Pro Shop: What can swingweight tell me about my frame?

Welcome to the Pro Shop, where you'll find answers to readers’ most frequently asked equipment questions.

The perceived disparity between what a racquet weighs and how it feels in a player’s hand is why some racquet experts believe that swingweight is the most revealing spec of them all.

As the name suggests, swingweight is the measurement of how heavy a racquet feels when you swing it. In more scientific terms, that means when you’ve rotated around a point roughly four inches from the bottom of the butt cap—where most players hold the frame when they play. The unit of measurement is kilogram centimeter squared (kg-cm2), but it’s often referred to  simply as swingweight units.

Swingweight is most accurately determined by an expensive piece of equipment, the Babolat RDC machine being the most common. A frame with a relatively high swingweight would measure in the neighborhood of 350, and an exceptionally maneuverable frame would be below 300, with the center of the swingweight universe falling around 320. Still, as with weight and balance, swingweight is just a reference point. The only real measurement that matters is how the racquet performs in your hand. No number can tell you that.