Rackets, from wood to graphite, one sport at a time.

Tennis

Wood

The racket replaced gloves and a wooden paddle in real tennis in the early 16th century, according to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. For lawn tennis, the Hall of Fame records ash rackets strung with gut both in Wingfield's sets of the 1870s and in a later Jefferies set in its collection. Its account of racket design says early rackets were steamed strips of wood shaped around a mould, that laminated wooden rackets were most popular from the 1940s to the 1960s, and it records a 1915 Bancroft patent for a leather layer between the wood laminations.

Steel and aluminium

The Hall of Fame records the Dayton steel racket, with a steel frame and steel-wire strings designed by Bill Larned, introduced in 1922. When Lacoste's steel racket, or the steel racket at all, was first patented is disputed:

• 1965: the Hall of Fame says Rene Lacoste patented a chromium-plated steel racket that year, and that Wilson made it as the T-2000 from 1967.
• 1953: the ITF's History of Rackets and Strings (November 2019) is summarised as dating Lacoste's patented method to 1953; the document itself could not be opened.
• 1957: Wikipedia, in a summary, says steel rackets existed from 1922 and were first patented in 1957.

Wikipedia is also summarised as saying Billie Jean King was the first player to win a major with a metal racket, a T2000, at the 1967 US National Championships, and that Spalding's aluminium Smasher appeared in 1968; both rest on that secondary source alone. The Hall of Fame dates Head's entry into tennis to 1969 with a plastic-and-metal composite racket, Arthur Ashe's 1975 Wimbledon win to Head's Competition 2, and a Prince aluminium racket to 1975.

Bigger heads and composites

The Hall of Fame says Howard Head received a US patent in 1976 for the oversized Prince Classic, and that midsize rackets, invented in the mid-1970s, were the best-selling size worldwide by 1980. A Wikipedia-based summary places Head's redesign from 1974 and Prince's first oversize in the late 1970s, so the dates differ by source.

A peer-reviewed study of 525 rackets made between 1874 and 2017, by Taraborrelli and colleagues with ITF co-authors (Applied Sciences, 2019), is summarised as finding that rackets from before 1970 were mostly wooden, that most from after 1980 were fibre-polymer composites with larger heads, lower mass and higher natural frequency, and that the move to composites began in the 1970s. Only the abstract, as summarised, was read. Wikipedia, in a summary, dates Dunlop's injection-moulded graphite Max 200G to 1980.

The end of wood: two different claims

Wikipedia, in a summary, says Yannick Noah's and Chris Evert's 1983 French Open titles were the last major singles titles won with wooden rackets. The Hall of Fame says a wooden racket was used for the last time in Wimbledon championship play in 1987. These are different claims, the last title won and the last use, and both may be true; neither is confirmed by the other.

The first racket rules

Wikipedia, seen in a summary, says the ITF banned double-strung or "spaghetti" rackets on a temporary basis from 3 October 1977, after a decision on 1 October, and that the USTA followed for its own tournaments on 19 October 1977. Tennis Majors, also seen in a summary, recounts Ilie Nastase using one on 2 October 1977. Sports Illustrated is summarised as reporting in April 1978 that the ITF had never specified what a tennis racket is, and that a ruling was due that July. The sources then differ:

The ITF's own documents could not be opened, so these remain unresolved here. The ITF's racket rules as they stand in its 2026 rule book are on tennis rackets and the rules.

The ball turns yellow

Wikipedia, in a summary, says optic yellow balls came in around 1972 after research found they showed up better on television, and that the ITF's rules from then allowed white or yellow balls. Wimbledon kept white balls until 1986, according to summaries of Wikipedia and a tennis website; no Wimbledon or ITF page was read to confirm it. Ball approval today is on tennis balls and approval.

Badminton

The feather shuttle is the original. A patent collection kept by worldbadminton.com lists feathered shuttlecock patents from 1880 (US) onward and the first moulded or synthetic-skirt designs in US patents from 1938 to 1941. It credits William Charles Carlton of England with pioneering both synthetic shuttles and modern rackets, listing his moulded-shuttle patents from 1950 to 1953 and a 1964 design very like the Carlton nylon shuttles widely used in the 1960s and 1970s. The Badminton Museum says Carlton had been making nylon shuttles since the 1950s.

The museum says wooden badminton rackets were the norm until the Carlton 3.9 of 1966, made at Saffron Walden in Essex, which it calls the first mass-produced lightweight steel racket. England's Roger Mills won Commonwealth Games medals with it in Kingston, Jamaica, that year, and Carlton followed with stainless steel 3.7 models in the 1970s. The patent list records tubular metal racket patents through the 1960s and the first patents proposing carbon fibre in racket frames in 1970 and 1971.

Who owned Carlton later is unclear: Bill Carlton said in a 1998 interview that he had sold to the Dunlop organisation more than 17 years earlier, while Wikipedia says Carlton was acquired by BTR in 1985. Both rest on summaries. The BWF's rules for rackets and shuttles now are on badminton rackets and shuttles.

Squash

The World Squash Library records the early Harrow ball, as Old Harrovians described it from 1886, as a soft, thin rubber ball, sometimes with a hole; a smaller black "bullet" ball was sometimes used but thought too fast. North American hardball squash used a harder ball, and the historian James Zug records the US switch to the international softball between 1985 and 1993. No historian's or governing body's dated account of the move from wooden to metal and composite squash rackets was found for this site.

Pickleball

HistoryLink says the founders first used paddleball paddles, later redesigned; other accounts say table tennis paddles came first (see pickleball on Bainbridge Island). The first composite paddle is disputed and thinly sourced. A family account, given in an interview on a retailer's blog and seen only in a summary, credits a Boeing engineer with a 1984 paddle made from aircraft floor-panel honeycomb with fibreglass facings. Another account, also seen in a summary, places honeycomb cores in the 1990s. Neither is confirmed. From 2024, paddle regulation became part of the dispute between USA Pickleball and the UPA-A, as The Dink reported; the approval lists are on pickleball paddles and approval.

Padel

The FIP says the first court, in 1969, was 20 by 10 metres with 3-metre walls. Glass walls date to 1989 in Argentina, with Jorge Galeotti's transportable "Crystal Palace" court per the FIP, and reached Spain at the 1992 World Championship per the Aspetar Sports Medicine Journal. No dated history of padel racket materials from a governing body or historian was found for this site; the FIP's current racket and ball rules are on padel rackets and balls.