1976

In the early 1970’s following his retirement from the Head Ski company that he founded, Howard Head took up tennis as a hobby and the game of tennis would never be the same again. After finding the game frustratingly difficult, Head put his keen engineering skills to work to solve his problem. His solution was to create a racket with a much larger head size it would have a greater moment of inertia and not rotate on impact. The result of this much larger head was much more control and power and in essence a much easier and more enjoyable game of tennis. Head reached out to the Prince Manufacturing Group to optimize his invention to not only work for him but to also make the game of tennis more enjoyable for everyone playing the game. Head later bought the Prince Manufacturing company, and in 1976 Prince was granted the patent for the oversize tennis racket, changing the trajectory of the game of tennis forever and opening up a boom in the sport as tennis became more accessible to millions of players worldwide.