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Comment by PaulHoule | Hacker News Reader

I found a pretty big difference between a $20 tennis racket and a $60 racket. For one thing, any tennis racket is going to get loose if you play with it long enough. It cost more than $20 to redo the strings on a $20 tennis racket and $20 racket is going to send balls in totally the wrong direction in the next season.

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Sure but you have to use it long enough for the stings to get loose. What percentage of tennis racket purchases are used more than once?

A high one? All of the tennis rackets I've seen are used until they are torn, broken, and been repaired multiple times (at least the cords). True I'm from Spain, but it's rare that rackets are used only once.

You probably don't see the ones that aren't used. They're stuck in storage in people's houses.

I guess the point is that if you find redoing the strings of your $20 racket more than once or twice, it means you're really using it and that warrants buying the expensive one.

The idea is to avoid buying the expensive racket before you even know if you'll like playing tennis at all.

Also the other half of the article's premise: you've return out the cheap racket. This means you are really using the thing, do don't just buy a better one but but a great one. Don't waste money working your way through mid-tier equipment first

But you already know this, so you've probably played for a while.

I think the meaning is if you start playing tennis, use the 20$ one. Then if you manage to wear it out, buy a good one. You shouldn't buy a 2nd 20$ one, ever.

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