Harry was discussing cloth over the handle on wood racquets, which was actually GAUZE, (made by Tourna now) which before Tournagrip, was the first sweat absorber/overgrip. Some players actually ripped up small towels to make a grip "wrap" over the leather grip. I have used many dampeners, from the "Foam" ones, the "weave" ones, the Sampras grommet and more recently , the HEAD branded ones for my Head racquets.
I remember dampeners coming in when graphite rackets came in. The original Head Arthur Ashe was the initial target. I do not remember even power pads on my old Davis Imperials. I use the HEAD - Smartsorb these days to dampen the ping sound which I hate.
I remember seeing the first dampener on a Fischer racket (the “diamond” shaped head version). It was a piece of rubber that wrapped around the two center main strings. This was back in the late 70s when I was still using a wood racket (my trusty Kramer Pro Staff). I went to my room and used a skinny rubber band with thread to hold it on and wrapped the two center mains. It worked it killed the sound. And that is all it did, and I never used a dampener again, almost. Flash forward to about 4-ish years ago and the Head Gravity Pro. It had/has the highest-pitched ping you had ever heard. On went the now common “vibration” dampener to cut the noise. Really, that is all dampeners do. They reduce the noise coming from the strings. I ended up loosening the string tension on the Pro and removed the dampener.
Sound is vibration, vibrations cause sound. So yes, you get a more muted sound, but what subsonic vibrations are being deadened? Some, for sure. Enough to protect against injury? Unlikely. But yes, pingy sounds are not everyone's thing, including me. I think for certain racquets (head To radical, for example), it feels more comfortable after impact when I hit with a dampener.
There's no physical way a small blob of rubber, or even magical gel, could "absord" vibration in order to prevent tennis elbow or other injuries. The dampener blocks the sound, that awfull "ping" and that's it. Even if I grew up with wooden racquet I can't play without a dampener. Hate that ping sound. I do remember, on those old wooden racquets, that a few "loose" small strings were loosely woven at the bottom of the racquet, under the last cross. Those strings did also block a bit of the sound.
You really have no basis for this, there are materials that can dampen vibration by turning it into heat energy so why could this not be true for dampeners, gel or materials in the frame. And you do realize that dampening a sound is quite literally dampening vibrations right? I'm not convinced dampeners work, but to straight up dismiss them because "there is no way" it could work makes no sense to me.
Harry was discussing cloth over the handle on wood racquets, which was actually GAUZE, (made by Tourna now) which before Tournagrip, was the first sweat absorber/overgrip. Some players actually ripped up small towels to make a grip "wrap" over the leather grip. I have used many dampeners, from the "Foam" ones, the "weave" ones, the Sampras grommet and more recently , the HEAD branded ones for my Head racquets.
I remember dampeners coming in when graphite rackets came in. The original Head Arthur Ashe was the initial target. I do not remember even power pads on my old Davis Imperials. I use the HEAD - Smartsorb these days to dampen the ping sound which I hate.
I remember seeing the first dampener on a Fischer racket (the “diamond” shaped head version). It was a piece of rubber that wrapped around the two center main strings. This was back in the late 70s when I was still using a wood racket (my trusty Kramer Pro Staff). I went to my room and used a skinny rubber band with thread to hold it on and wrapped the two center mains. It worked it killed the sound. And that is all it did, and I never used a dampener again, almost. Flash forward to about 4-ish years ago and the Head Gravity Pro. It had/has the highest-pitched ping you had ever heard. On went the now common “vibration” dampener to cut the noise. Really, that is all dampeners do. They reduce the noise coming from the strings. I ended up loosening the string tension on the Pro and removed the dampener.
Sound is vibration, vibrations cause sound. So yes, you get a more muted sound, but what subsonic vibrations are being deadened? Some, for sure. Enough to protect against injury? Unlikely. But yes, pingy sounds are not everyone's thing, including me. I think for certain racquets (head To radical, for example), it feels more comfortable after impact when I hit with a dampener.
Renee Lacoste invented the Wilson T2000 racket.
There's no physical way a small blob of rubber, or even magical gel, could "absord" vibration in order to prevent tennis elbow or other injuries. The dampener blocks the sound, that awfull "ping" and that's it. Even if I grew up with wooden racquet I can't play without a dampener. Hate that ping sound. I do remember, on those old wooden racquets, that a few "loose" small strings were loosely woven at the bottom of the racquet, under the last cross. Those strings did also block a bit of the sound.
You really have no basis for this, there are materials that can dampen vibration by turning it into heat energy so why could this not be true for dampeners, gel or materials in the frame.
And you do realize that dampening a sound is quite literally dampening vibrations right?
I'm not convinced dampeners work, but to straight up dismiss them because "there is no way" it could work makes no sense to me.
I put sorbothane in the handle and it works to some extent
I use a dampener from Kimony, Japan. Just a matter of sound, I hate the ping thing
I use a worm, I have two racquets of the same brand and I can tell which I just used so I can alternate them.
It's a question of reality , string theory,
Transcends mere reliance on your physical , I think
What worked for me , loose grip and big follow through