String breakage, performance and performance degradation can be frustrating and costly. As a stringer some clients can become down right life threatening, well almost. As an ex pro playing a lot on clay I was used to restrings lasting only about 50 minutes. So its not surprising that I treat restrings as a matter of course like washing the dishes after you cook. In those days we had quite primitive machines so a racket would take about 45 minutes to string which made for some late nights as most of us strung our own.

These days with cutting edge technology, stringing time, stringing machines and strings themselves have improved to the point of becoming blindingly confusing. There is string on the market at the moment with titanium in it. Titanium's a metal, strong and light sure but elastic I don't think so. At least not compared to the plastics available. I suppose though if its got the ultra trendy" Titanium" on it or in it, people buy it.

Strings are designed to break, that's the side effects of playing tennis. Or if you like, that's the price you pay for having fun. Everybody has a budget and a playing level and the trick is to find what's best for you, for the least amount of money.

The break down generally goes like this;

WARNING
Stay away from polyester its made for short careered pro's.
Stay away from Kevlar or use it to repair the fences at the club.
Stay away from string that is thicker than 1.4mm

The thinner the string, the more feel you have if we are to ignore the existence of the above mentioned string. The thicker the string the more endurance you get. Strings range from 1.25mm to 1.4mm but the average player can't tell the difference between two strings with about .05mm differential. This simply means you can't make that much of a mess of it and its still going to play ok if you get the tension right.

String tension is the overriding factor as to how your racket plays.
Good rules of thumb are;

1. If you have no idea what string tension you need, start by stringing the racket at the mid range tension printed on the racket.

2. Write your tension on your racket (a good stringer will always do this for you) and write it in your dairy to keep a tab on the duration

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3. Write down if you liked the restring after you have played a couple of times with it.

4. Keep the same stringer if you have confidence in them and in their machine.

5. The tighter the racket is strung the greater likelihood it will back off from the desired tension, so you'll have to string it more often if you wish to maintain that feel.

String types vary within five base categories, two of which should be ignored because of the risk of arm injury:

1. Natural Gut
2. Monofilaments
3. Multifilament
4. Kevlar   DANGEROUS SUBSTANCE
5. Polyester   DANGEROUS SUBSTANCE

Natural Gut is very expensive and unless you have continuing arm problems and a mid size racket I wouldn't recommend it. You could get two or even three very thinly strung restrings for the same price. The average social player to intermediate player couldn't tell the difference between a racket strung with Gut and a racket strung with thin nylon.

Monofilaments and Multifilament play not dissimilar. Multifilament strings play a little better but they break faster while Monofilaments are the opposite.

Basic nylon monofilaments with a thickness of about 1.35mm are what most rackets are strung with. Its quite cheep and it lasts and I recommend it to most players. The trick is to find a good stringer, good record keeping and paying attention to your rackets performance.

Extra tips; When you put your racket in to be strung get your stringer to balance it and to bring the weight up as most rackets these days are too light. A new grip or over-grip are also good ideas, you'll notice the difference in smell and feel.