Hi everyone, I was just watching the 1985 All England final, and was surprised by how dull the shots sounded. The sound seems even lower than store strung rackets, maybe 15-16 lbs? Were the rackets actually strung this low, or is something else at play like different racket materials dampening the sound or the recording equipment being inaccurate?
Tensions were much lower for sure but not sure by how much, i thought the same thing though when watching some old matches so be interesting to find out for sure.. i think the material of the strings may of been different aswell
in early 2000's Indonesian national players were already using around 30s, the microphone used during those times were not as high quality too. In the 80's it was lower but definitely not lower than 22s. Mine was strung @ around 20-22 and I was playing competitively in high school.
Interesting, did you find the sound has changed over the years as racket technology changed? Or is it just that the microphones were inaccurate?
Racket technology has been pretty much static for the last 30+ years, the biggest improvements were the usage of graphite in rackets. Sound improves but it could be due to better playing+recording technologies. Maybe the microphones used were not designed for high frequency sounds of impacts, i don't really know. But nowadays, even many amateurs using high-tension stringings which destroys rackets easily. Also, the hi-frequency sounds also shoot up due to very2 thin strings. In the 80's all we had mostly 0.7 and bigger, now it's already 0.59
Interesting, thanks! Having only just starting playing this year, I have plenty to learn about the history so I appreciate your input!
I decided to watch the 1985 All England MS final, Zhao Jianhua vs Morten Frost again. Morten looks to be using a Carlton and Zhao an early generation Yonex Carbonex. I was playing competitively in the mid-80s and used to string my rackets up to 23 lbs. I would say that during that time the rackets were probably strung at mid to high 20s. The early generation carbon graphite rackets had built-in head joints and the early generation rackets could've take tensions higher than that.
Zhao used a carbonex 7 in that match. I heard in china those days, many people hand strung racquets. The state of the art strings we had were gosen hy sheep and hy-o-sheep. Yonex BG65 revolutionised the market. It arrived around 1985/6. Park Joo Bong was the initiator of high tensions like 30lbs. (Heard this from the HK open stringers). In 1987 and 1989, he was using carbonex 9, the aluminum head version. The first fully carbon graphite racquet was carbonex 15 with a t piece. That one could not be strung to high tensions. Carbonex 20, 2u, which came out after the carbonex 15, can take 32lbs.
Hi Cheung, thanks for the info about the Zhao's racket being a Cab7. Hosen hy-sheep and hy-o-sheep were in quite common use then. Do you know what specific racket Morten was using? I have a 1st Gen. Cab15 with the t-joint. Have heard about their being unable to take high tension on the head frame. The early carbon graphite frames were not too strong then as manufacturers like Yonex haven't 'perfected' the material used unlike the present generation high tech grades of modulus graphite and also advanced techniques of CADCAM now available.
Hi there When I was in my state camp in the mid/late 80s, I still remembered that I was using cab 8 sp and strung it at 22lbs with bg 65. After I changed to cab 9 when joining the national back up camp, my cab 9 was then strung at 24lbs.
It was a time when some pros were still using natural guts. I remember my PE teacher (who was very much into badminton) told me that he strung his Cab racket at 20lb. I also remember when I went to restring my aluminium racket at 19lb in the late 80s', and I was too small to recall what string that was. It was a very different time in those days. Even my Aerotus 110 in the mid 90s' could only take 23lb at best, and one of them managed to snap at the 12 o'clock area.
