comfort: The racquet's overall effectiveness at protecting your arm from the forces of the ball's impact, including shock, vibration, and the turning forces that are diminshed with greater stability.

constant taper beam: A constant taper beam either becomes steadily thicker or steadily thinner from the racquet tip toward the shoulders and shaft.

contoured beam: A contoured beam can have a constant taper, a dual taper, or a more complicated profile, made of varying tapers designed to optimize a balance between power, cushioning, and control.

cross strings: The strings that run perpendicular to the long axis of your racquet. These generally get less wear than the main strings.

dense string pattern: A racquet with a dense string pattern is designed to keep the strings close together, which results in more strings contacting the ball. With the ball's impact distributed among more strings, each string compresses less and thus rebounds less. This results in less power and more control. It also creates less spin, because each string bites into the ball less

even balance: A racquet with even balance has an equal amount of weight on each side of the midpoint of its length. A 27" racquet with even balance will balance at a point 13.5" from the end of its handle.

flexibility: A flexible frame deforms more upon ball impact. On off-center hits this causes unpredictable changes in the angle of the string bed, which reduces control. Flexibility also reduces power, as energy is absorbed by the deformation of the frame. This energy absorption does reduce shock to your arm, though.

frame: The racquet's frame is usually considered to be those parts that are not replaceable: the head, shoulders, throat, shaft, and handle. The grommet strip and grip are part of the frame in some contexts, but they can also be considered as separate parts. The strings are never considered part of the frame.

grip: The grip on a racquet handle usually consists of an outer synthetic layer bonded onto padding. Leather grips are rare in current models. The grip size is measured as the length of the perimeter of the octagonal cross-section of the handle.

grommet strip: A strip of plastic material containing small tubes that run through the frame's string holes. The plastic protects the strings from rubbing against the abrasive frame material. The outer, flat surface of wider grommet strips also acts as a bumper guard.

head heavy: A racquet is head heavy if it has more weight in the half of the racquet's length that is closer to the head. Such racquets are intended to deliver more power to the ball per overall racquet weight, but they are also less maneuverable. The degree of head-heaviness or head-lightness is often specified as the distance between the midpoint of the racquet's length and the actual point at which it balances, be that balance point toward the head (head heavy) or the butt

head light: A racquet is head light if it has more weight in the half of the racquet's length that is closer to the butt. Such racquets are intended to be more maneuverable and are generally preferred by most advanced players, especially those who venture off the baseline. The degree of head-heaviness or head-lightness is often specified as the distance between the midpoint of the racquet's length and the actual point at which it balances, be that balance point toward the head (head heavy) or the butt (head light).

head size: The size of the hitting area. A midsize has a hitting area of 85-95 square inches, mid-plus 95-105 square inches, and oversize greater than 105 square inches.

overgrip: An overgrip or grip wrap is a thin strip of material used to cover the grip on your racquet handle. Unlike your grip, the much cheaper overgrip is meant to be used for a short amount of time, in some cases less than one full match. It can absorb sweat, improve handle traction, and add sligtly to the handle size and padding.

sweet spot: Every racquet has three different sweet spots, but in a general sense, the sweet spot is the area of the string bed that produces the best combination of feel and power. The most powerful spot on the string bed is that with the greatest coefficient of restitution. The one with least vibration is found at the node of the first harmonic. The one with least shock is found at the center of percussion.

swing speed: The speed at which you typically swing at the ball on your groundstrokes is a key factor in deciding how powerful a frame you should buy. If you take short, relatively slow swings at the ball, you're most likely to want a highly powerful frame. With longer, faster swings, too powerful a frame might be hard to control. You can always reduce a racquet's power by using higher string tension, but tighter strings transmit more shock to your arm.

swing weight: Swing weight describes how heavy a racquet feels when it is swung. Swing weight increases as the racquet's weight is distributed more toward the head, so head-heavy and extra-long racquets have a high swing weight in relation to their stationary weight. A high swing weight results in low maneuverability, but generally more groundstroke power.