Category: Squash Racquets

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Save Time, Save Money and Play with the Best

Tecnifibre Carboflex X-Speed 135

Racquet Network has always had great squash program. But now it’s even better — because it saves you time, saves you money, allows you to play with the best gear and it reduces environmental impacts.

This is how it works…

Every Tecnifibre ™ squash racquet purchased in-store or online now comes with $200 in stringing upgrades.

As a squash player, you know that broken strings are common. You also know that repairing broken strings can be expensive and time consuming.

Tecnifibre Carboflex Series

Racquet Network’s new squash program saves you $20 every time you string your racquet. It also cuts down on the number of trips you have to make to our store.

Here is how things normally work. 1. Break a string. 2. Bring racquet to the store. 3. Go home and wait for email notification. 4. Come back to the store a few days later to pick your racquet up. In other words, you make two trips to the store.

Here is how things work now. 1. Break a string. 2. Book an appointment. 3. Bring your racquet to the store. 4. Wait 30 minutes and then take your racquet home with you. In order words, you only come to the store once.

Tecnifibre Dynergy Series

The new system also saves you money. Guaranteed one-hour racquet service normally costs $40.00 plus the cost of string. Under the new program, it costs the same as one-week service: $20 plus the cost of string.

So players who are participating in our new program save $200 and 10 trips to the store, which more than pays for the cost of a new racquet.

This is because when you purchase a new Tecnifibre squash racquet from us, we automatically include $200 worth of stringing upgrades.

Tecnifibre Suprem Series

While this is awesome deal for anybody who lives in southwest Calgary, this is an even better deal for squash players who live far from our store because it saves them even more time and more money on racquet stringing services.

In addition to these new elements, our Tecnifibre squash program still retains the best part of the old program, which is our commitment to carrying replacement grommets and bumper guards for all racquets in the Tecnifibre Carboflex series.

As we always have been, we are committed to supporting the Carbolex series for the three years it is on the shelf, plus an additional three years after the frame is discontinued.

Free Stringing Upgrades

Our new squash program, therefore, continues to be the best overall program in Calgary for squash players who want to save time, save money and play with the best squash racquets in the world. In addition to those three things, our program is also best for the environment because it reduces car trips and keeps racquets out of the landfills for longer.

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Head Light Squash Racquets – Do They Really Exist?

Head Light Squash Racquets

Every year, we see dozens of new squash racquets come out that are marketed as “head light”. Some of them will even go so far as to print “head light” on the frame, the product card or the SKU.

Unfortunately, very few of these racquets are genuinely head light.

Here at Racquet Network, our experts put every racquet on balance beam to determine its actual balance. In most cases, the number we get it very different from the manufacturer’s number.

Take the Dunlop Precision Pro 130, for example. Dunlop ™ claims this racquet is head light. They even put “HL” on the product tag to indicate that it is head light. But when we put it on our balance beam, it comes out as 6 points head heavy.

In fact, since we started balancing squash racquets in 2004, we have only ever found one all graphite racquet to be genuinely head light, and that racquet was discontinued nearly a decade ago.

The few squash racquets that genuinely come out as head light are invariably cheap, aluminum racquets with extremely heavy handles — like the ones below.

Racquet Selector 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.

Head Light Squash Racquets

Here is a selection of head light squash racquets available in our store and/or on our website.

Racquet Selector 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.

So if you have been searching high and low for a genuinely head light all-graphite squash racquet, stop wasting your time.

The closest you are likely to come is the least head heavy racquet on our racquet selector.

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Best Squash Racquets in the World

Tecnifibre ™ squash racquets are consistently the highest squash rated racquets in our in-store Try One Before You Buy One demo program. They also have an extraordinarily high rate of customer satisfaction.

While we have given many other brands precious shelf space in our store over the years since we opened our first store, Tecnifibre has earned a central place in our squash racquet program with consistently excellent products and unusually high satisfaction rates among squash players of all levels.

No matter the level or playing style, Tecnifibre makes a racquet suitable for that player’s game.

Tecnifibre Carboflex Series Squash Racquets

The Carboflex series of squash racquets is used by more Top 10 professional squash players than any other series. It is our number one selling racquet series with players of all levels from beginner to expert.

Tecnifibre Suprem Series Squash Racquets

The Suprem series of squash racquets was created for players who prefer that classic rectangular head shape associated with a control player’s game style.

Tecnifibre Dynergy Series Squash Racquets

The Dynergy series of squash racquets was created for power players who like to hit the ball hard and blast it by — or through — their opponents.

Our Try it Before You buy it program allows players to try every racquet in every series before settling on the perfect frame for their playing style. Come in see us. Our knowledgeable staff will help you pick one to get started.

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Choosing Racquets: Do Brands Matter?

Hammers

Racquet Network has been helping customers choose racquets since 2004. Over the years, we have seen thousands of frames (and thousands of features) come and go. One year the, hot feature is a “flex point”. The next year it’s “titanium”. The year after that, it’s “recessed grommet technology”.

The truth is that some of these hot features are genuine technological innovations but most of them, unfortunately, are just marketing pitches. Every manufacturer wants you to believe that their frame is special. If you believe it is special, you will want to buy it. Therefore they are constantly tweaking their frames and adding features in order to swing more customers their way.

Sadly, too many customers fall for the marketing. Equally sad is the fact that so many customers buy particular racquets just because they are endorsed by celebrity athletes.

Racquets are like hammers. They are tools designed to accomplish specific tasks. If you are building a house, you want to use claw hammer. If you are shaping metal, you want a ball peen hammer. If you are breaking up concrete, you want a sledge hammer. But whether your hammer is made by Stanley, Craftsman or Dewalt is not really important. All three of these companies make all three of these hammers. Picking the right tool for the job matters much more than the brand.

The same is true for racquets. Wilson ™, Babolat ™, Head, Yonex ™ and Tecnifibre ™ all make tennis racquets. They make racquets for casual players, they make racquets for recreational players and they make racquets for professionals. All of these companies make racquets for doubles and racquets for singles. And they all make racquets that work for both.

At Racquet Network, we focus on carrying brands that are very well made. We avoid junk brands. We avoid brands who spend their money on celebrity endorsements and favor brands who spend their money on research and development. By doing this, we ensure a high level of satisfaction amongst our customers. In other words, we do this because we want happy customers who come back over and over again.

Just as hammers are tools, racquets are containers for string. Picking the right frame for the job (singles, doubles or both) is important, but it’s only half the battle. Once you have the right frame, you have to customize it to your playing style and frequency. Nothing breaks our hearts faster than watching a customer spend $300 on a racquet only to have it strung with $10.00 string. We would much rather see customers spend $200 on the frame and $40.00 on good string.

Brand, as we said earlier, is not the most important consideration in choosing a racquet. Nor is a celebrity endorsement. Our staff are trained to ask new customers a series of questions in order to narrow things down to the proper category in just few minutes. Once we have the category right, we find something in the right grip size. After that, we pick out a few frames to consider in detail.

Once the frame is in hand, we start the process of customizing it for our customers. First we ask a series of questions that help us figure out what the customer wants or needs the string to do. Once we have that information we pick out three strings at three different price points and consider them in more detail.

At the end of the process, we are certain that the customer has a frame suited to their general needs that is precisely customized for their particular needs as a player. This is true whether customers play tennis, squash, badminton or racquetball. And it is for this reason above all that we have the highest overall rate of customer satisfaction in Calgary.

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Is Your Racquet a String Eater?

Squash Racquet Broken Bumper Guard

Take a good look at the racquet in the image at the top of this article. It won’t take you long to see why the string broke where it broke.

It broke because the grommet for that string hole is both crushed and split. Two holes to the left of that, another grommet is broken.

You can see that we slid the separated grommet down the string to provide a landmark for another image of the same racquet from a different angle which is posted a little further down this page.

If you find that image, you will be a able to see what is happening on the outside of the racquet, which is the other side of the hole where the string broke.

Squash Racquet Broken Bumper Guard
The moment the bumper guard breaks, the racquet becomes a string eater.
Why did the grommet split? Probably because the bumper guard broke. Why did the bumper guard break? Because the player hit the wall.

Did either of these happen because of something the racquet stringer did six weeks ago when he strung the racquet for the client?

Absolutely not. Yet the customer’s first instinct when the string broke was to blame us.

We didn’t use the racquet. We didn’t break the bumper guard. We didn’t split the grommet.

The customer did it. He hit the wall. Hitting the wall broke the bumper guard. Breaking the bumper guard weakened the grommet. The grommet split, exposing the soft string to the hard graphite edge of the racquet frame. Then eventually, the string broke in exactly that spot.

These events may not have happened on the same day. Each may have occurred days or weeks apart. But each event led to the other and the end result was a broken string.

So before you blame the professional who strung your racquet, ask yourself this question: is my racquet a string eater?

If you have a broken bumper guard, your racquet is a string eater. If you have broken grommets, your racquet is a string eater. If your grommets are split but not fully broken, your racquet is on its way to becoming a string eater.

If your racquet is a string eater and you want to keep it you have two choices. Either fix it or be prepared to feed it a lot of string.

Don’t blame us. We will always advise you to fix rather than feed a string eater. In fact, we carry a lot of parts just so you have the option of fixing it.

Outfitting a racquet with a new bumper guard and grommets costs about $20.00, parts and labour included. However, if your racquet is a string eater, doing this could save you many times that amount.