What Tennis Tells Us About Technology

Howard Head was an aerospace engineer. His insight for a new tennis racket design, which he laid out in a 1974 patent application, was that a composite blend of carbon fiber and resin allowed him to create a tennis racket with 40 percent more surface area and a far larger sweet spot. The end result was a piece of equipment that made the game much easier for amateurs. 

In 1978, Head got one of his new oversized rackets into the hands of a talented 16-year old named Pam Shriver. Although Shriver entered the U.S. Open unseeded, she ended up beating Martina Navratilova in the semifinals. Pros took notice: by 1984, composite rackets had taken over the tour. (John McEnroe was the last player to win a major tournament with a wooden racket, beating Bjorn Borg at the 1981 U.S. Open.)

This is a portrait of technological disruption. As such, the game of tennis in the post-composite age provides an ideal case-study with which to investigate the impact of innovation. 

Composite rackets dramatically shifted the demographics of the pro tour. In the mid-1970s, when wooden rackets still dominated, nearly 20 percent of all matches featured a player above the age of 30. By 1990, that number had shrunk to roughly 5 percent of matches. The youngest players made up the difference. Between 1975 and 1984, the percentage of matches involving players under the age of 21 nearly tripled, to 30 percent.

Why were composite rackets so hard on the oldest players? Head, after all, invented the composite racket to help old guys like himself hit good shots; it was supposed to level the playing field. And yet, his invention ended up doing the exact opposite, tilting the competitive balance in favor of youth. 

From “What Tennis Can Teach Us About Technology” by Jonah Lehrer

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