Bentley Fortissimo

[1] Prior to its introduction, all tennis racquets were much smaller in terms of the stringbed size, measured in square inches.

Although metal racquets became popular in the 1970s, beginning with the invention of the 1963 Lacoste steel racquet that became the extremely successful Wilson T2000, synthetic materials, beginning with fiberglass and culminating in graphite, would eventually completely displace them from all but the low-budget recreational line sold in generalist stores such as Walmart.

The Yamaha Corporation saw success in the marketplace in the 1970s and early 1980s with fiberglass racquets made with the small "standard" head size such as the YFG 10.

The only active professional player to use a midsize recently is Roger Federer, who switched to a larger racquet at the end of 2013.

[4] Oversize and larger racquets are generally used by older recreational players, as a way to reduce the impact of aging on their tennis competitiveness.

[3] The largest legal racquets, which are known as super-oversize frames, have proven extremely rare in professional competition, with only Monica Seles being a top 10 or higher ranked player who used one (a 125 square inch Yonex) during her career at any time.

Andre Agassi achieved considerable success with an oversize racquet, a fact that was often noted due to his rivalry with Pete Sampras, a player who used a much smaller midsize frame.

The article that appeared on the sporting goods company Tennis Warehouse's website in 2005, in which Kuebler provides the historical details regarding the Fortissimo, is now only available via one of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine snapshots.