The Bentley Fortissimo tennis racquet of 1972 was the first oversize tennis racquet to be produced and demonstrated publicly. Prior to its introduction, all tennis racquets were much smaller in terms of the stringbed size, measured in square inches. Today, that size, known as standard, is not used by any professional player for professional match play.
25-479: The Fortissimo was shown in 1972 at the "Spoga", a sporting goods show in Germany. Its designer is Kurt Klemmer, who made the racquet with an epoxy fiberglass process. The Fortissimo was not produced on a commercial scale. Racquet engineer Siegfried Kuebler stated that it did not create a favorable impression with tennis players but was positively received by racquet designers. The Fortissimo emerged two years prior to
50-414: A graphite racquet, due to its flexibility, it absorbed ball shock well due to its wood construction, making it an excellent racquet for training. Similarly, fiberglass was quite flexible, like wood. The desire for more power led to graphite eventually completely displacing fiberglass, although graphite racquets with approximately 20% fiberglass were produced long after 100% fiberglass racquets disappeared from
75-493: A midsize (which is typically 90 square inches). The only active professional player to use a midsize recently is Roger Federer , who switched to a larger racquet at the end of 2013. Oversize and larger racquets are generally used by older recreational players, as a way to reduce the impact of aging on their tennis competitiveness. The largest legal racquets, which are known as super-oversize frames, have proven extremely rare in professional competition, with only Monica Seles being
100-911: A thriving tennis community with more people playing tennis than any other American city, which made it a great base for the company. Atlanta also boasted the largest city tennis league in the world, with more than 80,000 members of the Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association. Yonex Yonex Co., Ltd. ( ヨネックス株式会社 , Yonekkusu Kabushiki-gaisha ) is a Japanese sports equipment manufacturing company. Yonex produces equipment and apparel for tennis , badminton , golf , and running . Its range of products manufactured and commercialized includes equipment for badminton and tennis ( rackets , shuttlecocks , balls , bags) and golf ( clubs , bags ). Yonex also produces athletic shoes and apparel including T-shirts , jackets , skirts , shorts , hoodies , leggings and hats . The company
125-439: A top 10 or higher ranked player who used one (a 125 square inch Yonex ) during her career at any time. Andre Agassi achieved considerable success with an oversize racquet, a fact that was often noted due to his rivalry with Pete Sampras , a player who used a much smaller midsize frame. Oversize racquets are generally considered to offer more power but less control, a trend that exists from the smallest racquet size ("standard") to
150-462: The Prince brand name from Nautic Partners in a procedure that included a voluntary petition for Chapter 11 reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court . Prince Sports' portfolio of brands included Prince (tennis, squash and badminton), Ektelon (racquetball) and Viking (platform/paddle tennis). Its tennis unit recorded $ 59 million in sales in 2011. Authentic Brands owned the intellectual property rights for
175-775: The REX-series with the R-7 and R-10 racquets. At that time Martina Navratilova played with the R-7 and was very successful. One year later, the new series Rexking was developed with the R-22. Navratilova subsequently used the white RQ 180 widebody frame until the early 1990s. Finding a growing market, the Yonex Corporation (a wholly owned subsidiary) was established in Torrance, California , US in July 1983. In 1992 Yonex introduced
200-736: The dominant corporate player in badminton. Yonex sponsors the All England Open Badminton Championships and is a partner of the Badminton World Federation which organizes the World Championships . Upwards of 80% of competitive players use their racquets, as it is the preferred choice amongst professionals. Yonex is significant in the tennis and golf industries as well and is a major sponsor of professional athletes in all three sports. Yonex supplies official materials for
225-742: The early 1970s and developed the company's signature oversized tennis racket. Although the Prince Classic aluminum racket was the first oversized racquet to be patented, the Bentley Fortissimo preceded the patent by two years, causing Germany to invalidate the patent. During those years, the company was owned by a variety of different firms, including the Benetton Group of Italy , Lincolnshire Management, Inc. (which acquired Prince from Benetton in 2003) and Nautic Partners LLC. In July 2012, Authentic Brands Group acquired
250-699: The estates of Marilyn Monroe and Bob Marley , among other celebrities. By September 2012, the Waitt Company agreed to a 40-year license to operate the Prince brand . Prince Global Sports now operates as a subsidiary of Athletic Brands Holding Company, which is majority-owned by the Waitt Company. The company's portfolio of brands also includes Ektelon, Viking and Battle. After recovering from bankruptcy, in March 2014, Prince announced that it would move its headquarters from Bordentown, New Jersey to Atlanta . Prince's CEO Mike Ballardie stated that Atlanta had
275-453: The filing of the influential and lucrative patent for racquets sized 95-135 square inches by Prince Sporting Goods (now Prince Sports and commonly called Prince). This resulted in the disqualification of the patent by the German patent authority. The Prince patent was upheld elsewhere and the company became the only highly-successful seller of oversize racquets in their early history. The first
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#1732783676977300-622: The historical details regarding the Fortissimo, is now only available via one of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine snapshots. Prince Sports Prince Global Sports, LLC is an American sporting goods manufacturing company based in Atlanta, Georgia . Founded in 1970, Prince's range of products includes rackets , footwear, apparel, tennis balls , pickleball paddles, stringing machines , hats and bags. The company
325-410: The largest legal size, which is 135 square inches. There were twelve Fortissimo racquets produced and only two are reportedly still extant, both of which are possessed by Siegfried Kuebler, the designer notable for creating widebody racquets. Those led to the very popular and extremely influential Wilson Profile racquet of 1987. Kuebler's first widebody racquet emerged in 1984. As few were produced and
350-546: The low-budget recreational line sold in generalist stores such as Walmart . The Yamaha Corporation saw success in the marketplace in the 1970s and early 1980s with fiberglass racquets made with the small "standard" head size such as the YFG 10. Several other companies introduced racquets made just with fiberglass as well, such as Caldon and Head. As with the Yamaha, these were made with the standard head size. The Fortissimo, however,
375-423: The market. No professional tennis player has used the small "standard" racquet head size since the 1980s for a professional match, with nearly all players having switched to a midsize or larger frame by 1984. However, even today, few professionals use an oversize racquet, preferring a midplus or super midplus. That size is smaller than that of an oversize (which is typically 110 square inches) and larger than that of
400-454: The primary constituent material of a tennis racquet. The change from the "standard" (the smallest) racquet head size, which was used until the 1970s by all tennis players, to larger sizes is considered to be the most dramatic in terms of tennis racquet technology change by some tennis historians. However, the materials shift from soft wood to stiffer, lighter, and more warp-resistant materials (culminating in graphite), which generally accompanied
425-570: The transition to larger head sizes, also is paramount in terms of impact. As oversize wooden racquets have a strong tendency to warp and also lack solidity when produced at a playable weight, only one was produced, the Prince Woodie, which had many layers of graphite to improve its stability. That racquet was used successfully by male and female professionals, such as Gabriela Sabatini and professionals in development, such as Tommy Haas . Although it offered very little power, when compared with
450-441: The two that were submitted to the German patent authority disappeared for many years, little is known in the tennis world about the Fortissimo. Howard Head and the company formerly known as Prince Sporting Goods (not Prince Sports ) received the mind share and market success for oversize racquets in their early years. The article that appeared on the sporting goods company Tennis Warehouse's website in 2005, in which Kuebler provides
475-490: The widebody badminton racket, the "Isometric 500", a racquet that was much less "tear drop"-shaped than previous ones. The more "square" head gave it a much larger striking surface, which provides a larger "sweet spot" to hit the shuttle. It led other manufacturers to follow suit in "square-head" or isometric designs. The parent company was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1994. Yonex describes itself as
500-520: The world leader in golf, tennis and badminton equipment. Yonex provides clothing for national badminton associations around the world, such as the Malaysian Badminton Association, Badminton Scotland , Badminton England , Badminton Ireland, and Badminton Wales. Yonex has also been teaming up with OCBC (Orange County Badminton Club) since 2007 to host the annual U.S. Open Grand Prix Badminton Championships. Yonex has become
525-432: Was created for the worldwide distribution. After the company began to make aluminium badminton racquets in 1969, it found that the same technology could be applied to the tennis racket which the company introduced in 1971. The company began to experiment with graphite shafts for both types of rackets and found that these would also be useful for golf clubs. In 1982 Yonex came out with the new oversized tennis racquet in
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#1732783676977550-461: Was founded in 1946 by Minoru Yoneyama as a producer of wooden floats for fishing nets . The company was later forced out of this market because of the invention of plastic floats. This led to a commitment by Yoneyama to never again be left behind by technological advancements. In 1957, Yoneyama began to make badminton racquets for other brands. By 1961, the first Yoneyama-branded racquet was introduced, and within another two years an export company
575-459: Was founded in 1970 by Robert Hirt McClure (1893–1991) of Princeton, New Jersey (the origin of the company's name) as a manufacturer of tennis-ball machines, and soon after, rackets . Howard Head , founder of the Head sporting goods company, took tennis lessons following his retirement and used a Prince tennis ball machine, but was frustrated by his slow improvement. Head joined the Prince company in
600-467: Was made with the new oversize head size, using the improved resistance to warpage (when compared with wood) and lighter weight (when compared with metal) of fiberglass. Fiberglass never achieved market dominance, though, as wood racquets with graphite layering and metal racquets, including oversize models, continued to find popularity. Graphite, which offered better stiffness and resistance to cracking than fiberglass, eventually displaced all other materials as
625-463: Was the very flexible aluminum Prince Classic of 1976. Tad Weed introduced the first super-oversize in 1975, to start a line that continues to be sold today. Although metal racquets became popular in the 1970s, beginning with the invention of the 1963 Lacoste steel racquet that became the extremely successful Wilson T2000 , synthetic materials, beginning with fiberglass and culminating in graphite, would eventually completely displace them from all but
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