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This seems to be a question often raised around tables, at least when the veterans are sipping on a cup of tea (nee Bundy, Jack Daniels, Beer).

In an article, in USA Tennis Magazine March 1997, written by Tennis Authority Alan Trengove, Mark Phillippousis was given the task of testing out woodies versus a standard graphite (his own) and a superlong. The reason the article was written was because the ITF had just banned the SuperLong’s being marketed by both Dunlop and Gamma. This meant that all professional racquets had to be under 29″ in length. I recently saw a Gamma 32″ and it really is a massive racquet with a 137″ head size. See the pic below compared to a standard woodie. To meet the new rules they just chopped the length back to 28″.

Anyway back to the test. All the racquets were strung by Mark’s personal stringer using the strings and tensions he was used to and grips were adjusted as well. They were the Dunlop Superlong 29 1/2″, his standard 27″ Dunlop and the recently voted number one racquet of significance over the past 50 years, the wonderful Dunlop Maxply Fort specially flown over from the UK.

The test was conducted at the Melbourne Park, home of the Australian Open.

The results were very interesting. Wood Ave Speed 122mph, Top Speed 124mph and accuracy 60%. Standard length 124mph, 127mph, 52% and Superlong 126mph, 127mph, 80%.

On speed it is surprising that only 4mph separates the woodie from the two hi tech racquets and the woodie even gave Mark some more accuracy over his standard racquet. Maybe Bjorn should have persisted with his woodie in his infamous come back!!! Then maybe Mark should have tried a Woodie more often!!

In a separate, similar test in the USA, four players confirmed these results but found the woodies accuracy levels very low. I guess this does highlight the impact of frame strength and sweet spot size. However, given that these 4 hadn’t played with a Woodie at all or for many years, it also highlights how stroke techniques have changed with racquets. The importance of hitting with woodies using a more flat stroke and good follow through is certainly not in vogue today as follow throughs are moving across the body or at seems in full circle watching the almost table tennis style forehands seen today.

Were the players of old serving at Speeds like Mark? There may have been some big guns back then, but the rules for foot faulting didn’t allow both feet to be off the ground and over the line, so the level of forward momentum couldn’t have been the same.

The other factor was championship play was continuous so there were no sit down breaks between end changes because there were no chairs and no tie breaks which meant a match could easily go 3-4 hours. The wise players of the day relied more on accurate first serves with more twist than pace as way of conserving energy.

The conclusion of the test was that while extra longs seem to assist with accuracy, the additional size, weight and therefore swing speed didn’t create the massive increase in serve speed the ITF were worried about preventing. It is also proves that you really can generate some service speed using an old woodie afterall and suprisingly not that much slower than today’s technologically advanced racquets.

While not thoroughly researched, many players over the course of their careers have had involvement with a host of tennis racquet manufacturers all vying for player endorsements designed to create credibility and sales. (Just another project to get stuck into)!!

As the Australian Professional players, particularly in the late 1960’s – 1970’s, were proving themselves on the World stage the racquet endorsements proved very lucrative. While often contracted to use Slazenger, Spalding or Dunlop in Australia, contracts often allowed players the opportunity to accept contracts within certain overseas markets and you will discover many racquets in the USA endorsed
by Aussies that were never sold here or were available only as a boutique line if their Australian contracts had expired.

By far most Australian players were with either Rawlings or Chemold, but occasionally there were some other interesting liaisons. Rod Laver, Margaret Court and Roy Emerson were in this former category, however Ken Rosewall became an advisor/ consultant to the
The Seamless Sporting Goods Company and a quite unusual racquet was created. The racquet right is a Rod Laver version.

Seamless started business in the rubber industry in 1877 and had been making rubber tennis balls since the early 1920’s, however in the early 1970’s, decided to move into racquets. Attracting Ken was
a real coup and the signature SEAMLESS Ken Rosewall aluminium racquet was launched in c 1971. The actual racquet, according to Siegfried Kuebler’s book, was made by Acro USA and marketed under the SEAMLESS name which the changed from 1973 onwards to SEAMCO. Where the word Seamless appears in the throat, below, on the later model the words Ken Rosewall are printed on a red sticker with white reversed text.

These racquets were sold in Australia by agents and stringing experts Reynold Racquets in Victoria.

As a design , they are really very sleek. Their external part of the frame has no stringing holes like a normal racquet and the string supports were slotted into the inside channel. Consequently, the external frame is very smooth and elegant.

Please see more racquets and other tennis memorabilia at www.tennishistory.com.au

I do need to keep telling myself I haven’t seen it all. Here is a very unsual attempt to allow the player to adjust the length of a racquet via an inbuilt system with the handle. The length can be altered from 28 inches to 30 inches. Not sure about performance but very unique.

The brand is called RAYCO and very little else is known. The head size is 95 sq.in.

In this months USA Tennis Magazine is an article about the TOP 10 RACQUETS of all time.

Without disclosing the contenders in their list or the order, we would be keen to learn of your TOP 10 with the only hint that racquets in the list do start from the wood era.

For some commentary on recent tennis matches visit www.tennis.com

Cheers Rod and Michael

Thanks to the efforts of Andrew Tasiopoulos in South Australia and his permission to use the information on our site, we are pleased to present a comprehensive documentation of SINGLES tennis finals results for many national, state and regional tournaments for men and women from the 1880’s onwards.

It is remarkable to see the names of past champions in easter tournaments such as that held by the Geelong (vic) Lawn Tennis Club. The times were different in the early/mid 1900’s and players travelled the countryside often playing in tournaments and exhibition matches as part of their employment with various sporting manufacturers.

You will be able to search by player, event and year. In each section you can type in a name and search the database with greater precision.

It is a fabulous way to track individual player performances, upsets against top seeds, rivalries that may span a decade etc. This is a massive contribution to our website objective.

Thanks Andrew from the team at www.tennishistory.com.au By clicking this link you will be directed to the results page.

Within the history of tennis racquet design and certainly pre fibreglass/ graphite, the use of two distinct straight shafts holds some fascination. In the wood era the most intriguing designs came from a French company making DARSONVAL racquets named after a respected tennis professor /coach of the early 1900’s. They produced racquets with 2 and 3 separate shafts so they really are quite unique and unusual. The desired effect was to reduce vibration. Other wood shaft racquets of note include the Hazell Streamline (only centre shaft was straight) and Lillywhite Frowd’s 1939 Twinshaft with a central join half way down.

Jumping to the 1970’s to see the next attempts, under the heading UNUSUAL RACQUETS we introduced photos of some steel shaft racquets. I really do think that the ideas did stem from the companies involved also being into golf club manufacturing and wanting to create something different.

The single steel shaft Dunlop Monoshaft looks like a squash racquet and was produced in the early 1970’s presumably to sell against the Lacoste designed Wilson T2000 which were selling extremely well. Weight has been added into the tube to give it the right feel. The thin shaft concept re-appreared in the 90’s with Prince’s Monoshaft, Ripstick, Mach 1000 range. The biggest issue with thin shaft racquets is losing control when you hit off centre. It feels like the racquet twists a little more in your hand, even with the Prince’s.

MacGregor, were mainly into Golf however they also made many wood racquets. One of their transition designs, pre graphite was this “TOURNEY” which I have seen also in a red graphical finish.The big difference with the Tourney is that the head is wood and only the shafts are steel.

Typically and one of the joys of visiting second hand goods stores is that you will never know what you’ll find. Out of the racquet box the other day came the light blue Slazenger Twin Shaft branded the TM. This was a huge surprise as it wasn’t listed to my knowledge in the Kuebler book. On a close inspection the throat piece is very similar to the Dunlop Monoshaft and both were made in the UK and probably in the same factory, since they were at this time the one company with two separate management teams.

One the other side of the World laying out in the elements two old racquets in old canvas bags lay in wait for the hard rubbish collection. A passerby looks at them with interest and thinks why not put them up on ebay.

And as they say the rest is history…… last week my package arrived from France with me a little nervous as what to expect since they were meant to be pretty rough.

The first was a Toulet Oxford. We know this racquet was made outside Paris in the 1920’s, however the really funny thing was that after searching the internet I found a reference to this (assumed same) racquet being sold in Melbourne in 1925 at Chandler’s retail store along with the famous English racquets by Prosser. Not warped, strings great a nice surprise.

Not only was this old woodie a genuine grooved wood handle but the frame shape was hexagonal which I had not seen before. You can just make out the shape change above at the top of the photo. Apparently, there were a few manufacturers using this technique at around this time so a very nice variation on the normal shape.

The second racquet and the original motivation for the purchase was the solid cast aluminium racquet minus a grip, looking decidedly unfinished and experiencing some major corrosion having been stored for over 6o years in an old ALLO canvas bag it was a bit of punt. There is considerable interest in metal racquets, the most desireable being the Birmal Aluminium racquet from the UK which can sell into the hundreds of pounds if you can find them. Then we have Dayton from the USA. While this was only in an ALLO bag and is unbranded, ALLO used to make wooden racquets in the early 1900’s and are listed in Siegfried Kuebler’s book as being involved in the manufacture of weapons and wheels. That’s all we know, so I reckon a strong liklihood that this is a genuine prototype. Given the rough condition, I thought I would take a chance and try to to finish it off, something I usually wouldn’t do. A mate, who has the very handy hobby of rebuilding vintage outboard motors was able to mask off the strings which were all intact and then like a panel beating exercise we filed away the corrosion and set about buffing it to shiny finish. Today my stringer found a butt cap which fitted perfectly and then wrapped a old style, perforated brown grip to give it a finished look.

The design is terrific. Apart from being solid cast, note the intricate throat shape which allows the strings to curve around the holes and the small knobs which are inside the frame to help the string alignment. These are also at the top of the racquet frame as well.

So now it sits on my wall looking quite splendid next to another solid cast racquet out of the USA from the mid 1970’s called a ProAm and other metal favourites like the T3000.

Isn’t this a great story instead of these two beauties ending up as landfill!

End result……….Tres Fantastique!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unusual racquets appeal to me simply because of the creativity applied to produce something different, yet at the same time with meaning. When I first laid my eyes on the Neoxxline I knew I had to have one for the collection because of the combined design elements of the offset head, like the Snauwaert Ergonom and the curved handle of the Bio Gripper (and others).

But, what about playability? From all reports the Ergonom was a shocker and so was the Bio Gripper. However, if you follow the logic of the design, it is all about helping people with weak or injured wrists by allowing the racquet head to drop into the correct position for half volleys and ground strokes. There are some playabilty benefits as well.

While this sounds fine as a concept and not just following the line on their website, one very experienced tennis player and site supporter was so excited he got a couple to hit with. After 2 weeks with the Neoxxline he has decided to sell off his other racquets…….a very big call. I am not joking here either because I bought one of Joes’s Gamma Big Bubba racquets. I am sorely tempted to hit the court with the Neoxxline next opportunity to see how we go.

Here are some comments from Joe and thanks for your input.

As promised on the opening pages of the site, I would like to give you all a taste of the future as Tennis Australia plan for a tennis museum hopefully in the next upgrades of Melbourne Park. In 2000, Rolf Jaeger brought his magnificent collection over to Australia and with tremendous foresight by Tennis Australia the collection was acquired and is now in storage. Although Rolf has re-commenced building another collection, he kindly sent over some photos of the display as it was presented at the Australian Open.

Compared to our site, the items amassed in this collection are of a world class standard truly worth seeing when it eventually comes to fruition.

Please drool over some of the amazing items courtesy of Rolf Jaeger www.tennisheritage.com

I can’t wait to see all of these live…….. Rod

Another interesting tennis item emerged this week with a 1927 photo article about an Australian invented tennis ball machine. Here we have the inventor, Mr P Jepson of Melbourne (left) along with Gerald Patterson (2nd right) with the visiting French Team of Brugnon and Boussus. It served out balls at a rate of 14 -28 balls a minute. So there you go a very early date for the development of ball machines. Also note that Renee Lacoste wrote about building a Tennis ball machine in his book “Lacoste on tennis” so maybe this was the inspiration. This also went to the USA for various exhibitions at tournaments. No idea of the commercial success but a great piece of ingenuity.