Strings (tennis)
The material used in tennis string can significantly affect a player's performance, and even health. Several materials are used to make tennis strings. They vary in terms of elasticity, durability, rebound efficiency, tension holding capability, and manufacturing cost, among other considerations.
Racket (sports equipment)
Popular lawn tennis rackets vary primarily in length, weight, balance point, stiffness, beam thickness, string pattern, string density, and head size. They generally conform to unofficial standards that differ from past rackets. Currently, almost all adult rackets produced by companies such as Prince Sports, Yonex, Wilson, Babolat , Dunlop Sport, Head, Tecnifibre, and Völkl are made from a graphite composite. Those made from wood, steel, fiberglass, aluminum, or other materials are considered obsolete, although those materials are technically legal for play. Inexpensive rackets often have poor performance characteristics such as excessive flexibility and inadequate weight. No recent manufacturers use single-throated beams, although Prince tried to reintroduce the single throat design in the 1990s: the only professional who used one was Mirjana Lučić. Braided graphite rackets were considered high-end until recently and molded rackets have been the norm for some time. Molding is less expensive to manufacture and offer high stiffness. Dunlop also had a nylon-based "hot melt" process, now obsolete, that produced the midsize 200G racket, once used to great effect by Steffi Graf and John McEnroe, as well as briefly used by Martina Navratilova.