of tennis growing, Wilson introduced a line of aluminum racquets. These racquets, however, did not have much of an impact on the buyers who were very skeptic of giving up the traditional wooden racquets. Although aluminum racquets were light and provided power, they lacked control and stiffness, which are one of the essential elements in the performance of a player. During the late sixties, many other American and international tennis companies began to emerge, providing competition and variety to the world of tennis. Some of the companies such as Spalding and Fischer were already well established sporting equipment companies who saw a promising potential in the tennis business. Spalding, in fact, was one of the first sporting equipment companies in the United States, starting its production of baseball bats and gloves in 1894. Today’s second largest tennis manufacturing company is also an American company, called Prince. Prince began its production in 1967, introducing its own version of aluminum racquets aside from their primary line of wooden ones. The company did not become a serious competition to Wilson until 1979 with its breakthrough racquet made out of a revolutionary material called graphite. The name of the racquet is Prince Graphite Classic, and aside from being the first graphite racquet in the world, it is also one of the most popular racquets in the Prince’s line of racquets today. Graphite material revolutionized the tennis world and elevated competition to new heights. Racquets made out of graphite have a much longer life than wooden racquets who through time would loose their stiffness and original shape. Unlike aluminum, graphite provided moderate amount of weight for a racquet to be heavy enough for the hard-hitting, advanced players and still light enough for the less powerful players. Throughout the 1980’s, graphite racquets slowly replaced wooden racquets and encouraged other companies to search...
