Tennis racket shape diversity

What is it about?

Tennis rackets have changed a lot since the origins of the game. This study quantified how tennis racket shape has changed. Silhouettes were extracted from photos of 514 rackets dating back to 1874. Statistical shape modelling was applied to the silhouettes to summarise how racket shape has changed over time. Mean racket shapes were generated for material and age groupings. Modern composite rackets were shown to have larger heads than their older wooden counterparts.

Featured Image

Photo by Cristina Anne Costello on Unsplash

Photo by Cristina Anne Costello on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Shape is a key parameter in modelling equipment performance and mechanics. We think that investigating the effect of racket shape on performance will lead to interesting innovations. Combining the techniques presented in this paper with finite element analysis could be a succinct way to develop and test new sports equipment designs. While it is inefficient to develop such a model of every possible racket, we show here that statistical shape modelling can be used to capture mean rackets shapes, outliers and key shape changes that can then be analysed further. Applying such engineering techniques could allow us to improve on the modern racket shape that has persisted since the 1990s.