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Save $200 Stringing Babolat Tennis Racquets

Great news for Babolat fans in Calgary. Our Babolat tennis racquet program just got even better.

There is no point in buying your Babolat tennis racquets anywhere else because nobody can beat this deal.

Starting today, every customized Babolat ™ tennis racquet purchased in-store now comes with $200 in free stringing upgrades.

But wait! There’s more …

Customers who purchase these racquets from us will save time as well as money because they will be able to automatically upgrade from basic labour (one week turnaround) to guaranteed one-hour stringing at no extra charge.

Racquet Network’s new tennis 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.

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 Babolat tennis racquet from us, we automatically include $200 worth of stringing upgrades.

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

Our new tennis program, therefore, continues to be the best overall program in Calgary for tennis players who want to save time, save money and play with the best tennis 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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Become a Racquet Network Playtester

Become a Racquet Network Playtester

Racquet Network invites frequent intermediate racquet sports players to become Product Playtesters.

Product Playtesters are brand ambassadors who test racquets, strings, shoes and other products during their regular activities and then write product reviews which are published on our website.

Even though they do not work for us, we consider Product Playtesters to be part of the family and we allow them to purchase everything we sell at staff price.

In many cases, Product Playtesters are allowed to keep what they test. In some cases, they have the option of purchasing tested products at staff price once testing is complete.

In order to become a Product Playtesters, an applicant must be a frequent player at the intermediate level who has been a Racquet Network customer for at least one full year. They must be active in their sport at least nine months per year, must be active on social media channels and must demonstrate enthusiasm for Racquet Network on their social media accounts.

Racquet Network supports a maximum of five product testers in each of the following sports:

  • tennis
  • squash
  • badminton
  • pickleball
  • racquetball

To apply to become a product tester, please send an email to orders@racquetnetwork.com.

Before you do that, however, consider the following points carefully.

  • We only consider applicants who live in Calgary.
  • We only consider customers who have been with us for a year or more.
  • We only consider frequent intermediate players — not beginners, not experts.
  • We only consider people who are active in their sport nine months a year or more.
  • We only consider people who have already shown us love on their social media accounts.

All new Product Playtesters start on a waiting list and remain there for a minimum of three months while they wait for a position to come open. When/if they are accepted as Product Playtesters, they get a maximum term of one year.

Sorry. There are no exceptions. After one year, it is time to step aside and allow somebody else to have this opportunity.

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Tennis Racquet Stringing Options for Competitive Juniors

Goran Vukovic

Why do so many of Alberta’s top competitive junior tennis athletes and their parents choose to string at Racquet Network?

Probably because our expert staff and coaches work with parents to protect the health of their junior athletes.

Keep in mind that we have been working with junior tennis players and their families since 2004. Over the years, we have watched these junior athletes grow up, compete, earn scholarships, graduate from college and start families of their own. Some of our athletes even have their own children enrolled in tennis programs today.

In spite of the best efforts from these players, their parents and their many coaches over many years, not one of these Calgary hopefuls ever turned pro.

Why? Because this is Calgary. We keep our fingers crossed for all of these kids, of course, but the odds of anybody from Calgary ever turning pro are very slim indeed.

The most common outcome that we have seen over the years are junior tennis players who become young adults with all of the injuries and nagging aches and pains of the pros but none of the accolades.

It breaks our heart to hear about fifteen-year-olds who cannot sleep on their right sides due extreme to shoulder pain.

That’s why our emphasis is always on who-the-athlete-is-right-now, not what-we-want-the-athlete-to-become.

Our experts never recommend that juniors use the same strings or racquets that adult pros use. Both of these are way to stiff for undeveloped muscles and joints and can lead to persistent injury and chronic pain.

Our advice to juniors is to stay away from these things until they are adults. In the meantime, use gear that is designed for athletes their age.

Polyester strings are a great example of this. Pros use polyester because their swings are extremely fast. The top players in major tournaments can also have tens of thousands of dollars riding on a single swing of the racquet. So they cannot risk having a string break at an unexpected moment.

Juniors under 14, even the best of them, are not as strong as adults. They don’t need polyester strings. Moreover, the long term injury effects of using polyester strings at too young of an age are well documented.

Our advice to junior players and their parents is to stick with multifilament string until they turn 14 or until they are swinging so hard and breaking string so often that they have no other choice.

In the meantime, Racquet Network has developed a graduated stringing program with ten different levels. Level 1 starts juniors off with soft thin string suitable for 8-10 year olds. Each succeeding level above Level 1 has slightly more durable string. The final level, Level 10 has the most durable multifilament string we can find.

Most new players entering the program start at Level 1. If the string at that level lasts for two weeks, then we consider it the right level. If not, then they move up a level and they keep moving up levels until the reach a combination that lasts two weeks or more before breaking.

Once the find their level, they stay at that level until they outgrow it. Once their swing speed develops beyond that level and they start breaking string again regularly, it’s time to move a little higher on the chart.

The more they play, the stronger athletes get. So if your athlete is breaking strings more often than they were a few months ago, it may be a sign that they are improving and hitting harder. Our level systems helps parents and athletes find the right string combination for their current level. It also gives players who are improving an idea of where to go next.

At every level, our goal is to provide junior athletes with a string that is strong enough to handle their power but soft enough to protect their growing joints and developing soft tissues. This is the best way we know to minimize chronic shoulder pain which many advanced athletes first start to experience in their third year of competitive tennis.

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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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Yonex Tennis Racquets | Try Before You Buy

TRY BEFORE YOU BUY - DEMO PROGRAM
Our customers test drive more than 1000 racquets every year.
Racquet Network customers test drive more than 1000 badminton, tennis, squash and pickleball racquets every year.

Yonex ™ tennis racquets are amongst our most popular for customers who want to try before they buy. As a result, we offer more Yonex racquet demos than anybody else. We even have doubles of the most popular Yonex racquets.

Our Try Before You Buy program allows customers to spend up to month test driving a variety of racquets.

For more information, please talk to a racquet expert in-store at 310 2525 Woodview Dr SW. We are open 7 days a week.

Yonex Tennis Racquets

Many — but not all — of the Yonex tennis racquets that we sell are included in our Try Before You Buy program. Please visit us in-store for details.

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.