I'm aware the topic of string tension has been beaten to death multiple times on this forum but I haven't come across this idea yet. Recently I strung Bg80 at 26lbs compared to my usual 24. Anyway, In the beginning I noticed my smashes were just cannons compared to normal and my backhand clear was actually baseline to baseline instead of the doubles back service line. Since power clearly wasn't an issue with this slightly higher tension I was thinking I might string all my rackets at this tension. However, my soft shots felt different. They weren't necessarily worse, but I just didn't feel them. Especially net shots. It's like they weren't on my racketbed long enough for me to feel what I was doing. Most of my shots were still fine, but good shots and bad shots felt the same. Usually when you hit a bad shot you feel you're playing a bad shot as you hit it, but now I just didn't feel anything. So, does string tension affect hard shots and soft shots differently? Is your ideal tension different for different shots? Has anyone had a similar experience in the past? Should I stick with it to learn to feel the shots at this higher tension, or should I give up the cannons I'm firing to get back the feel on soft shots? Or rather, what would you do?
It's all a matter of habituation. Especially at the net you have to hold the racket a bit looser. After a few weeks, the other way (24lbs) feels weird on soft shots.
That's normal for BG80. BG80 is one of, if not the hardest string you can buy. So unless you like that very brief contact time with the shuttle, you either have to reduce your tension or change to a softer string. As I also like to have a bit of "dwell time" but also like high tensions, I've gone with a very high tension but medium stiff string.
Which string do you use? I'm very reluctant to change strings as I find the feeling on hard shots with bg80 to be... orgasmic. I'll be playing with this stringjob for a while and I'll see if I can adapt to it. Otherwise I'll probably reduce tension.
I'm currently using VS890 @ around 33-35lb tension. But although it is the best string for me, it breaks quite suddenly so I'm testing a number of different strings at the moment.
Yes. No question. The worst thing you can do to a playable string is to tension all of the touch out of it. We see this all the time. Players buy string like BG80 or Aerobite that functions best at 20-24 lbs and then tension all of the playability out of it. It's one of those things that make us shake our heads.
