Our retail store is now closed. Retail services are ONLINE ONLY.
Stringing services are now HOME-BASED. If you need a racquet strung, place your order through the website. Our staff will text you the details regarding dropoff/pickup. Dismiss
The Wilson Tour BLX pickleball paddle is one of our top selling models.We used to keep track of the number of times that customers came into our store asking for a specific pickleball paddle because they heard it has “a bigger sweet spot.” However, it happened so often that we stopped counting long ago.
In fact, pickleball paddles do not have a sweet spot. The term “sweet spot” applies to stringed racquets. It is the part of the string bed that stretches to the maximum depth and then propels the ball forward using the stored energy in the strings. Since pickleball paddles are solid, they cannot have a sweet spot.
The closest one can come to a sweet spot on a pickleball paddle is the center of mass. The center of mass is a point representing the mean position of the matter in a body or system.
On a pickleball paddle the centre of massed is a fixed and mathematically definable point. It cannot be made larger or smaller. Therefore it is not possible for one paddle to have a larger sweet spot than any other.
In order to harness the maximum amount of mass and energy available on any shot, the striker must hit the ball with the paddle’s center of mass. The further away from the center that contact is made, the more energy will be lost.
Hitting the ball with the paddle’s center of mass becomes more important as paddles become lighter. Since lighter paddles have less mass, off center hits are weaker. The more off center they are, the weaker the shot becomes.
With heavy paddles, off center hits are less of an issue. If a paddle is heavy enough, even shots that come from near the outer edge of the paddle will still harness a significant amount of energy, which is exactly why we recommend heavier paddles for beginners.
Players who want to maximize the transfer of energy into the ball through a paddle’s center of mass will have to practice hitting the ball in the mathematical center of the paddle. Those who can only do this inconsistently (beginners) should opt for heavier pickleball paddles.
Racquets designed for elite players are generally not suitable for intermediate players.Badminton racquets designed for elite badminton players are generally not suitable for intermediate players. While many players simply want to buy the most expensive racquets designed for the very best athletes in the world, this is rarely a wise decision.
Adult intermediates generally lack the timing and the upper body strength of elite athletes. As a result, they will need some help from their racquets on shots such as the cross-court backhand clear. Compared to elite players, therefore, palyers in this group will need more flexible and more forgiving racquets.
Below is a sample of badminton racquets that our experts have determined to be generally suitable for female adult intermediates. For more information, please come into the store and consult with one of our experts. We are open 7 days a week and we carry Calgary’s largest selection of badminton racquets for men, women, teens and children.
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.
Badminton Racquets for Female Adult Intermediates
A selection of badminton racquets that may be suitable for intermediate female badminton players.
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.
Advanced female athletes are strong, fast and have excellent timing.The differences between advanced and elite female badminton players are typically differences of degree. In other words, both are strong, but elite players are a bit stronger. Both are fast, but elite players are a bit faster. And both have good timing, but elite players are just a bit better in this area. As a result, there is a lot of overlap in the racquets for this group.
Below is a sample of badminton racquets that our experts have determined to be generally suitable for advanced female badminton players. For more information, please come into the store and consult with one of our experts. We are open 7 days a week and we carry Calgary’s largest selection of badminton racquets for men, women, teens and children.
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.
Badminton Racquets for Advanced Ladies
A selection of badminton racquets for advanced ladies.
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.
Racquets at this level are stiff with tiny sweet spots.Elite female badminton players can use racquets that are simply not beneficial for players at lower levels. Racquets at this level are stiff with tiny sweet spots. Strung at very high tensions, these racquets rely on the strengths and abilities of the players and do provide any additional power.
Below is a sample of badminton racquets that our experts have determined to be generally suitable for elite female badminton players. For more information, please come into the store and consult with one of our experts. We are open 7 days a week and we carry Calgary’s largest selection of badminton racquets for men, women, teens and children.
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.
Badminton Racquets for Elite Females
A sample of racquets our experts believe are suitable for elite female badminton players.
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.
This article was created as a resource for club promoters who are trying to enlist the assistance of their members in the task of attracting new members. All of the articles in this series offer suggestions to club members regarding how they can help to attract new members. Club promoters are encouraged to link to it if they wish to provide suggestions to their members.
Why Beginners Matter
Spending Habits of New PlayersRacquet Network has been in business for a long time. We offered our first lessons in 2004. We opened our first store in 2010. During the years since we first opened our doors our coaching team has taught more than 10,000 adults and children to play racquet sports. We have also registered more than 50,000 sales transactions with players at all levels.
As you can imagine, this many people and this many transactions across this many racquet sports leave behind a large amount of data to aggregate. And from this aggregate data, we can draw some interesting conclusions that are beneficial to every type of racquet sports club.
Here is a concrete example of how that data can be used. There are two squash clubs in our part of the city. Both have about the same number of players, both cater to adult males. Club A is closer to us than Club B, so you would expect that Club A would generate more sales for us than Club B. In fact, however, Club B generates more spinoff business for our store than Club A for one simple reason.
Club B is marginally better than Club A at attracting new players. And by that we don’t mean members who are new to Club B; we mean players who are new to playing the game of squash. Or in other words, Club B is better than Club A at attracting and retaining beginners.
Club A is caught in what we call a cycle of high performance failure. They have turned their club over to a volunteer who spends all of his time trying to attract better players from other clubs. He is focussed almost entirely on Club A’s interclub team performance. Therefore, whether he knows it or not, under his leadership, Club A is pursuing a high performance agenda — an agenda that will ultimately fail the club’s shareholders.
Club B, on the other hand, is more open both to new members and new players. They have more to offer than just an opportunity to play on a winning interclub team. They actually have programs and activities that are attractive to beginners who may be two or three years away from having enough confidence to join an interclub squash team.
Spending Habits of New PlayersWhy does this matter? Take a look at the graph at the start of this post. It is an approximation based on aggregate internal data gathered from years of tracking customer purchasing at Racquet Network.
Each bar represents one year of expenditures for players who are new to the sport. You can see that new players spend as much in their first two years as they do in their next three years combined. In fact, most players spend more in their second year of involvement with a new racquet sport than they do in any other year.
Now think about a club filled with 100 players in Year 5 and beyond (Y5+). If you look at what these players are likely to spend on their sport, you will see that 100 of these guys will spend as much as 20 players in their second year (Y2). So a club with 50 Y5+ members and 50 Y1/Y2 members is in a much stronger position financially than a club with 100 Y5+ members.
Think back to glory days for squash in the 80s and 90s. In those days, clubs could make some money. And in those days, the clubs were full of beginners. As the sport of pickleball is demonstrating across Canada today, clubs that are full of Y1s and Y2s are way better off than clubs full of Y5+ players.
So when we say that Club A is caught in a cycle of failure, it should be clear now what we mean. Success in the club’s interclub standings is coming at the expense of Club A’s bottom line. Fortunately for us, we are not shareholders in Club A. So, unlike the actual shareholders, we can be somewhat clinical about their prospects.
However, we would prefer to see Club A succeed and stay open. Given their proximity to our business, it would be nice to see them regain their footing and move away from a high performance agenda toward a high participation agenda. In fact, we think it would be nice to see every club in Canada now pursuing a high performance agenda move to back to a high participation agenda because that would be good for the clubs and for every retailer and manufacturer who serves these clubs.
