Spare Racquet

Last Monday I was speaking with another player who said he broke his strings during the match and had to play with an opponent’s spare racquet. That racquet was far heavier and hurt his game. That got me thinking- again. I wanted to invest in a spare racquet for a long time. The cost is around 200$ and beyond my comfort zone.

The spare racquet I carry in my kit is a walmart 15$ special that I bought 6 yrs ago and never restrung. It isn’t a player’s frame and my game will be impacted if I play with that. Imagine- I had problems with a dampener on my existing racquet strings. There is no telling what will happen if I play with a sub par frame. The racquet I am using Babolat APD + isn’t manufactured any more. Besides i have added my own customizations such as Luxilon power ALU poly strings and a Power -V grip. There are more advanced offerings from Babolat on what is essentially the same frame but with more tweaking. So my choices are to get a latest frame in that Babolat family or try checking stores for old demo/discounted frames that closely resemble my racquet and then re do my customizations.

Its times like this i wish i had a sponsor ;)

Looking at it from another aspect, the worst case scenario is that I snap strings on (say a Monday session). All it will mean is I may not play well that day. I can get my racquet restrung before the next week’s session. So may be its not a big deal.

Generally We Architects advise everyone to be very close to the latest versions (n-1). If I apply the same philosophy, I shouldn’t be on a frame that is basically n-3 or n-4. Use this as an excuse and get a new frame?—May be but it wont be until I get back from vacation.

Btw, I did workout yesterday though I didn’t do any weights. I want to keep the fitness streak going. A few friends did comment that I still look fat, I am not sure if they are serious. I think I recovered to large extent from the Cold. Wrist hasn’t fully healed and it still hurts if I try to lift anything more than a few pounds. Some more rest is needed.

Ideally, I would like to drop a few more pounds and build a little more muscle before I go on vacation [in less than 3 weeks]. Between Tennis, Badminton, Holiday shopping, House hold chores, I may get at most 10-12 sessions at Gym (excl tennis\Badminton). So it is probably not that realistic.

I will keep you posted on how I do in Badminton tonight. I want to put some additional focus on backhand.