About the Wilson Prostaf Tennis Racket

Another in its game-changing series of new rackets, the Wilson Prostaff tennis racket is one of the improvements to the original graphite rackets. Wilson has a reputation for innovative designs when it comes to tennis rackets. It was responsible for marketing the first metal racket in 1967, which was made popular because Jimmy Connors used it to play in major tournaments around the world. The tennis rackets produced by this company consistently have been the choice of champions like Pete Sampras, Roger Federer and Serena Williams, for example.

The Wilson Prostaff tennis racket was introduced in 1987. A metal racket, its design evolved from earlier Wilson tennis rackets made from wood. In fact, the earliest patent for a wooden lawn tennis racket was filed in 1874 in England by Major Walter C. Wingfield. Wood continued to be the material of choice until Wilson made the first metal racket. This was made from aluminum which, while being less prone to breakage than wood, was too flexible to withstand the powerful hits and serves of the most dominant professional tennis players. Aluminum rackets were not as efficient shock absorbers as the wooden rackets either so the players who used the metal rackets had to consider the potential damage to their wrists, elbows and shoulder joints.

By 1980, Wilson developed a new composite material, graphite, from which to make tennis rackets. This involved mixing carbon fibers with a plastic resin. The result was a stiffer racket than aluminum but the graphite rackets were still heavy. They did not perform much better than aluminum, either, when it came to absorbing the vibrations left by the ball. In 1987, Wilson introduced its Prostaff racket which was specially designed for Pete Sampras who was seeded No. 1 in the world from 1993 to 1998. This racket was wider because of a thicker frame, which increased the stiffness and helped absorb shock.

The Wilson Prostaff racket has a strung weight of 12.9 ounces. Heavy rackets can absorb more shock from balls than light ones. This racket weight allows the player more potential for power as well. The racket comes in a standard length of 27 inches. It features a very small head with an area of 88 inches which increases the player's maneuverability but sacrifices some of the power. The Wilson Prostaff comes with a standard string pattern, 16 by 19 and requires 38 feet of string in all. Players can choose to play with a more open pattern, which gives more potential for them to put spin on the ball, or they can elect to use a denser string pattern which makes the strings last longer. The Prostaff racket also came with a leather grip.

The Wilson Prostaff racket's balance is head light. This means that more of the weight is in the handle of the racket instead of in the head. The racket compensates for this by widening and thickening the body to add stiffness. The flat beam acts like a spring in response to the ball's impact but it still transfers a lot of the vibrations to the player's wrists, elbows and shoulders. Later Wilson tennis rackets address this problem with the addition of Iso-Zorb grommets.

Later Wilson developed better composite materials for its rackets. The Hyper Hammer racket added 15 percent hyper carbon to 85 percent graphite to make a racket that was more powerful and able to withstand hard use by players like Serena Williams who have long, fast swings. The development of nano carbon graphite and Kevlar for use in tennis rackets has continued to advance Wilson's reputation in the tennis world. The company went back to making tennis rackets with larger heads after the 1987 Prostaff tennis rackets. Newer designs also resume using a head heavy balance and a lower weight. The newest T-4 Triad series of Wilson rackets take advantage of the strength of the new composites to redesign the cross section so that it performs like a spring to thrust back the ball after it hits the sweet spot.