Expert Advice from Racquet Network

Posted on June 23, 2017October 30, 2018 by Racquet Network

Badminton Racquet Grip Size

While grip size is critically important in tennis for health and safety reasons, grip size in badminton is largely a matter of individual preference.

Badminton players who like to rally and deceive will usually choose a smaller grip size because this allows them to nimbly switch between forehand and backhand grips as the situation requires. Power players, by contrast, will usually choose a larger grip because this allows them to get a firmer grip on the handle when smashing.

Unlike squash racquets, which are all manufactured with the same grip size, badminton racquets do come in different sizes. These are typically clearly marked on the handles as G2 though to G5.

Unforunately, grip size is not yet standardized. So while G2 indicates the smallest grip size for one brand, it can be the largest grip size for another brand.

Choose a badminton racquet that feels comfortable in your hand. If you are a beginner who does not know how to roll the racquet in your fingers to switch between backhand and forehand grips, avoid purchasing a racquet with a small grip size.

If, however, you have been playing for awhile and you do know when and how to change between forehand and backhand grips, you will want to buy a racquet with a smaller grip.

For a full list of racquets in this category, please check out our ONLINE RACQUET SELECTOR. You can sort by sport, gender, brand, size, weight, balance and more.

Posted on June 22, 2017November 6, 2018 by Racquet Network

Why We Require Demo Deposits

Ian asks: “Why do you charge a deposit for demo racquets when nobody else does?”

It’s a good question. But it’s not entirely a fair question.

First of all, the majority of sporting goods stores do not offer racquet demo programs. Most of those who do are pro shops that are set up in clubs where members are present and can easily demo a racquet and bring it back in a couple of hours. So the pro shop treats the demo program like a extra service for its dues-paying members.

There simply aren’t a lot of free standing retail stores that offer demo programs. Those that do typically offer a very small number of frames for demo and charge full retail price for the frame at the point of sale.

Racquet Network, by contrast, offers a large range of frames for tennis, squash, badminton and pickleball. The vast majority of these frames are new — from the current season — and most are on sale. On our wall today, for example, we have nearly 100 frames for our customers to demo.

So back to the central premise of Ian’s question: “Why do we charge a deposit for demo racquets?”

Terms of Service

First, let’s be clear. Not only do we require a deposit, but our Terms of Service further specify that the deposit is refundable only as a store credit and that that credit can only be applied to the purchase of a racquet.

This is clearly laid out on our website in the Terms of Service. It is clearly stated in all of our brochures about our demo program. Our staff clearly explain this to everyone who takes out a demo racquet. And just to be sure that everybody understands the Terms of Service, everyone who takes out a demo racquet signs a card indicating that they understand and agree with these terms.

We do this because we want to make it absolutely clear that the only people who should be taking out demo racquets are people who intend to buy a racquet from us.

Lessons Learned

Sadly, we didn’t always do things this way. When we first opened our store, we didn’t take a deposit at all. In fact the first summer we were open, a young man (Alex) and his father (Ivan) took two tennis racquets out for demo the first week of July. They didn’t return the them until the last week of August.

Two days after returning them, they brought in two of the same racquets that they had just purchased at Sport Chek and asked us to string them. So to sum up, we provided the service. They used our racquets all summer and decided that they liked them. Then they returned the demos to us and bought new racquets from a store that did not offer them a demo service.

Needless to say, we learned a lesson. From that point forward, we had a one-week limit on racquet demos. But we weren’t done yet. We had a few more lessons to learn about how some players abuse unconditional demo programs.

Lesson Two

Lesson Two started the following winter and continued over the next two years. A customer who worked up in Fort MacMurray came in to demo a badminton racquet. He worked up north all week and played badminton on Wednesday evenings, then came home every weekend. Over the next two years, he came into the store almost every weekend, returned one racquet and took out another. Eventually, he returned his last racquet and stopped coming. We never saw him again.

From that point forward, we started charging a deposit for demo racquets. We figured if we were going to bear the material costs of maintaining demo racquets and the personnel costs of tracking them, we should require customers to spend some money at the end of the process.

Lesson Three

Lesson Three in the demo-racquet-school-of-hard-knocks came in our second winter operating as a full service racquet store. By this time our demo program was rocking. On any given day we had 20 to 30 demos out and a list of people waiting for the most popular racquets. Our demo program was so active that the staff at our racquet tech desk would spend about 30 per cent of their shift on demo racquets. In fact, they were so busy tracking demos that they often didn’t have time to string racquets.

At the end of that season we analyzed the data from our demo program and learned three new lessons.

Lessons Four & Five

Lesson Four: Less than a third of the customers who demoed racquets ended up buying one. In most cases, they just turned their store credit into string for their old racquet. Some turned it into shoes, which they were going to have to buy anyway. This analysis made it clear that most customers were just demoing so that they could use our racquets while theirs was getting re-strung. In other words, most players were using our demo program as a free rental service.

Lesson Five: Customers who did intend to purchase a racquet from us often had to wait two weeks or more to get their hands on popular demo racquets because they were being used by players who didn’t intend to buy them. In fact, our analysis determined that customers who demoed but ultimately didn’t buy were twice as likely to keep the demos out longer than they were allowed to and three times more likely to return demo racquets in poor condition.

Lesson Six

Lesson Six: The final lesson we learned about demo racquets that season was perhaps our most important. We learned that customers who demo and then buy usually do so within two weeks of starting the demo program. By contrast, customers who spend more than a month in the demo program, rarely buy a new racquet. So what exactly are we accomplishing here? Quite clearly, a demo program that lasts more than a month isn’t serving the customer and it certainly isn’t benefiting our business.

Lesson Six was critical to our thinking about our demo racquet program. It was at that point that we realized that we had to create some new rules that would keep our demos out of the hands of people who were unlikely to buy so that customers who did intend to buy would be able to try them immediately.

What We Learned

Lesson Six led us to two important new conclusions about our demo program.

Conclusion 1: The purpose of a demo racquet program is to give customers who intend to buy a racquet from us an opportunity to try that racquet. So it is up to us the ensure that that racquet is available for them to try when they want to try it. If that racquet is out being used by players who do not intend to buy a racquet from us, then we have just failed our customer.

Conclusion 2: If we offer free racquet demos to people who do not intend to buy from us, so many people take advantage of the program that we end up spending a fortune managing our demo inventory. As a result, we will have to raise our prices across the board.

In the winter of 2017 we changed our rules and created a brand new demo program to serve customers who intend to buy a racquet from us. This new program, briefly described at the start of this article, makes it clear that players who do not intend to buy a racquet in the next four weeks should not take out a demo racquet.

Our New Demo Program

Our demo program is offered as a service to customers who are in the market for a new racquet. It is not a loaner program. It is not a program under which you get to take out a new racquet while your old racquet is getting re-strung. The highest priority of our new demo program is the ensure that customers who want to purchase hot new racquets have an opportunity to try them, which means they need to be available when the customer wants to try them.

Players who want to use loaner racquets can do so. We have a program for that. It is available to all members of Squash Calgary, Tennis Calgary, Badminton Calgary and Pickleball Calgary. But is a different program entirely from our demo program.

Posted on June 19, 2017November 5, 2018 by Racquet Network

Prostaff RF 97 & the “Save Money” Strategy

WILSON PRO STAFF RF 97 AUTO TENNIS RACQUET

Over the weekend, we received an email from Ashok in Calgary asking if it makes sense for him to buy an elite tennis racquet like the Wilson Prostaff RF97.

In the body of this rather long email, Ashok explains that he is a beginner now but that he is taking lessons and expects to be at the elite level in three to four years. He doesn’t want to buy one racquet now to use as a beginner, a second racquet later to use as an intermediate and a third racquet after that when he expects to be an elite player.

We get variations on this question almost every week during outdoor tennis season. It is one of many “save money” strategies that beginners — especially men — propose to justify spending top dollar to buy a high-end racquet while they are still learning the basic strokes.

On the surface, it seems to make some sense. Buy an elite frame now. String it for a beginner while you are a beginner. String it for an intermediate when you get to that level and then string it for the elite level once you get there.

Of course we can do this — or something like it. We often have players come in who have taken 10 years off from tennis and are just getting back into the game. So we string their racquet at low tension with a very soft string in order to avoid causing injuries while they get back into shape. Then as they improve over several months or the next couple of seasons, we adjust their string bed accordingly. Each time they come in, the string gets firm and the tension gets tighter.

In most of these cases, the racquet the player brings in for customization is an elite level frame. So in a sense, we are doing the very thing that Ashok is asking about.

There is one difference, though, and it is a pretty major difference. In this case, we are talking about a player who has elite-level strokes. They are rusty elite-level strokes, of course. A decade of inactivity will do that to a player. But a rusty elite player is nothing like a beginner.

Beginners really do need softer and larger frames than elite players and, unfortunately, the Wilson Prostaff RF 97 is neither soft nor large. So can we string it in a way that makes it softer or larger? No, we can’t. Sorry.

What we can do though is advise Ashok not to overspend on a beginner racquet. In fact, we can help him pick out a durable intermediate level frame that will carry him through his beginner and intermediate stages of development. Then, when he is genuinely ready for an elite level frame, we can help him with that, too.

While we can appreciate the “save money” strategy that Ashok it trying to adopt in this situation, we feel it is important to remind him that materials and technologies are changing all of the time. We can also advise him that it may take a little longer to get to the elite level than he imagines. So his best overall strategy is to buy the racquet he needs now and to wait and see what will be available to him when he gets to the elite level at a future point in time.

The final piece of good advice that we can give Ashok now is that nobody knows what kind of elite level player he may be when he gets there. Will he be aggressive? Will he be defensive? Or will he be a mixed player? Will he wins his points on his ground strokes or his serves? Since nobody can answer these questions right now, it makes no sense to buy an elite frame now just to save money later because it may very well turn out to be wrong frame for Future Elite-Level Ashok.

Posted on June 19, 2017November 30, 2018 by Racquet Network — 2 Comments

What is the Right Grip Size for Me?

Use the Head Line on your palm to measure your optimal grip size.

Take a look at the palm of your left hand. If you look closely, you will see three major and distinct lines.

The lower line (palm readers call this your LIFE LINE) starts at the base of your hand where your thumb connects to your wrist. Follow this line and you will see that it curves around the base of your thumb and ends up near the base of your index finger.

There is also an upper line (palm readers call this your HEART LINE) that starts below your pinkie finger and runs across your palm to the base of your index finger.

Between these two is a middle line that starts between your index finger and thumb and then heads across your palm before vanishing about three-quarters of the way across. Palm readers call this your HEAD LINE. This is the line that is used for measuring tennis grip size.

Using a ruler, measure the distance between the tip of your middle finger and the HEAD LINE immediately below your middle finger. That is your grip size. When choosing a tennis racquet, this is the optimal size.

A grip significantly larger than this will make if difficult to generate power on your serve. A grip smaller than this may lead to tennis elbow.

Remember that a slightly smaller grip can be made to fit by adding an additional layer of grip or overgrip on the racquet handle. However, a grip size cannot be made smaller.

So if you must purchase a racquet that is not the perfect size, choose one that is up to a quarter inch smaller than optimal so that you can build the grip up to your optimal size.

Posted on June 3, 2017November 6, 2018 by Racquet Network

Should I Buy a Used Tennis Racquet?

In tight economic times like these, everybody wants to save money where they can. Buying used tennis racquets, instead of new tennis racquets, is one way to do that.

But you have to be careful if you want to go this route. Saving money is one possibility, but getting ripped off is another. So here are some things to consider when shopping for a used racquet.

E-Bay

It is certainly possible to get a good used tennis racquet on E-Bay and other websites. However it is also possible to buy cheap knock-offs and once-broken-now-repaired frames.

Buyer beware. I won’t buy a racquet unless I can check the entire frame for tell-tale swelling, bulging or other signs of repair. I also need to examine every sticker or label on the racquet in order to prove to myself that it is not a knock off.

Used Goods Stores

While it is possible to hold a racquet in your hands and examine it carefully in a used sporting goods store, it is not always possible to determine how old the racquet is. As a result, I have seen more than one intermediate player show up to play with a “new” racquet that is, in fact, ten years old.

It is advisable, therefore, to stop at a new racquet store and have a good long look at what is on the shelf this year before going to the used racquet store to buy last year’s model. Do this and you will increase your chances of spotting really old frames when you get to the used racquet store.

Hand-me-downs

Buying used racquets from friends and other players in your network can be tricky. Generally, you should pay no more than $40 for the frame, $40 for the string and $10 for the grip. In other words, a quality used racquet shouldn’t cost more than $90.

If the frame is a mid-range frame (not a high-end frame), deduct at least $20. If the strings have more than 50 games on them, deduct $20. If the grip needs to be replaced, deduct another $10.

Slightly Used Demos

Pros and sponsored players often get their racquets for free. Occasionally, they will play with them a few times and then put them away for good. In most cases, they will play with them until the manufacturer’s rep gives them another new model.

Since pros, sponsored players and other frequent players treat their racquets with respect, you are not buying junk. In most cases, you are buying slightly-used, high-end racquets that are in near-pristine condition.

Check for wear on the grip and marks on the strings. If it’s a factory grip with very little wear and the strings are relatively clean with very little yellow fuzz, you will know that the racquet hasn’t been used very much.

Price Ranges

New, low-end tennis racquets are pre-strung and are priced in the $30 to $60 range.

New mid-range tennis racquets are usually pre-strung and are priced in the $60 to $120 range.

New high-end tennis racquets cost more than $120 and come unstrung. Stringing costs another $25 to $50, depending on the type of string you like.