Three specs decide most of how a racket feels. Once you understand them, every grade on this site tells you something useful.
We grade rackets by reading every independent source we can find and turning it into one comparable number. But a 9.0 is not the right racket for everyone, and a 8.3 is the right one for a lot of people. This is how to read the difference.
Shape decides the sweet spot
Round means a low, wide sweet spot: forgiving, less powerful. Diamond means high and small: powerful, unforgiving. Teardrop and hybrid sit between, which is why they suit most players. In our database the round frames score 8.1 to 9.7 on forgiveness; the diamonds score 7.0 to 7.4.
Balance matters more than weight
Most rackets sit between 355 and 375 g, a range narrow enough that the number barely tells you anything. Where that weight sits does. A head-heavy 365 g frame feels far more demanding than a head-light one of identical weight.
Face material predicts comfort
Carbon is stiffer and faster; fibreglass is softer and kinder to your arm. It is the single spec that best predicts comfort, and it explains why the cheapest racket we have graded is also one of the most comfortable.
Match it to your level, honestly
If you are in your first season, anything scoring under 7.5 on forgiveness will punish an inconsistent strike — and that includes four of the rackets we rate most highly. A lower-graded racket you can actually hit is the better buy.
One warning that applies to every racket on this site: the Hybrid, Comfort and Soft versions of a frame are different rackets, not colourways. Most reviews online do not say which variant they tested, and that single omission is the cause of nearly every disagreement we found between sources.