angle the strings are at on contact with the ball.
If you're curious, you can order their line of racquets at their website here for €189.00.
2) Jenro – Here we have another attempted step forward in technology. In this case, the Jenro racquets featured detachable grips that you attach to the head of the racquet via a tightening mechanism in the butt of the racquet. It all fastens together with a key.
There must have been something to this as ATP touring pro Nicolas Lapentti used them for a time.
After all, the design is very convenient for those who don’t want to have to worry about carrying around one, or several, complete racquets. Instead, you can have one grip and several frames, each with different strings or string tensions.
Just don’t lose the key.
1) Macgregor Bergelin Longstring – This frame, made in 1985, really takes the cake.
Not only does it have a semi-octagonal head shape and diagonal strings, but it also comes with a string tension control system that can be adjusted using a tightening system in the butt cap with an Allen key device. Fortunately, the racquet came with stringing instructions.
Oddly enough, Lennart Bergelin, Bjorn Borg’s coach, endorsed the racquet, so there must have been something to this design. Leaving to the side all the other stuff, the diagonal strings supposedly provide a lot more spin after all.
Unfortunately, the company went under. Yet the tension adjusting technology lived on in several other racquets.
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That’ll do it for our list. Considering tennis is more than 100 years old, we probably missed some. But these are the ones we enjoyed the most.
However, if you do think something is missing then let us know in the comments below.