I accidentally bought a HEAD i.Tour racquet today while testing Jill's new eBay snipe program. She was complaining that it didn't work and I guess I fixed it.

My tennis game has been suffering quite a bit the past couple months, so I naturally figured that it had to be my gear.

I went on eBay again and picked up a pair of Head Liquidmetal Radical MP racquets. My reasoning is that my previous racquet was 93 sq. in. and while I had amazing control, I had a lot of difficulty generating any power. In addition, it was very unforgiving with a small sweet spot. I'm just not good enough yet to play with that racquet.

Prior to the prestige racquet I had an i.Tour at 100 sq. in. and an i.S1 at 102 sq. in. Both of those racquets allowed me to generate pace on the ball, but with little control. Nothing is more frustrating than hitting the ball off the court, or right back to your opponent time and again.

I decided to settle on a head size about midway between 93 sq. in. and 102 sq. in. The current pair of racquets (which I picked up at 2 for the price of one...strung with case and extra strings!) come in at 98 sq. in. and appear to have hit the mark. My game has improved considerably and I can hit with a lot more confidence that I'll generate pace and have a decent level of control.

Jill picked up this racquet for me on eBay. It's the smallest head I've every used at 93 sq. in. and it's going to take me some time to adjust to it.

From grips to serves to topspin, this article outlines the science around playing good tennis.