Tennis Rackets Reviews

The best review sites critique many tennis rackets after hands-on testing by multiple players and don't have a bias toward specific manufacturers. Tennis Warehouse, a retailer, offers basic capsules on each of the 245 rackets it sells, with information that usually goes well beyond manufacturer blurbs. In addition, 201 of those tennis rackets have customer reviews. About 50 get very long, detailed staff reviews -- including numerical scores that are based on the hands-on use of four or five testers. Normally, consumers ought to apply a great deal of skepticism to the assessments of those who are selling the products. But it doesn't appear that Tennis Warehouse's reviews are based on an allegiance to certain manufacturers. Its highest and lowest scores go to two Wilson tennis rackets, for instance, but the low score doesn't indicate a bad racket, just a narrow appeal. Tennis Magazine's website, Tennis.com, offers short capsule reviews of more than 180 tennis rackets, but doesn't assign a grade to them or rank them in any way other than naming 26 of them as an Editors' Choice.

TennisCompany.com, another retailer's website, offers staff reviews based on hands-on use for 35 rackets. The reviews seem credible and unbiased, but there's no way of telling which rackets the reviewers like best.

After those three reviewers, there's a long drop-off in review quality. There are a few websites that arrive at clear choices as the "best," but they either assess only a few of the hundreds of tennis rackets available or, perhaps even worse, don't say how many rackets were considered before anointing three or four of them. In the case of Smash, a tennis magazine, one can assume there was some broader frame of reference because it specializes in the sport. In the case of Best Life magazine, the publication is not devoted to tennis. Consumer Reports has not evaluated tennis rackets since John McEnroe's last year of competition -- 1992.

Even in the higher price ranges, the fact that a certain tennis racket is endorsed by your favorite player does not mean that it's an exact copy of the one he or she uses on Centre Court. Ads may say that a particular model is used by a star, but as one expert guide notes, the actual equipment may have been altered in weight and balance to fit that pro player's demands. Usually professionals use rackets that are heavier than most weekend warriors would want – their strokes are clean and forceful enough that they don't need much power help from the racket. Some observers believe that some players who like their current racket simply have it painted to resemble a new model that a manufacturer wants to push. According to Racquet Research, "about the most you can buy is the same paint job."

Just because you've found a tennis racket you like doesn't mean you can go ahead and buy six of them and expect them to play exactly the same. The retailer The Tennis Company says on its website that samples of the same model can vary out of the box by as much as 15 percent on weight and balance. Good pro shops use expensive equipment to measure the rackets and pair them with those of the same specifications or tweak them a bit so they'll play alike.

One other fairly recent trend is that tennis rackets are increasingly being treated as gender-neutral. Some companies do target certain models to women, but major review websites don't pick a "best for men" or "best for women." The Prince O3 White is Maria Sharapova's racket, but it is considered fine for men, too, and in fact was developed with input from 20 male and female touring pros, including Sharapova. No matter your gender, if you hit hard, you'll probably want a "players racket" that gives you better control rather than an "improvement racket" that helps you hit harder.  ... Continued

Our Consensus Report shows how many times products are top-ranked by reviewers included in our
All The Reviews Reviewed chart.

Reviews focus on tennis rackets for advanced and intermediate players, and even then most review sites tend to shy away from saying which is "best" because many manufacturers produce a wide variety of good products, each of which is meant to appeal to a small niche seeking a specific combination of power and control. Still, the Head Flexpoint Radical and Babolat Aeropro Drive receive widespread praise, as do the Prince models in the O3 series and various Wilson products. You'll not encounter many negative reviews as review sites ignore cheaper models that you'd be likely to find in big-box stores. We included the Head Liquidmetal 8 as a good prestrung beginner racket since it's so highly regarded by pros at Tennis-Warehouse.com.