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Greatest Tennis Rackets of all time GROAT:

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• This list is under construction, these are the current candidates
• Few early wood tennis racquets listed below:
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• 1870s R.Daft lopsided (Nottingham)
• 1880s Feltham lopsided Alexandra (Prince of Wales)
• 1888s Spalding Slocum
• 1890s Wright & Ditson Sears Special
• 1891s Horsman Eclipse
• 1893s Horsman Tuxedo Expert
• 1900s F.H.Ayers Elongstar Maltress Zingari models (London)
• 1900s Slazenger Demon Fishtail
• 1910 Wright & Ditson Davis Cup Wavy Wegde Model
• 1920s Slazenger Doherty
• 1930s The Alexander Jack Crawford Cressy Wizard
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• Many photo decal famous player rackets from the 1930s .. 1960s.
  A few popular models listed below:
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• 1930s Spalding Open Throat Bill Tilden Top-Flite
• 1930s Spalding Open Throat Bill Tilden Cannon Ball
• 1938s MacGregor Frank Parker Autograph
• 1930s Wilson Ellsworth Vines Famous Player Series (Allstar, Authograph, California, Championship, Model A/AA, ...)
• 1940s Wilson Don Budge Famous Player Series (Allstar, Finalist, Ghost, International, Master, Phantom, Signature, Superstroke, Tournament)
• 1940s Wilson Bobby Riggs
• 1950s Spalding Pancho Gonzales Autograph Models
• 1950s Slazenger Challenge Number 1 (Rosewall)
• 1960s Dunlop Maxply Fort (Laver)
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• Short list soo far for the 1960s rackets. Lots more woodys to list ...
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• 1962 Wilson Jack Kramer Autograph (JKA) - Most popular and most racket sales of all time, approx 30 million
• 1963 Lacoste - first steel racquet (prototype for famous Wilson T-2000)
• 1969 Head Arthur Ashe Competition Aluminum Compositie (AA)
• 1968 Wilson Jimmy Connors steel T2000
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• Short list soo far for the 1970s rackets. Lots more candidates to list ..
  Probably the most interesting and radically changing decade in tennis racket materials and productions !
  Material included wood, metal, aluminum, magnesium, graphite, carbon, kevlar, ceramic, fiberglass, boron, ...
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• 1971 Seamless Ken Rosewall steel
• 1972 Volkl Zebra - first fully synthetic (fiberglass) racket
• 1973 Seamco Ken Rosewall steel
• 1973 Chemold Rod Laver steel
• 1973 Rawlings John Newcombe steel Tie Breaker
• 1976 Prince Classic and Pro Oversize Metal Rackets launched OS Tennis Era
• 1977 Werner Fischer Spaghetti Strung Racket (Nastase ITF Ruling Outlaw)
• 1977 Kneissl White Star Pro first mold for famous Lendl rackets (Adidas, Mizuno)
• 1978 Prince Original Graphites POGs (Agassi, Chang)
• 1979 Jack Kramer Pro Staff wood (JKPS)
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• List for the 1980s contains many well accepted classic graphite old school rackets.
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• 1980 Kneissl White Star Lendl Pro (KWSLP) (Kevlar)
• 1980 Wilson Ultra Graphite
• 1981 Adidas GTX Pro T (GTXPT) (same as White Star Lendl Pro)
• 1982 Wilson Ultra 2 Midsize (WU2)
• 1982 Dunlop MAX 200G (Graf/McEnroe)
• 1982 Rossignol F200 and F250 (Willander)
• 1983 Wilson Pro Staff Midsize (PS85) (Kevlar)
• 1983 Snauwaert Ergonom
• 1984 Donnay Pro Cynetic 1 (Arias)
• 1984 Puma G. Villas
• 1984 Head TX Edge
• 1982 Yonex R-7 (Navratilova)
• 1985 Yonex Rexking R-22 (Navratilova)
• 1985 Adidas GTX Pro-T (Lendl)
• 1985 Puma Boris Becker Winner
• 1986 Head TX Professional
• 1986 Head Prestige Pro
• 1987 Fischer Vacuum Pro (Stich)
• 1987 Wilson/Kuebler Profile - powerful widebody design starts transition to power rackets
• 1988 Yamaha Secret 04
• 1988 Lacoste LT 301 (Guy Forget)
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• Short list soo far for the 1990s rackets. Lots more candidates including some nice head and dunlop models ...
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• 1993 Head Prestige Classic 600 (PC600) (Ivanisevich, Safin)
• 1993 Radical Tour/230 (Agassi)
• 1994 Pro Tour 630/280 PT630 and PT280 (Muster)
• 1996 Yonex Super RD Tour 90 (Lleyton Hewitt)
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• The following year 2000+ rackets have not stood the test of time as clasics but many players are quite impressed with them.
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• 2000 Wilson Tour 90 Federer
  Wilson K Factor KSix-One Tour 90 PT90 (12.5oz, 9pts HL, stiffness 67)
• Wilson K Six.One Tour 90 PJ - Roger Federer
• 2008 Wilson K88 Sampras
  Wilson K Factor KPro Staff 88 (12.8oz, 6pts HL, stiffness 67)
• Wilson K-Blade Team (104) - Serena & Venus Williams
• Babolat Pure Storm Ltd. GT 2009 (11.9oz, 9pts HL, stiffness 59)
• Babolat Pure Drive Roddick Plus BPD - Andy Roddick
• Babolat AeroPro Drive Cortex BAD - Rafael Nadal,Kim Clijsters,Carlos Moya
• Dunlop Aerogel or 200g PJ - James Blake
• Prince EXO3 Rebel 95 (12.3oz, 9pts HL, stiffness 60)
• Prince O3 White (O-Ports) - Maria Sharapova
• Head YouTek Radical Pro - Andy Murray
• Head YOUTEK Radical Midplus (11oz, 2pts HL, stiffness 59)
• Head Microgel Prestige Pro (12.1oz, 7pts HL, stiffness 63)
• Head Prestige Classic PC PJ - Maret Safin
• Head Trysis 260 Radical Tour - Andre Agassi
• Volkl Power Bridge 10 Mid VPB10 (12.1oz, 10pts HL, stiffness 59)

Criteria for Greatest Tennis Rackets of all time GOAT:

• List considers rackets that were made famous by great players or generally excepted as outstanding player rackets
• List considers rackets that were used to win major championships
• List considers rackets that were innovative in design and offered a significant benefit over prior rackets

Greatest Tennis Rackets by Decade:

• Greatest Rackets of each Decade GRODs:
  
• 1870's - R.Daft lopsided
  
• 1880's - Feltham lopsided
  
• 1890's - Wright & Ditson Sears Special
  
• 1900's - Slazenger Demon Fishtail
  
• 1910's - Wright & Ditson Davis Cup Wavy Wegde Model
  
• 1920's - Slazenger Doherty
  
• 1930's - Spalding Open Throat Bill Tilden Top-Flite
  
• 1940's - Wilson Don Budge Famous Player
  
• 1950's - Slazenger Challenge Number 1
  
• 1960's - Dunlop Maxply Fort
  
• 1970's - Jack Kramer Autograph & Pro Staff
  
• 1980's - Dunlop MAX 200G / Wilson Pro Staff Midsize
  
• 1990's - Head Prestige Classic 600 / Wilson Prostaff (Sampras) (see Notes 2 and 3)
  
• 2000's - Babolat Pure Drive / Wilson Prostaff (Federer) (see Note1)
  
• 2010's - The Babolat rackets still rule: Aero and Pure Drives (see Note4)
  
• NOTE1: The rise of the Babolat rackets also involved majority use of poly strings. The trend started with Kirshbaum Super Smash and then Luxilon Big Banger. Luxilon endorsed the ATP tour in the 2000 decade and reached usage levels of over 80% with the ATP players.
• NOTE2: Most of the GROATs until the later 1990's were played with Natural Gut strings with the Victor brand the mostly popular for the first half century and then Babolat (VS) taking over as the most popular player strigns.
• NOTE3: The lighter, stiffer, and more powerful graphite rackets increased the need for strings that were less powerful to help tame these new class of baseline blasting rackets. This need was satisified by polyester strings. As the players started to experiment with the new rackets and poly string offerings, the natural transition was to hybrid or blend the stringing such that holf the racket used natural gut strings and the other half used poly strings. This stringing blend with the mixed cross and main strings is still popular as of 2012.
• NOTE4: The Head and Wilson Rackets are very popular alternatives to the Babolat rackets. Many players use the Head YOUTEK and Wilson prostaff models. The 1990s Wilson prostaff 6.0 midsize was one of the most popular player rackets due to the association with the Sampras championships. Federer also started with this Wilson prostaff racket and stil plays a variant with slightly different composition and cosmetics. See more on famous player rackets below.

Famous Great Player Tennis Rackets


William Sears Tennis Rackets
HL and RF Doherty Brothers Tennis Rackets
Pancho Gonzales Tennis Rackets
Don Budge and Ellworth Vines Tennis Rackets
Bill Tilden Tennis Rackets
HL and RF Laurie Doherty Tennis Rackets
Rod Laver Tennis Rackets
Ken Rosewall Tennis Rackets
Lew Hoad Tennis Rackets
John Newcombe Tennis Rackets
Frank Kovacs Signature Tennis Racket
Jack Kramer Tennis Rackets
Jimmy Connors Tennis Rackets
John McEnroe Tennis Rackets
Pete Sampras Tennis Rackets
Arthur Ashe Tennis Rackets
Andre Agassi Tennis Rackets
Many Famous Rackets Tennis Rackets

References ...

This information comes from knowledgable tennis racket players and historians via discussions on discussion boards like the Tennis-Warehouse (TW) website.

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