How does roughness affect a paddle racket?

In today's article we are going to talk about one of the most fashionable questions in recent times: Does roughness affect the behavior of a paddle tennis racket?

There are many brands that add a rough surface to their paddle tennis rackets, claiming that this achieves a substantial increase in effects. In practice, is this true?

What is roughness?

Let's start by defining the roughness:

"We define roughness as the non-smooth surface that we can find on the face of some paddle tennis rackets, in order to achieve greater effects in hitting"

What types of roughness are there on the market?

We can distinguish two types of roughness in current blades:

• Roughness in the varnish of the blade: this roughness is characterized by being applied in the varnishing stage of the blade. On an aesthetic level, the main characteristic of this type of roughness is that it is made up of thousands of small points that protrude from the face of the blade, distributed heterogeneously.
• Roughness in the shovel decal: this roughness is found in the shovel decal itself, used to paste the aesthetic design on the shovel. On an aesthetic level, this roughness is what we find in blades with a hexagonal, circular roughness, or with defined and homogeneous motifs.

The main differences between the varnish roughness and the decal roughness are:

• Duration: The varnish roughness, being in more direct contact with the ball than the decal roughness, has a shorter duration due to continuous wear when hitting the ball. ball.
• Performances: The roughness in varnish, being more aggressive than the roughness in the decal, offers a higher level of effects.

Does roughening really work?

The opinion of the majority of factories in the market is that roughness helps to achieve better effects in padel rackets, although there are other very decisive factors to achieve these effects. Roughness can provide an extra 15% on average when applying effects.

The main elements that allow you to apply effects are:

1. Holes: The use of optimally placed holes in the racket are the main factor that allows applying effects on the ball, by making part of the ball enter inside the holes. holes and, as there is contrast between the part of the ball that enters the hole and the part that directly touches the face of the racket, greater effects can be applied.
2. The flexibility of the racket: Having a racket that has a good elastic capacity will increase the contact time with the ball, thus allowing a greater margin to apply effects on it.