The Stringbed and Pro Contact

How many balls do the top players actually hit dead center?

The goal when swinging the racket in tennis is to make contact in the center of the string bed, the so-called “sweet spot,” correct?

We all know the sound and the feeling of the connection between the ball and the strings when it seems perfect. The aesthetics and the harmonics of that moment are one reason why people love tennis.

But where exactly do the top pros make contact on the string bed? If the center is really the sweet spot, how often do they find it? Are there other areas on the racket they actually prefer?

There is a claim currently circulating in coaching that the top players actually prefer to make contact on the lower half of the string bed, down closer to the court, and this allows them somehow to create more control.

Could that possibly be true? It seems unlikely, but it got me wondering about where exactly the contact actually occurred most of the time.

So I decided to find out where top players actually strike the ball, by looking at the forehands of the top three players in the world in our new…