Wooden Racquet Construction

The first wooden racquets followed the Real tennis lop-sided shape, but as the popularity of tennis around the world was growing so did the number of manufacturers.

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, except that new titanium materials have enabled racquet sizes to expand past points at which timber would have struggled to achieve.

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.

Dating racquets can be quite difficult however there are clues.

Head shape as evidenced from the photo above shows the lob sided designs adapted from Real Tennis. Note that the Sphairistike racquet is actually stamped with the name and was part of a Wingfield tennis box set.  Then by 1889 the racquet shape became the more vertical style that persists through today.

Apart from shape,  stringing is the key. Thicker 2mm strings usually place a racquet in the pre 1900 period.

Both the concave and convex throat treatments were produced and one of the popular designs was the flat-top for the increased hitting area. However, the oval designs were already the most popular shapes.

The flattop racquet photos below are from unknown USA? manufacturers. This type of design became popular in the mid 1880′s.  The amount of amazing detail in the construction makes these very valuable collectors items. They come up for sale very rarely. Note that the flat top on the first racquet has caved inwards due to prolonged tension by tight strings.

 

 

 

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.

 

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. This is quite a rare treatment on a model called ” The Volley”. You can also note the technique of laminating an additional piece of timber over the wedge which is blended into the frame and hidden under the wrappings.

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.