If you don’t have tennis vibration dampeners in your tennis bag, then don’t worry you might not need them but if you have made yourself addicted to vibration dampeners, then you will not be comfortable at all while playing and you’ll certainly lose the match. That is the importance of vibration dampeners if you are accustomed to playing with it. Players on ATP tour plays with dampeners as well as without dampeners.
Why someone should use a dampener?
Roger Federer doesn’t play with dampener while Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic play with them, so the question arises, why someone should use a dampener?
The only purpose of using a vibration dampener is to reduce the vibrations of the impact of the ball while hitting shots. When you hit the ball with your racquet, vibrations are produced from the racquet string bed and can travel through your arm to shoulder. The dampeners are used to nullify the effect of these produced vibrations to protect you from any kind of injury.
However, researchers have shown today that using a vibration dampener merely reduces the vibrations rather it reduces the sound of the racquet strings, the ping sound while hitting.
Do you need a vibration dampener?
It totally depends on you how you feel comfortable while playing. If you are a player who thinks that vibrations cannot harm, you got no injury in your arm or shoulder while playing, and you love the sound of strings produced while hitting a shot, you don’t need any kind of vibration dampener.
But if you don’t like the sounds of strings, you get some sort of pain or injury in your arm or shoulder and don’t want to deteriorate it further, then you should use vibration dampeners to play injury-free. Putting a dampener on racquet also makes it stylish, so if you just like to put a dampener in your racquet because your racquet looks more stylish, then do use a vibration dampener.
Should you use a vibration dampener?
It is up to you. If you are comfortable without installing a dampener, then leave it but if you get the feel of hitting the tennis ball with a dampener, then use it. A huge benefit of using dampeners is they are not expensive. Easy to buy, try using them on your next outing to a tennis court, take the feel and judge yourself whether you like it or not. In just one session of hitting, you’ll know whether you want to use it or not.
Different types of vibration dampeners
You’ll commonly find dampeners of two types:
Button / Triangle:
The most common dampeners you’ll find on the court. If you see racquet with a circular, button-sized object near the base of the racquet, that is button dampener.
Worm:
Worm dampeners are long, thin which cover more space than button dampener. This type of dampener has more strings intact with it thus has a more substantial impact on reducing the effects of hitting the ball.