A tennis racket possesses a sweet spot in close analogy to that of a baseball bat. One might expect that rackets are designed so that the sweet spot is in the center of the strings. Somewhat surprisingly, that is not the case. The approximate location of a racket€™s sweet spot can be found from the simple experiment sketched in Figure Q8.13. The racket is suspended by a string tied to the handle and is then struck (gently) by a ball or a light blow. When this force is exerted at the sweet spot, the handle will not rebound. Perform this experiment yourself and show that the sweet spot is rather far from the center of the strings. Explain how you could add or subtract mass from different spots on the racket to move the sweet spot to this desired location.

Figure Q8.13