HELP! My racquet seems to have a crack! Its a prince triple threat bolt and seems to have a 1cm hairline crack on the 11 o' clock position where the head curves and becomes isometric. I'm not so sure if it's a crack, some people say it is a hairline crack, while others say it's just the paint that is cracked and not the graphite part of the racquet. I was playing doubles and it clashed with an old banged up ProAce widebody something while we were trying to return a smash. I'm left handed and staying on the right side of the court and my partner is right handed staying at the left side of the court. The opponent smashed between us. My shot was suppose to be a clear to the back and BOOM! the racket clashed... His racket had lots of paint chips already that you cant tell if it was an old chip or not but my racket was still about two weeks new! How long do rackets with hairline cracks last? Will the crack get bigger? The racket is 86+-2 grams and strung at 23lbs but has a safety tension range of 18-30lbs. Should I get it strung lower than 23 next time? I really like this tension. Please give me comforting words!!!
HI Graphite if u could post a pic of the crack then it would help but the tension should be ok if it's the safety range. if u are that worried then get it checked out. ok then
if it's a hairline crack..then if you take care of the racket and string it at a safe tension..the racket hopefully should be fine. Like ttktom mentioned above..a close up pic of the racket might be helpful in determining whether it's really a crack or not.
I used to play with Prince racquets (switched to Yonex now). One of my racquets looked fine, until I had it re-strung @ 22lb. I went to pick it up from the shop and as the shopkeeper took it off the hook, the head collapsed! Prince very kindly replaced it with a brand new Triple Threat Bolt. I would be very wary playing with a racquet that has a crack in it. If it was to break in the middle of rally, bits of it could fly off and hurt somebody. This has happened to me as well. Another Pronce racquet I had snapped at the shaft whilst I was smashing. The racquet had no visible cracks in the shaft, although it had been involved in a collision a few months earlier. Fortunately the racquet head flew upwards and people had time to get away before it crashed down on them!
graphite, I couldn't really say if Prince would replace your racquet or not. When my racquet broke it was clearly due to the frame failing. It was an earlier model without the extra re-enforcement that Prince racquets have now at various points around the head. Also my racquet wasn't in play when it broke.
Where are the reinforcement things located in a Prince Bolt? Has your bolt ever gotten into a clash? Do the paintjobs on prince rackets chip easily and get cracked when clashed?
