With the development of lighter and stronger frame materials, the size of the racquet head has grown to deliver a string surface area of up to 137sq.in. The reason a larger head area assists is due to the larger sweet spot which can be created making the game far more enjoyable. For those of you who may never have played with a wooden racquet try it some day for fun. You will certainly appreciate the added skill of bygone players who could serve, volley and smash with force not to dissimilar to todays racquets, albeit that modern materials do add power to players in the professional league.

Wooden racquets with larger heads were certainly experimented with.

This photo from Siegfried Kuebler’s book shows Frank Donisthorpe who used this oversized, racquet in Wimbledon in 1921 & 1922. It was 3″ all round larger than a standard racquet and was double strung.

Oversize racquets never really caught the public imagination until Howard Head, then working for Prince, made popular the oversized metal Prince Classic.

There were however some attempts to compete against the new materials using wood and wood composites in the 70’s.

Spalding produced a (made in Belgium by Snauwaert) Challenge Cup Pro which was all wood. Prince also produced the highly collectible Prince Woodie 110sq.in racquet which was a wood graphite combination. The photo below shows the differences between these and a standard woodie.

Below is a photo of a recently acquired Gamma Big Bubba 28″ 137 sq.in. which is legal. In the 1990’s makers also began experimenting with SUPER LONG models up to 32″ in length. The ITF was very concerned and in 1997 introduced rules regarding stringing, frame size and length in order to limit design.

It is amazing how the new graphite, titanium type materials allow larger frames with the strength to deliver sweet spots larger than a complete wood racquet. I hope all the young ones out there appreciate how much harder it was to hit and control a ball with a woodie and why many of the strokes seem more like a slice/push since the objective was to swing with the flight of the ball and use more weight transfer for power. This is still true for today but racquet strength allows for shorter swings and flick shots.

While creative design was certainly evident in the racquet shapes and construction methods, even the humble racquet press came in many shapes and sizes. Presses go back as far as the racquets themselves due to the fact that under enormous pressure from string tautness and combined with often damp or humid conditions racquets would warp or twist out of shape. Presses were essential for longevity of your frame and you will find many racquets have the caution printed on the butt cap, ‘ when not in use store in a press’. Although the ‘one press for one racquet ‘ system was predominant, some of the most highly collectable presses belonged to clubs which held multiple racquets for club players and many touring players had shapely 4-6 racquet presses featuring polished wood and large brass tightening screws.

The first wooden racquets which formed the Wingfield set were actually a more symmetrical design with concave throats, but as demand for lawn tennis racquets grew rapidly other makers elected to follow the Real tennis lop-sided shape due largely to the existing players of real tennis looking for a similar design for lawn tennis.

To gain some advantage over their competitors construction design, string patterns, handle styles all developed down many paths. Surprisingly, many designs we see today have all been done before. This photo below represents the design of Lawn Tennis racquets from inception in 1874 to 1889. Courtesy of Rolf Jaeger and his friend in the UK who owns these examples, it provides the collector with a much better reference point for the evolution of the design.  The lob sided racquet design originally came from the Real Tennis styles, but soon the more vertical design won preference.

From left… a (lightweight) lobbed racket, circa 1876, by Henry Malings. a Sphairistike racket by French and Co., circa 1875. a (larger framed) lobbed racket by Jefferies, circa 1878. and a more modern (in 1889) square headed and laminated racket by F.H.Ayres, circa 1886.
This lovely Jeffries UK model is a trophy racquet featuring a silver collar dating it to October 1879. It also features looped stringing.

Throughout the 1880’s  we see that most designs featured the convex throat and although flat top models became the rage up until the mid 1890’s there were a host of inventions surrounding grip types, stringing patterns and we even have the first all metal tension adjustment frame created in 1887. The early wood racquets of the 1870’s were often made of one solid piece of timber bent into shape after being submerged in cold water and softened further with steam or boiled water. The timber could then be bent around a shaping block bringing the two end pieces together which would form part of the handle. The throat piece or wedge were often made of harder woods. Given the stress factors applied by the vertical strings and impact during play, wrappings were used to reinforce the throat and many early racquets also have a brass screw holding the joint in place. By the mid 1890’s the concave throat and oval shape became the market preference and the fancy stringing became more normal with exception of the very popular Slazenger patented double mains stringing on two of the mains only. The amount of innovation is quite staggering and the craftmanship exceptional.

Some additional design techniques used included the thicker bow shapes at the throat like the example below from a Harry C Lee Lightning model. The brass throat reinforcement was used by UK maker Jefferies who originally made the Wingfield Sphairistike racquets and sets. In the mid 1930’s we see the develpment of the famed Hazell Streamline (rhs) and slotted shaft models. Also in the USA in the late 1920’s we saw the Craven invention in two forms relating to tension adjsutment. The most preferred timber used was Ash, however may experiments were tried using a range of timbers. Ash when cut along the grain in the correct direction was an easy timber to bend. You can see the grain direction and width of the grain in the photos above. An Australian racquet maker relayed a story that English farmers used to plant a grove of Ash trees for the grandchildren’s inheritance, however as we moved into modern times the practice waned and literally the industry exhausted the supply of Ash forcing it to find alternate sources like Aluminium and steel.