Keeping your strings fresh will have a significant impact on the power and control you generate when hitting. It’s worth replacing your tennis strings consistently to make sure you can perform your best and not change your play to match your strings.

Here are a few of the top reasons players should restring their rackets.

Tension Loss – Your tennis strings begin to lose their tension immediately after they are strung. In the first 24 hours after stringing, strings can lose 10 percent of their tension. This reduction in tension continues as time goes by. Although tension loss is a natural part of stringing, it can reduce a player’s ability to control the ball effectively if left too long.

String Performance – As your strings go dead, they begin to lose their performance characteristics, which you may have bought them for in the first place. They lose their resilience and snapback effect, which is part of how they help players generate topspin. Similarly, if you play with a multifilament tennis string to provide you with power, then your pace and depth of shot will decline. One of the worst things that can happen to a player is they begin to adjust their technique to compensate for the string.

Reduce Shock – Maintaining a freshly strung racket will help cut down on shock. Strings lose their resilience, which aids in providing players with a softer response, preventing elbow and arm discomfort.

Loss in Control – When strings lose tension, the ball spends more time on the string bed, which can lessen your control. A loss in tension can mean you will find yourself hitting just long, making more unforced errors or having difficulty placing the ball.

Loss in Topspin – When polyester strings lose tension, there is a reduction in the snapback of the strings, which means you have to swing harder to generate the same amount of topspin as you would on a freshly strung racket. Polyester strings also develop dead spots, which causes an erratic response. If you find yourself hitting with less spin and you have to straighten your strings after every point, then it’s probably time to restring.

Lack of Pop –  When your strings are fresh, they’re also resilient, which means they can effectively return energy to the ball. As time goes on, your strings will lose their resilience, making it challenging to hit with as much power.

This is why it’s important to re-string your racket on a consistent basis. So what does consistent mean in this case? There’s a rule of thumb around the industry that you should take the number of days a week that you play and use that as the number of times a year you should change your string. Meaning, if you play four times a week, you should restring your racket four times per year.

This guideline could work well for the recreational players who play for fun but aren’t as focused on the competitive aspects of the game. Now, if you’re focused on improving your ranking and winning tournaments, considering that your racket is literally your tool, you’re going to probably want to take another approach when it comes to re-stringing. For the more competitive, frequent players, you’ll likely want to base your restringing on the frequency of your play. Let’s say you play five times a week. You would take that number and double it to figure out how many times a year (give or take) you should restring your racket. In this example, you’d be restringing your racket roughly 10 times per year.

Consistently re-stringing your racket will save you from the frustration of having to overcompensate for your strings