Simon, a recommended pattern is which holes in the racket you should be using for which strings, and where you should be tying knots. There are several important things to note:

(1) Where to tie the knots on the main strings – normally grommet 8 at the bottom.

NOTE: to find a grommet (which is the black thing that stops the string rubbing against the racket frame when it goes through the hole) it is normal to start in the centre of the racket, and count outwards e.g. to find grommet 8 at the bottom on the left hand side of your racket (symmetric for the right hand side), what you would do is find the t-joint at the bottom of the racket, and find the grommet to the left of the t-joint. This grommet is grommet 1. Having found this one, simply count as you go to find the desired grommet. Hope that made sense.

(2) Where to start the cross strings – it doesn't matter whether you start on the left or right, but it does matter whether you start at the head or near the throat (t-joint) of the racket – it can affect the shape of the racket and hence why it is specified. New yonex rackets start the cross strings at the bottom (roughly grommet 6), and tie them off at the top.

(3) What to do on the outer main strings – imagine there are 11 main strings on each side (fairly standard I think), when you get towards the side, instead of just going up the second to last main, then down the last one as you might expect, instead, you go up the “last” main (the one further from the centre – haveing missed out the one next to it) and then coming down to replace the string you just missed out.

NOTE: This helps keep the tension in the racket when you tie off the knots. after you pull the final cross string, and you need to tie the knot to finish it off, you then pull the string through one of the earlier holes (grommet 8 – which already has a string in it) and tie the knot around the string that is already in place. That bit of string that goes around the outside edge of the frame, never gets tensioned by a machine, but by hand. Hence, by doing the trick mentioned above, the bit you have to try and pull tight yourself gets a little smaller, making it easier.

(4) Finally, make sure that the main (vertical) strings and the cross strings go through the correct grommets – quite hard to get this wrong, as it looks silly and you know you've made a mistake.

Here is the link to the yonex stringing instructions:

http://www.yonex.com/badminton…..index.html

Its easy (and basically the same on all rackets) once you see it done – or look at your own racket and see if it was done that way.

Has that cleared that one up?

As Peter says: do it a few times and you will know what you are doing 🙂 It doesn't take long. I spent lots of money to get really good tools. Get some good “flying clamps” from yonex. They are brilliant in my opinion!

Matt