The Best Tennis Rackets for Beginners of 2024

The Babolat Boost Drive is an amazing beginner tennis racket ideal for beginners, improving players, and recreational players, most notable for its easy use. It has a 104 square inches head size that gives you a large margin of error while hitting the ball. It gives you a good power output and amazing comfort even in contact with the ball.

Babolat tennis racket brand added their Woofer grommet system to make this racket even more comfortable. This new addition to the racket provides a firm and aerodynamic beam as powerful as precise and guarantees impressive accuracy. 

The Boost Boost Drive is easy to use from the baseline, moving through the contact zone with no problems. Topspin players will also appreciate the acceleration and the 16×19 string pattern that provides you with great spin. 

The generous head size especially becomes useful at the net, making it easy to block the ball back. The lightness of its overall weight makes it almost effortless to use, with the racket coming around very quickly. At serves, the Boost Boost Drive also provides the needed power. 

The only downside to this racket is that a minority of players have reported its frame to be too weak, breaking after a few months. This is only the minority of people, and the racket works just fine for most, even in the long run; however, this might still be something you would want to note.

Product Specs

• Head size: 104 square inches
• Length: 27 inches
• Weight: 9.2 ounces
• Power: High

Pros

• Easy to use
• Head size
• Comfortable

Cons

•  Frame

Get the Babolat Boost Drive on Amazon or at Do It Tennis.

One of the best tennis rackets for female beginners is the Head Ti S6 because of its overall size and weight. It gives you about an extra 1.5 cm in length, which might not seem like much, but actually can make a lot of difference in getting you closer to the ball on contact. 

Its head size is also one of the biggest on the market, with 292 square inches. This automatically gives it a very large sweet spot, which means that you can still hit comfortably even if your shots fall slightly off-center. Due to that, I found this racket very easy to use. 

The racket is made out of titanium and graphite fibers, making it extremely lightweight, even compared to other beginner rackets. Its low overall weight, combined with the fact that most of that weight falls on the head rather than the frame, makes it incredibly easy to swing and provides a lot of comforts, especially for those who might suffer from any arm injuries. 

This racket excels at groundstrokes, with quite a lot of power and decent topspin, thanks to the 16×19 string pattern. You’ll feel very comfortable using it on the baseline. The low frame weight also makes it very easy to use at the net, making the racket easy to maneuver, and it provides you with enough power that comes in handy even when you’re doing serves. 

The downside of this racket comes to light in returns, where you can notice a lack of control that makes it harder to keep the ball on the court. However, this only becomes a really big issue once you’re starting to improve and you start playing against more intermediate players. Against complete beginners, the returns are still manageable.

Product Specs

• Head size: 292 square inches
• Length: 27.5 inches
• Weight: 8.88 ounces
• Power: Medium

Pros

• Comfortable
• Power
• Very large sweet spot

Cons

• Too light
• Lack of control

See our review and playtest.

Get the Head Ti S6 on Amazon or at Do It Tennis.

The Babolat Boost Rafa is the best beginner tennis racket under $100. This racket’s head size and sweet spot are quite good. It’s not the absolute largest you can find out there, but as I’ve mentioned above, choosing the largest, most lightweight racket might not always be the best if you’re looking to exponentially improve your game. 

This is an area where this racket excels since its head size and weight aren’t too large or too little. You will find that this racket is extremely comfortable to use for a racket that is so much cheaper than other options.

Additionally, this racket has a pretty good topspin, thanks to the 16×19 string pattern, for those looking to play with more focus on spin. Babolat also included their Woofer technology in this racket, just as they did for Boost Drive. As mentioned above, this technology maximizes the comfort and control of your shots. I should also mention the frame’s stiffness, as I found it pretty useful for hitting both backhands and forehands. 

This racket’s only downside is that its power is slightly less than a racket like a Babolat Boost Drive; however, it offers amazing maneuverability and control over your hits. The power is impressive, but this isn’t a racket for those who want to maximize their power. This racket is ideal for beginners and intermediates looking for a comfortable balance, especially if you’re only looking to pay less than $100.

Product Specs

• Head size: 7.2 square inches
• Length: 2.25 inches
• Weight: 9.8 ounces
• Power: Low-medium

Pros

• Topspin
• Comfort
• Weight

Cons

• Power

Get the Babolat Boost Rafa on Amazon or at Do It Tennis.

Wilson was looking to expand their catalog of rackets by including more spin and power-friendly rackets in their selection that fall in line more with competitors like Babolat. With the Wilson Ultra 108, they succeeded in doing what they set out to do.

This Wilson tennis racket offers a lot of spin and power output, incredible speed, and a generous head size that many new players will appreciate. The length of this racket also makes it easier to make contact with the ball; combine that with the large sweet spot this racket has, and you will find yourself pretty comfortable with your shots overall. 

Wilson made this racket more stable and even more powerful by including technologies like Power Rib construction in the shaft and an integrated Perimeter Weight System in the head, which achieves less racket twisting at impact. 

This racket offers a very crisp feel from the baseline while offering you a lot of power and topspin, making it very good for groundstrokes. While this racket is more comfortable than previous Ultra rackets, it still feels a little stiff, and you can somewhat feel that in your groundstrokes. 

If you don’t mind a little tradeoff on the stiffness, you can use this to send balls flying across the court with the amount of power this provides. Your biggest problem with this will be the volleys, as a stiff, power-focus racket is not a preferable option for hitting volleys. It lacks the feel of other Wilson rackets. If power sounds like what you want, I recommend trying it out.

Product Specs

• Head size: 274 square inches
• Length: 27.3 inches
• Weight: 10 ounces
• Power: Medium-high

Pros

• Head Size
• Power
• Topspin

Cons

• Stiffness
• Volleys

Get the Wilson Ultra 108 on Wilson’s Official Site, on Amazon or at Do It Tennis.

The Wilson Burn 100 v4 is good beginner tennis racket that offers incredible spin capability. It has a peculiar 18×16 string pattern that makes the head look somewhat strange but greatly improves its topspin potential. Wilson calls this string pattern Spin Effect very fittingly. 

Aside from this, the racket also has quite a long handle known as the X2 length, which especially benefits players playing with a two-handed backhand. This makes it easier to hit balls while running, giving them extra reach. 

This racket is especially good for those who want to play aggressively at the baseline, with a good balance of power and spin. The emphasis is on the spin, however, so this is the perfect racket for you if you want to move your opponent around the court regularly. Especially when you’re a beginner, this racket will help you generate topspin more easily.

As you advance and improve on your skill, you might want to exchange this for a more intermediate racket; however, for a beginner, this is the perfect place to start with learning a playstyle that focuses more on a spin around the baseline. In general, this racket also offers a great deal of maneuverability. 

It’s not going to have the best precision at the net, but it’s capable enough, and whatever it lacks on serves and volleys will make up for it on groundstrokes. However, the biggest trade-off for this racket is the stiffness, as it’s really not the most comfortable across the board.

Product Specs

• Head size: 254 square inches
• Length: 27 inches
• Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Power: High

Pros

• Spin
• Power
• Maneuverability

Cons

• Stiffness

See our review and playtest.

Get the Wilson Burn 100 v4 on Wilson’s Official Site, on Amazon or at Do It Tennis.

The Wilson Hyper Hammer 5.3 is an extremely lightweight entry level tennis racket with a head size that is almost oversized. However, the impressive swing weight makes it feel like it still has a good weight on swings. This makes it feel solid when it comes to contact with the ball while still being easy to handle, thanks to the overall weight. 

From my experience, I can tell you that this is common with the Hammer line of tennis rackets. They all tend to have a head-heavy weight balance, which means the racket’s weight skews towards the head, making it feel heavier while swinging while still maintaining its overall lightweight attribute. 

The racket really comes into its own when it comes to volleys and serves, giving you an adequate amount of controlled power and making it feel easy to give a good serve. The main problem with this racket, however, is its topspin. While still providing enough control over your spins, the problem comes from not being able to generate it very easily in the first place. This is caused by its 16×20 string pattern, ideal for hitting flat balls. 

This wouldn’t be ideal for beginners looking to play with topspin since you probably wouldn’t be able to make up for the lack of spin generation on your own. On the other hand, it does force you to improve your technique, but that only comes from the fact that it gives you a challenge in this regard.

Product Specs

• Head size: 280 square inches
• Length: 27.5 inches
• Weight: 9 ounces
• Power: Medium

Pros

• Swingweight
• Volleys and Serves
• Head size

Cons

• Topspin

Get the Wilson Hyper Hammer 5.3 on Wilson’s Official Site, on Amazon or at Do It Tennis.

The Babolat Boost Strike is an extremely versatile beginner tennis racket. It offers the best control of any beginner tennis racket while maintaining a power level that doesn’t feel overly lacking and great topspin thanks to its 16×19 string pattern. Above all that, it has a pretty large sweet spot that makes it easier to hit your shots. 

The Boost Strike is meant for aggressive players who like to attack. It performed great at the baseline, and I could hit powerful shots combined with impressive topspin. While this isn’t the most powerful racket out there, the combination of its features makes for an amazing performance overall, barely lacking in any category. 

It performs well on the baseline and is surprisingly good at the net, hitting great volleys. The racket’s weight feels comfortable; even after hours of play, the Boost Strike will feel nice in your hand. 

The only trade-off might be that the string tension can be less than ideal for a complete beginner. However, this is a personal preference, as everybody’s experience with every racket is slightly different, so you will have to try it out to see for yourself. Overall, this racket performs extremely well and is likely to be very useful to many beginners.

Product Specs

• Head size: 260 square inches
• Length: 27 inches
• Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Power: Medium

Pros

• Control
• Topspin
• Comfort

Cons

• String tension

Get the Babolat Boost Strike on Amazon or at Do It Tennis.

The Wilson Clash 108 v2 is a racket that performs incredibly well as a beginner until you’re an intermediate. It offers a variety of benefits to players at almost all skill levels. Its larger head size and 16×19 string pattern offer a mix of power and spin that will be useful for many players across the board.

On average, it performs well all across the court. Its higher power output is somewhat more useful on the baseline, but it performs surprisingly well even as you get to the net. It only falls a bit short with its stability on volleys and returns. However, this only becomes an issue against an opponent with high power output. I found it slightly difficult to deal with heavier serves when using this less stable racket.

On the other hand, The Wilson Clash is still not without its benefits on returns, as it is very easy to get it into position, especially with its larger head size. It’s also an extremely comfortable racket that you will enjoy playing with for a long time, whatever your skill level is. If you’re willing to sacrifice that little bit of stability for great power output, a lot of spin, and amazing comfort, I recommend you try this racket out.

Product Specs

• Head size: 274 square inches
• Length: 27 inches
• Weight: 10.5ounces
• Power: High

Pros

• Sweet spot
• Control
• Comfort

Cons

• Stability

See our review and playtest.

Get the Wilson Clash 108 v2 on Wilson’s Official Site, on Amazon or at Do It Tennis.