One side effect of the Fiend at Court exercise is that I can detect a shift in my thought patterns which I attribute to looking at the world through the lens of a writer. Today as I was initially looking over the description of the parts of the racquet I commented to myself that I had never noticed the anthropomorphic nature of the various racquet component names. This was immediately followed by the other voices in my head demanding to know who said that and who in the hell even knows that word. A mystery to explore on another day.
Appendix II of the Friend at Court identifies the frame and the strings as the two basic components of the racquet. Anthropomorphism comes into play with the naming of the frame parts. This includes the obvious body parts of the head and the throat. The term handle, of course, represents the unit of liquor required to convey a USTA league team through a sectional championship weekend. The “Racket Anatomy” flyer published by the ITF includes additional anthropomorphic terms including shoulder, butt, and shaft. Sadly, the Friend at Court does not contain definitions or rules for those additional items.
The head is defined as the part of the racquet that connects to and holds the strings. The head contains the hitting surface of the racquet, which is defined to be the main area of the string pattern, bordered by the places that the strings connect to the head.
The fact that the Friend at Court actually attempts to constrain the hitting surface of the racquet falls in the “isn’t that cute” department for me. In response to that, I pump my fist and defiantly exclaim that I will strike the ball with any part of the racquet I can put on it. Should said ball miraculously find the court I will also yell “Come on!” rather than issuing the customary apology. I am probably skipping ahead in the rules, but I would observe that there is no requirement for the ball to actually hit the strings.
In addition to being a quantity of liquor, an alternate definition of handle is defined to be the part of the racquet connected to the head which is held by the player in normal use. The throat is indicated to be the part of the racquet that joins the handle to the head, but with the curious qualifier of “where present.” By the definition presented, if the throat isn’t present then the handle isn’t connected to the head. Hear that? It’s my brain cramping.
I have been unable to locate any examples of a throatless tennis racquet. I did find an expired patent application literally titled “Throatless tennis racquet” which was filed in Canada in 1978. Unfortunately the application did not contain any pictures. Until evidence to the contrary is brought to my attention, I am going to regard the throat as an essential part of the racquet.
- United States Tennis Association (2020) Friend at Court. White Plains, NY
- Racket Anatomy, ITF, November 2019.
- Throatless tennis racquet, Patent Application CA1109092A, Canada, 1978.
