I’m not a particularly strong or powerful player. I’m trying to find the ideal racket shaft stiffness and string tension for myself. If I were to choose between the combination of a more flexible racket with higher string tension vs. a stiffer racket with lower string tension, which would be recommended? I already know I can’t handle a stiff racket with high string tension, which is why I'm thinking either go less stiff or lower tension.
Stiff/flex shaft behave differently with high/low tension. Tho in simple it can be said harder & easier to use but actually its more than that. Shaft bending trigger when swinging the racket. How you sync the bending snap back with your swing power/speed is your aim. If its to stiff, it wont bend or bend to little cause late hitting, or the snap back is over when hitting the shuttle. If to flex the shaft still loading the power cause to early contact. Also with flex shaft, fast play become bad as the shaft havent normalize or straighten up yet so accuracy might ruined. Simply power swing type of shot like drive, clear, smash had better control with stiff racket coz of shaft stability. Other hand string bending trigger when in contact with shuttle. High tension require stronger swing to makes the shuttle dig deeper to the stringbed creating trampoline effect. While low tension need less swing power to bend the stringbed thus easier. But as low tension had tendency to be bouncy, playing net shot & drop shot are somewhat hard to execute well. So this otherhand, low power type shot like net, drop, block had better control on higher tension as its not to bouncy. So mid stiff racket (3/5 or 4/7) are still enough for competitive club lv. With tension around 24-26. Stiffer racket or high tension are just to satisfy our ego