Quick answer:Among the top 20 ATP and top 20 WTA players, the most-used main string is Luxilon ALU Power, with 7 of the 33 players whose string we could source. By brand, Yonex leads with 10 players, spread across six different POLYTOUR strings. Five players use natural gut somewhere in their setup, all of them on the ATP Tour. Of the 12 players with a reported tension, the middle value is 55.1 lbs (25 kg), but the range is wide: from about 42 lbs (Frances Tiafoe) to about 62 lbs (Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic).
This guide covers the top 20 ATP and top 20 WTA singles players in the November 2026 rankings. We could source the main string for 33 of the 40 players, the cross string for 18 and the tension for 12. Anything we couldn’t source is left out of the counts, not guessed.
The most-used strings on tour
| Main string | Players | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|
| Luxilon ALU Power | 7 | Aryna Sabalenka, Mirra Andreeva, Coco Gauff, Elina Svitolina, Tommy Paul, Jakub Mensik, Sorana Cirstea |
| Natural gut | 3 | Taylor Fritz, Novak Djokovic, Alex de Minaur |
| Babolat RPM Blast | 3 | Arthur Fils, Alexandra Eala, Leylah Fernandez |
| Yonex POLYTOUR PRO | 3 | Frances Tiafoe, Elise Mertens, Belinda Bencic |
| Head Hawk Touch | 2 | Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev |
| Yonex POLYTOUR STRIKE | 2 | Ben Shelton, Naomi Osaka |
| Yonex POLYTOUR FIRE | 2 | Elena Rybakina, Diana Shnaider |
Eleven more strings have one player each:
- Babolat RPM Team (Carlos Alcaraz)
- Babolat RPM Rough (Felix Auger-Aliassime)
- Head Hawk Rough (Alejandro Davidovich Fokina)
- Head Lynx Tour (Rafael Jodar)
- Yonex POLYTOUR SPIN (Casper Ruud)
- Yonex POLYTOUR FORCE (Linda Noskova)
- Yonex POLYTOUR REV (Madison Keys)
- Luxilon 4G (Marta Kostyuk)
- Tecnifibre Razor Soft (Daniil Medvedev)
- Tecnifibre Razor Code (Iga Swiatek)
- Signum Pro Firestorm (Flavio Cobolli)
ALU Power is far more common on the WTA side: five of its seven users are WTA players.
Which string brand do the pros use most?
Counting the main string of the 33 players we could source:
- Yonex: 10 players, on six different strings (POLYTOUR PRO 3, STRIKE 2, FIRE 2, and SPIN, FORCE and REV 1 each)
- Luxilon: 8 players (ALU Power 7, 4G 1)
- Babolat: 5 players (RPM Blast 3, RPM Team 1, RPM Rough 1)
- Head: 4 players (Hawk Touch 2, Hawk Rough 1, Lynx Tour 1)
- Natural gut: 3 players (brand not reported)
- Tecnifibre: 2 players (Razor Soft, Razor Code)
- Signum Pro: 1 player (Firestorm)
Yonex has the most players, but no single Yonex string comes close to ALU Power. Its users are spread across the whole POLYTOUR range.
Most pros use their racquet sponsor’s string, except Luxilon users
Of the 30 players whose main string has a brand, 21 use a string from the same brand as their racquet sponsor. All 10 Yonex string users play Yonex racquets, for example.
The 9 exceptions are mostly Luxilon players. All 8 Luxilon users play a racquet from a different brand: Wilson (Sabalenka, Andreeva, Mensik, Kostyuk), Yonex (Paul, Cirstea), Head (Gauff) and Diadem (Svitolina). The ninth is Flavio Cobolli, who plays a Head racquet with Signum Pro Firestorm.
Full bed or hybrid?
We know both the main and cross string for 18 players, and they split exactly in half.
Full bed (same string in mains and crosses), 9 players: Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Flavio Cobolli, Frances Tiafoe, Rafael Jodar, Mirra Andreeva, Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka.
Hybrid, 9 players:
| Player | Mains | Crosses |
|---|---|---|
| Novak Djokovic | Natural gut | Luxilon ALU Power Rough |
| Taylor Fritz | Natural gut | Head Hawk |
| Alex de Minaur | Natural gut | Luxilon 4G Rough |
| Alexander Zverev | Head Hawk Touch | Babolat Touch VS natural gut |
| Tommy Paul | Luxilon ALU Power | Natural gut |
| Ben Shelton | Yonex POLYTOUR STRIKE | Yonex POLYTOUR PRO |
| Casper Ruud | Yonex POLYTOUR SPIN | Yonex POLYTOUR PRO |
| Alejandro Davidovich Fokina | Head Hawk Rough | Head Hawk Power |
| Aryna Sabalenka | Luxilon ALU Power | Luxilon Ace |
Five of the nine hybrids mix natural gut with another string. The other four combine two strings from the same brand.
Do pros still use natural gut?
Yes, but only on the men’s side in our data. Five ATP players use it:
- Gut in the mains: Novak Djokovic, Taylor Fritz and Alex de Minaur
- Gut in the crosses: Alexander Zverev and Tommy Paul
None of the WTA players in our data has natural gut listed in their mains or crosses. Keep in mind that we only know the cross string for 4 of the 20 WTA players.
How tight do pros string their racquets?
We found a reported tension for 12 of the 40 players. Many sources report tension in kilograms, so we convert at 1 kg = 2.2046 lbs. Here they are from lowest to highest:
| Player | Tour | Mains | Crosses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frances Tiafoe | ATP | 41.9 lbs (about 19 kg) | 41.9 lbs |
| Alexander Zverev | ATP | 45.9 lbs (20.8 kg) | 48.1 lbs (21.8 kg) |
| Daniil Medvedev | ATP | 46.3 lbs (21 kg) | 46.3 lbs |
| Coco Gauff | WTA | 53 lbs (24 kg) | 53 lbs |
| Ben Shelton | ATP | 54 lbs | 57 lbs |
| Carlos Alcaraz | ATP | 55.1 lbs (about 25 kg) | 50.7 lbs (about 23 kg) |
| Alejandro Davidovich Fokina | ATP | 55.1 lbs (25 kg) | 52.9 lbs (24 kg) |
| Elena Rybakina | WTA | About 56 lbs | Unknown |
| Flavio Cobolli | ATP | 57.3 lbs (about 26 kg) | 57.3 lbs |
| Naomi Osaka | WTA | 59 lbs | 56 lbs |
| Jannik Sinner | ATP | 61.7 lbs (28 kg) | 61.7 lbs |
| Novak Djokovic | ATP | 61.7 lbs (roughly 28 kg) | Unknown |
What the numbers show:
- The middle value is 55.1 lbs (25 kg) in the mains, and the average is 53.9 lbs.
- The range is about 20 lbs. Tiafoe, Zverev and Medvedev all string around 46 lbs or below, while Sinner and Djokovic string at about 62 lbs.
- Most string the crosses the same or lower. Of the 10 players with both tensions known, 5 use the same tension, 3 string the crosses lower (Alcaraz, Davidovich Fokina and Osaka) and 2 string them higher (Zverev and Shelton).
- Sources don’t always agree. Tiafoe’s tension was reported as 44 lbs at Halle in June 2026 and around 19 kg (41.9 lbs) in August. We use the most recent report.
Only 3 of the 12 are WTA players, which is too few to say whether women string tighter or looser than men.
What this means for your own strings
Copying a pro’s string is the easy part: each branded string above links to its own page, with every pro in our database who uses it. Copying their tension is a different matter. Pros hit much harder than club players and restring far more often, so treat a pro’s tension as a reference point, not a target.
You can see every player’s full setup in our tennis gear table, and the most-used racquets, strings and tensions on our stats page.
How we sourced this
Every figure in this guide comes from the player pages in our database. Each entry there has a source link, a confidence label and a last-verified date (11 November 2026). All the string and tension entries used here are rated Reported: they come from established gear publications and retailer player pages, not from the players or an official tournament stringer. Read our methodology. If you know of a more recent setup, send us a correction.
Frequently asked questions
What strings do most pro tennis players use?
Luxilon ALU Power is the most-used main string among the top 20 ATP and top 20 WTA players, with 7 of the 33 players whose string we could source. Yonex is the most-used brand, with 10 players across six different strings.
What string does Jannik Sinner use?
A full bed of Head Hawk Touch, reportedly at about 28 kg (61.7 lbs) in both the mains and the crosses.
What string does Carlos Alcaraz use?
A full bed of Babolat RPM Team 1.30, at about 25 kg in the mains and 23 kg in the crosses (55.1 / 50.7 lbs).
Do pro tennis players still use natural gut?
Some do. Five of the top 40 use natural gut: Novak Djokovic, Taylor Fritz and Alex de Minaur in the mains, and Alexander Zverev and Tommy Paul in the crosses. All five play on the ATP Tour.
What tension do pro tennis players use?
Of the 12 top players with a reported tension, the middle value is 55.1 lbs (25 kg) in the mains. The range runs from about 42 lbs (Frances Tiafoe) to about 62 lbs (Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic).
Do pro tennis players use hybrid string setups?
About half do. Of the 18 players whose main and cross strings are both known, 9 use a hybrid and 9 use the same string in both.