Before start talking about the history of Nadal’s racket, we should know what kind of racket one of the best tennis players in the world has. His racket is a Barbolat Pure aero 2019, especially focused in players like Nadal that have a strong shot and play with spin effects.
But, to understand how is Nadal’s racket, we should start fast time travel to the origins of the tennis racket. The first racket was made of wood and the lines made with the animal gut. We are talking about the 70s and the 80s, and this old racket could weight more than 400gr. They were soft and flexible and had a small head compared to the actual ones, a 50% smaller head.
Then appeared the aluminium ones. There was not such a quality difference between the wood and aluminium ones, maybe a little more lightly and the head was bigger years, but they had a lack of stiff. At the 80s started to appear the fibreglass ones, but above 1985 appeared the graphite ones leaving the fibreglass behind. The Graphite was perfect for its stiffness and lightness, but it transmits a lot of the vibrations of the impacts, making it uncomfortable for the players, so they made a mix with graphite and fibreglass to create what it would be the structure of the actual racket.
The other change that affected the history of the rackets was the change of the lines from the animal’s guts to polyester lines in 2000, despite the nylon and other materials were present in the 80s and 90s. The polyester was a total revolution! and it changed the way people played 50 years ago. Until today, we play with polyester lines or a mix with polyester and guts. Every player has its own combination of vertical lines with one material and horizontal lines with another one, every material compensating the weak points of the other.
In this case, with the Nadal racket, we are talking about a player that doesn’t have so many problems about what kind of lines the racket has, despite he is so strict for example in things like the weight of the racket. This last times he added approx 1% extra weight in the top of the racket to gain more power.
So, with the past of the rackets we can examinate more carefully what kind of racket Rafael Nadal uses. The Barbolat Pure Aero 2019 is a 300g racket, with a great balance between weight and hitting surface. This racket is known to have 24kg as a standard tensed weight in the lines, and an special design in the central ones that helps to add an extra “lifted” effect to the ball, making more difficult for the opponent to return it. The Barbolat brand rackets are known for the power they apport to the player at the shooting, so a lot of players like Nadal that use the shooting power are using this kind of rackets.
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