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Tennis Shoes

Racquet Network carries Calgary’s largest selection of tennis shoes. In fact, we have the largest selection of court shoes of all kinds. Come in for a fitting with our experts and leave with the perfect fit for your feet. We are open 7 days a week. Monday to Friday 11:00am to 8:00pm. Saturday and Sunday 11:00am to 5:00pm.


Shoe Selector For a full list of shoes in this category, please check out our ONLINE SHOE SELECTOR. You can sort by sport, gender, brand, size, width and price.

Tennis Shoes


Shoe Selector For a full list of shoes in this category, please check out our ONLINE SHOE SELECTOR. You can sort by sport, gender, brand, size, width and price.
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Help! My Toenails are Turning Black

Are one or more of your toenails turning black? Yes. Then your shoes are too small. Specifically, your shoes are too short for court sports.

Here at Racquet Network, our expert staff are constantly astonished at the number of stubborn people who come into our store to buy new shoes because the shoes they are wearing are damaging their feet and who end up buying exactly the same size, expecting a different result.

Here is how a typical conversation with one of these customer’s goes …

Staff: “Hi there. How can I help you?”

Customer: “I need some new shoes. The shoes I have are too small. They are making my toenails turn black.”

Staff: “Oh no. That’s not good. What size are they?”

Customer: “They are size 9.”

Staff: “OK. So would you like to try on something in a size 10?”

Customer: “No. Size 10 is too big. I wear a size 9.”

Staff: “I’m sorry. I must have misunderstood. I thought you said your size 9 shoes were causing your toenails to turn black.”

Customer: “Well these ones are. But I just need a different size 9. I am always a size 9.”

It is never good when a fitting starts this way, but this is exactly the way many fittings start. The customer has a number in their head and no amount of expert advice or actual evidence will sway them. So, they end up leaving with the wrong size in spite of our best efforts to convince them otherwise.

Fathers of teen-aged daughters can be especially frustrating for our shoe experts. Some of them seem to think that their daughters are less attractive if they wear shoes that actually fit, so they buy shoes that are too small and that end up causing injuries.

This not a joke. It’s not just a story we tell. This actually happens. We have seen teenaged girls leave our store in tears because they know that the shoes their fathers are buying for them are too small and will make their toenails fall off. We have had angry fathers storm out of the store because we demonstrated to them that their daughter’s feet are a size and half bigger than they used to be.

We’re not sure why but men in general rarely seem to know their shoe size. “What size are you?” we will often ask. “Size 10,” guys will say. “What size are those?” we ask, pointing at the shoes on their feet. When we check, we usually find out they are not even close to what they thought they were wearing.

Racquet Network staff are trained to fit people for court shoes. Our staff know that court shoes have to be longer than walking-around-shoes because players have to stop suddenly and change direction. When shoes are too short for this, toes bang against the end of the shoe causing toenails to blacken and fall off.

Our staff also understand that width is important. When a player’s feet are wider than the platform of the shoes they are wearing, they are prone to specific types of injuries that can lead to arthritis later in life.

Our experts want to see all customers leave our store with shoes that fit. They don’t have any preconceived ideas about that size the customer should wear or what size the customer (or their father) might want to wear. They only thing they are concerned about is what actually fits. For that to happen, the shoe must be long enough and it must be wide enough.

At the end of the day, though, they can’t force anybody to buy the right size. So they will always have to deal with the disappointment of customers who stubbornly resist their best advice and insist on buying shoes that are too short or too narrow just because that is the size they always buy.

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Where to Buy Tennis Shoes in Calgary

YONEX ECLIPSION TENNIS SHOE WHITE BLACK
Our experts can help you choose the right tennis shoe.

Racquet Network always has an awesome selection of tennis shoes at a variety of price points. Below is just a small sample of our selection.

We carry budget shoes, recreational shoes and high performance shoes for men, women and children.

We offer expert assistance to help customers determine which shoe is best for the surface they will be playing on.

We also help customers with expert fittings that help to minimize foot pain caused by a variety of factors.

Come in for a tennis shoe fitting with our experts and leave with the perfect fit for your feet.

We are open 7 days a week. Monday to Friday 10:00am to 8:00pm. Saturday and Sunday 10:00am to 5:00pm.


Men’s Tennis Shoes

A small sample of our men’s tennis shoes.

Shoe Selector For a full list of shoes in this category, please check out our ONLINE SHOE SELECTOR. You can sort by sport, gender, brand, size, width and price.

Ladies Tennis Shoes

A small sample of our ladies tennis shoes.

Shoe Selector For a full list of shoes in this category, please check out our ONLINE SHOE SELECTOR. You can sort by sport, gender, brand, size, width and price.

Junior Tennis Shoes

A small sample of our junior tennis shoes.

Shoe Selector For a full list of shoes in this category, please check out our ONLINE SHOE SELECTOR. You can sort by sport, gender, brand, size, width and price.
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Court Shoes: Yonex vs. Adidas

YONEX SHT PRO ALL COURT GREY 2015 1Yesterday, we had a customer come into our southwest Calgary store to buy a pair of shoes. He wanted to use them for tennis, volleyball and dodgeball. He only wanted to buy one pair of shoes.

We started, of course, with questions so that we could determine his needs. Q: Where do you play tennis? A: Indoor at The Tennis Academy and outdoors on public courts. Q: What kind of floor do they have where you play volleyball? A: Hardwood. Q: What kind of floor do they have where you play dodgeball? A: Rubberized all-court surface.

So here we have a client who plays on three different surfaces: acrylic, hardwood and rubberized all-court. Normally, we would recommend carbon rubber for acrylic, natural organic rubber for hardwood and synthetic rubber for all-court. But in this case, the customer wants to buy one shoe that will work in all contexts. So what do we do?

ADIDAS BARRICADE COURT BLACK BLACK SILVERQuite simply, all we can so is offer information on the pros and cons. We cannot, in this case, make a recommendation. Carbon rubber will stand up well on acrylic, but it may be dangerously slippery on hardwood. Natural organic rubber provides excellent traction on hardwood, but will quickly be ground down by acrylic. Synthetic rubber offers the best all around compromise, but offers poor traction on hardwood and poor durability on acrylic.

In the end, the customer tried on more than a dozen pair of shoes in two sizes. Some were rejected on price. Some were rejected on colour. Some were rejected on comfort/fit. Eventually, it came down to two pair: Adidas ™ Barricade Court at $95.00 and Yonex ™ SHT PRO at $150.00. Our expectation was that he would opt for the cheaper shoes.

So what did he do? After 20 minutes of thoughtful consideration, after switching both pair back and forth, one on the left, one on the right. After much pacing and dancing around the store playing imaginary dodgeball, he chose the Yonex SHT PRO. His words: “They just feel better in every way. They just feel like a better shoe. Normally I wouldn’t bother paying the extra 50 bucks, but these just feel like they are worth more.”