One, day when my main racket strings broke I switched to my backup racket. These strings where almost a year old and many would call these strings "dead". However, in my opinion these strings were just looser. When I first tried to hit with these strings, my ball kept flying out. I thought that the strings was just bad. But after using it for a while I learned that these strings gave me unmatched power to hit winners. Before I was never able to hit winners before but with these strings it made it too easy. While looser strings meant that I would make more mistakes, since my game is geared towards consistency and clearance over the net, I found it to be a worthwhile trade off. So for you reader, maybe next time you string your racket get it strung looser.