Suiting Up

A tennis racket is one of the most essential items needed to play the game.  As a beginner, or even on the intermediate level, finding a good racket can be a difficult process!  There are countless number of brands: Head, Wilson, Avery, Dunlap, Prince and many more that you can choose from.  Not only are you having to decide between a certain brand, but also between grip size, head size, string tension, weight, etc.  To be honest, the first tennis racket I owned and used for about 3 years was a basic racket that I bought from Walmart for twenty dollars.  It was a Head brand and it worked just fine for me starting off as a beginner.    Usually, unless you are a serious competitor who needs a specific type of racket, there are only a few different categories that you'll have to choose from.  It doesn't really matter too much about what brand you choose to buy from, although I would advise to buy from one of the more mainstream brands (like the ones I mentioned above). 
                                                  

Picture Courtesy of Dick's Sporting Goods

This picture helps give you a visual of the parts of the tennis racket so that you can choose the best one for  you.  Usually beginners start off with a larger grip size, head size and light in weight.  This is the most basic specifications for a tennis racket, a big head size to give you a bigger target to hit the ball, and lighter in weight to help you be more mobile with your racket. My advice would be to go into a store that sells tennis rackets and get a feel for all of the different ones.  If you are a stronger person, you may want a little heavier of a racket as opposed to one that feels like a feather.  Picking a tennis racket that fits you is like finding the perfect pair of jeans, everyone is different and you have to find that perfect racket to help boost your tennis performance.  Dick's and Tennis Express show some great ways to help find the best racket for you.

Some different websites and stores in Topeka with tennis rackets for you to browse are Wood Valley , Dick's , and  Head.

Here are some articles from Yahoo, Steve Tennis  and Squidoo that have reviews and recommendations about good rackets to use.