Manufacturers of Tennis Rackets
A handful of companies make most of the performance tennis rackets sold in the UK. Most of them now make padel rackets as well, so the frame technology on these pages increasingly crosses over between the two sports.
| Brand | Origin | Tennis milestone |
|---|---|---|
| Babolat | Lyon, France, 1875 | First natural gut strings. First racket line (Pure Drive) in 1994 |
| Wilson | Chicago, USA, 1913 | Steel T2000 (1967). Pro Staff |
| Head | USA; now Kennelbach, Austria | Aluminium frames at the 1969 US Open. Graphene from 2013 |
| Yonex | Japan, 1946 | Aluminium tennis rackets from the turn of the 1970s. Isometric head in the 1980s |
| Prince | Princeton, USA, 1970 | Howard Head’s oversized aluminium racket |
| Tecnifibre | France, 1979 | Strings from 1983, rackets from 2004. Owned by Lacoste since 2017 |
- Babolat Tennis RacketsBabolat's history from the first natural gut strings in Lyon (1875) to the Pure Drive (1994), Aero (2003) and Pure Strike (2014), plus its padel line.
- Wilson Tennis RacketsWilson's tennis history: the steel T2000 (1967), the graphite and Kevlar Pro Staff, and today's Pro Staff, Blade, Clash, Ultra and Shift ranges.
- Head Tennis RacketsHead's move from Howard Head's skis to aluminium tennis rackets (1969) and graphene (2013), plus the Speed, Radical, Prestige, Extreme and Boom ranges.
- Yonex Tennis RacketsYonex, the Japanese brand founded in 1946 and known for the isometric head shape, and its EZONE, VCORE and Percept ranges.
- Prince Tennis RacketsHow a New Jersey ball-machine maker, founded in 1970, gave tennis the oversized racket through engineer Howard Head.
- Tecnifibre Tennis RacketsTecnifibre, the French string specialist founded in 1979 that moved into rackets in 2004 and was bought by Lacoste in 2017: T-Fight, TF-40, Tempo and more.