Title of Project

The Correlation of the String's Tension of the Tennis Racket and the Bounce Height of the Tennis Ball

Abstract

With modern tennis development, professional tennis players began using rackets with high-pound strings to control better the ball's direction (Miller, 2006). However, while the high-pound string rackets can increase the force on the player's hand and wrist, almost half of professional tennis players suffer from Lateral epicondylitis (LE) (Mohandhas, etc. 2016). The experiment aims to help athletes choose the most suitable racket with the high-quality rebound of the tennis. This study established the quantitative relationship between different string tension of rackets and ball's rebound and analyzed the different string tension and other factors impact on ball's rebound. The study was conducted in 2021 and consisted of string tension of 25, 30, 40, 50, and 60 pounds. The experimental design was testing two different heights, and each pound of racket repeating the experiment 20 times. The string tension of the tennis racket will affect the rebound height of the tennis ball, the contact time when the ball was touching the racket string, and the deformation of the string. The lower pound of the racket string causing the ball to rebound higher, and the higher pound of the racket string causing the ball to rebound lower. As a result, the lower the pound of tennis racket does not reduce the return distance, and it can effectively reduce the extra pressure on the user's wrist with each hit and is more suitable for players with low strength.

Biographies

Jiawei Huang is a first-year student in Vantage One Bachelor of Science in UBC. His main job in measuring the relationship between the pound of tennis racket string and the rebound height project is calculating values (like the mean value). He is also interested in computer science, mathematical statistics and physics and hopes to learn more in the future.

Beichen Huang is a first-year student of Vantage Science at the University of British Columbia. In this VANT 149 project, he combined his interests in tennis and badminton to discover the influence of sports equipment. In high school, he was skilled in mathematics and physics, and during that period, he received essential physical experiments experiences. He used his experience to pose the research question and design the experiment in this project.

Xinrui Wang is a student studying in Vantage Science at the University of British Columbia. She is interested in Physics and Data Analysis, and her goal is to enter Statistic Major in the future. She targets to use experimental analysis to help tennis players choose an appropriate racket.

Kevin Jia is a first-year student studying in Vantage Science College of University of British Columbia. His job in VANT 149 project is investigating other factors (e.g. temperature, spin, and hitting position) that may affect the rebound height of tennis ball after the ball hitting the different pounds of rackets. He has been joined the tennis club and have some understanding of playing tennis. He is interested in major of computer science and math and his goal of major is mathematics.