Every Tennis Racket That Changed the Game

In 1975, Arthur Ashe beat Jimmy Connors in the Wimbledon final. Ashe used a HEAD composite racket, and Connors used a steel Wilson T2000. Twelve years later, wood was gone from Wimbledon championship play. This is the history of every tennis racket that changed the game, from wooden frames to graphite, oversized heads and the spaghetti racket that was banned the day after its most famous match. Every racket that changed tennis, explained. A ski inventor’s oversized Prince Classic turned Prince into a company Chesebrough-Pond’s agreed to buy for $62 million. Dunlop’s most loved racket turned out to be a dead end. And a string company’s very first racket, the Babolat Pure Drive, set the template for modern tennis. The full story of tennis racket evolution, from the 1922 Dayton Steel to Roger Federer’s Wilson Pro Staff RF97. It covers René Lacoste’s wire-loop patent, Billie Jean King, Howard Head, Pam Shriver, the Bentley Fortissimo, Ilie Nastase and Guillermo Vilas, the Prince Original Graphite, Yonex ISOMETRIC and Martina Navratilova, the Dunlop Max 200G with John McEnroe and Steffi Graf, the Wilson Pro Staff 85 and Pete Sampras, the Wilson Profile widebody, the HEAD Radical and Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick and Kim Clijsters, the Babolat AeroPro Drive and Rafael Nadal, the Prince O3, and the ITF racket rules that still limit every sweet spot. Next story:    • The Rise and Fall of Prince: The $60 Milli...   Match Point Capital uncovers the brands, deals, and bets that shaped the game of tennis. Chapters 0:00 The Engineering War on the Tennis Court 1:42 The Limits of the Wooden Era 5:20 Prince's Oversized Revolution 7:40 The Spaghetti Racket Controversy 9:33 The Era of Composite Frames Begins 12:06 Wilson's Iconic Pro Staff 14:06 Agassi's Head Radical 14:44 Babolat Enters The Racket Race 16:26 Prince's O3 And Its Downfall 17:24 Federer Switches To Oversized Frame