Wednesday, March 04, 2015

The thing about grip size

Just wanted to share with you an experience I've recently had with the grip size of the racket and how I think it's affected my gameplay.

Now I'm quite the technical player. While to most that just means I don't smash hard enough to become a power player, to me it involves quite a bit of wrist work in order to increase my variety of shots.

Part of my training and practice has involved using a smaller grip size to be able to manipulate the racket head better. The smaller size (Yonex's G5) allows me to hold the handle more loosely and throw in the extra few angles when performing shots.

This allowance of mobility gives me an impressive array of shots.

But alas, I got myself a a G4 Nanoray 900 off a trade. I thought I could've gotten used to it, but it appears I might have to get myself a little sandpaper in order to make the racket a little more usable.

Not that it isn't now. The NR900 (read my review of the racket here) is an awesome racket that I've somewhat chosen to be my doubles racket of choice, for now. The speed and accuracy of the racket is astounding.

After a few games with the 3UG4 NR900 I could actually feel the differences between the two. I noticed a complete slowdown of the reaction, as well as notable defense lacks when it comes to creative returns.

Apart from those before, I could also see a lack in smash power. This may also be a result of the string used (BG66 Force), so I'm not really attributing my failures to just the grip size.

For those like me who have a particular grip preference, I would recommend visiting your friendly neighborhood stringer and see if they offer handle changing services. Expect to wait about 2-3 weeks for your racket to be resized.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

May i know your height? Currently, my racket's grip size is 3 1/4. My house racket is 3 1/2 and beginning to like it. Haven't played with it though in court.

Arthur said...

I'm 185cm tall.