2026 Polyester String Tierlist
How to Change the Data:
Open the master spreadsheet.
File → Make a Copy
Now you’ve got your own spreadsheet when you can update all the scores as you wish. Want to update pricing to reflect your country? Maybe change “Beckett Approved” to viewer approved? And of course, you can adjust all the other scores as you see fit!
Methodology
It is extremely challenging to effectively rate 150 strings tested over a period of 5+ years. The main challenges are:
Accounting for different racquets used.
Accounting for how your game changes over time.
Attempting to remember nuances in playability that may have been forgotten over time.
Dealing with varying testing conditions, like weather, altitude and opponent.
To overcome these challenges, I felt it best to simplify the rating system using scores out of 3 rather than out of 10. Scores with a base 10 require better consistency and nuance. Using our subjective experience, can we truly precisely, and consistently, judge a string’s spin, differentiating a 6/10 spin string from a 7/10 spin string? Due to the inherent and incredible adaptability of the human body, I think that it’s unlikely ANYONE could do so with any level of repeatability.
To simply the scoring system for the puny human psyche, I have elected to rate most things out of 3, as I think we can generally distinguish performance as “above average,” “around average,” and “below average.”
Playability
Inherently, rating a string for “playability,” is deeply subjective. We somehow have to loop-in and combine a string’s average performance across several metrics, like power, forgiveness, control, feel, spin and comfort.
Generally, a string’s playability score will be heavily influenced by a player’s priority list for performance. Someone who values spin highly and control less will likely rate ReString Zero quite well, whereas, someone who doesn’t value spin but values control and feel is likely to rate ReString Zero more poorly.
To be continued when I get back from tennis…
