Is it advisable to restring your racket a day before your tournament? I have just noticed how frayed one particular spot is. I'm worried that if the string breaks in the middle of the match without me realizing it, it can mean lost points. I do have a spare racket with the same made and model & similar tension. If the tension was originally 21 and a half, & I've been using it for 6 months, what tension should I string now? Does using thinner string really give someone with weak smash more power?
1) if there are fraying on the string before tournament, restring the racquet at lease 2 days before the first match. why? it is frayed because the racquet is your main racquet and you use it a lot and the string will break during the match for sure. 2) if you have a identical backup and have not used it for a while (ie more than a month) restring it too. 3) why 2 days? because you can take the same night or following day to hit a few shots and have the string settled.
I agree. I don't think it's a good idea to re-string the racket, and use it in a competitive game 5 minutes afterward, as you need to give a bit time to let it settle, and get used to the tighter feeling. However, 2 days seem still too short for me. I usually do mine about 1 week in advance.
1. Depend on what string you use, how often you play and how hard your stroke is. But I won't be surprised as the tension now is 18lbs or even lower, consider it's more than 6 months. 2. You need to find your own string/tension combo, as everyone is different. In general, thinner string strung within your own comfortable tension range should give you better performance, if you have the correct technique to backup.
I also second that. At least around a week, I typically give mine about 5 days. If you can do two weeks, probably a bit better. Right now, I have a new racket, which was stringed about 4 weeks ago and have not used it yet. Probably very settled now!
I almost agree except if you give our NGP a newly strung racquet 5 days in advance, it will be broken by the day #3. Just kidding. I said 2 days is because at lease you will have time to try out the new string before you step into your match. 5 days is prob better in most cases.
Even strung with best machine, there will still some tension drop after first day or 2. I don't know your racquet, string and stringer. So it is just safe to say, 5 days is enough for string to settle.
refer to this thread http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php/124011-Stringbed-frequency-to-monitor-string-tension
i want to play AT LEAST once with the new strings before competition..because i very often suck the first time with new strings...second time usually all good if i can plan it i will restring 1 week before so i can play twice with it before competition
If the new string job ends up with pretty similar tensions (verified by similar frequency readings, as in that thread) as your usual playing tension, then there should not be any time needed to adapt to the string. Time may be needed to adapt to a different racket spec perhaps, but tension would be same if frequency is the same.
You guys have to distinguish. In the OP's case, it would be useful to play with the racket at least once to get used to the feeling of the new string. Be it for rational reasons (which I doubt) or just for the "good feeling" to be well prepared. For more experienced/advanced players, it's a different story. I love to play the racket fresh strung the day before. There's nothing like the crisp feel of a new strung racket. But the thing is: The tension on my racket never falls very much before I break the strings, so I don't have to get used to the new tension or something. I would never wait for the string to "settle" (wtf).