I need an equipment change

Back in 2005, I picked up Tennis again after a 10-year layoff. The racquets I used in college were long gone, so found some sticks that were the closest thing to my old weapons. I think I bought these racquets on discount, so I really don’t know how old they were at that time.

I’ve hung up the game twice since then, but I’m still playing with those same Prince 850 More Control DB 110s. I like these racquets. They don’t have the biggest sweet spot, but they have a good feel and when I’m playing well, I feel like I have decent control.

But in the past few weeks, my arm has really started to hurt when I play. I had feeling something was wrong with my equipment, but I wasn’t sure if it was the racquets or the string. I borrowed a couple demos from the local tennis shop to test out the racquet hypothesis. No more arm pain with different racquets – so it looks like there is something wrong with the old 850s.

When I talked to the guy at the Tennis shop, he told me my 850′s were probably about 12 years old and that the carbon inside can start to break down after several years of use.

So I gotta go through an equipment change. This is going to be painful on a couple different levels:

1. It’s gonna run me about $400 bucks because I gotta have 2 racquets.
2. It will take my game some time to adjust.

I tried to convince myself that I can play with any racquet and the change isn’t all that big of a deal, but that mindset lasted all of about a set. The first set of racquets I tried were too light. I ended up playing way too tentative because I was afraid the ball was going to fly on me. I also didn’t feel like I could get enough topspin on the ball.

Does anyone have any advice for a major equipment change like this? Does anyone from Prince want to help me out with this?