As I flipped through the channels, Venus Williams had just beaten Lindsay Davenport, 7-5, 6-0 in the Pilot Pen championship at Yale University.

And it reminded me I had a Saturday chore go get my daughter a new tennis racket.

Julie had surprised us last year.

As a ninth-grader, she dug out an old racket that was buried in the garage, went out for the school team and lettered.

Now a sophomore, Julie found out the first day of practice the old junior racket was holding her back.

I told her I’d do a little research and see what’s out there.

Racket science

Technology finds its way into most sporting equipment. And tennis has its own share of lab technicians in white coats, including some from NASA.

One of the top NASA techs, David A. Noever of the Marshall Space Flight Center, applied one of the experiments done aboard Skylab to tennis.

And he’s taking that research to try to spin off a product for commercial use that he calls the “Rocket Racquet.”

A pair of spiders aboard Skylab were enticed to spin a web in zero gravity. On the ground, the diameter of the threads was uniform. But in space, the spider spun threads of varying diameters.

This inspired Noever to apply it to the strings of a tennis racket.

Anybody who’s ever hit a tennis ball knows what happens if you miss the sweet spot, which is generally in the center of older rackets the vibration gives a jar to your hands.

But most people have a tendency to strike the ball more toward the end of the racket, which provides more power and speed.

The spider experiment showed, by varying the diameter and taper of the strings, the sweet spot could be moved closer to the end of the racket.

That tends to give the player more control and less twists on off-center shots. And it helps to cut down on injuries.

Electric power

Probably one of the most interesting tennis innovations to come along is the new Head racket that has a computer chip in it that zaps away the excess vibration, giving the player more control.

It’s called the Head i.S18 ChipSystem Tennis Racquet (www.midwest-sports.com/midwestsports/midwestsports.nsf/Public/42482803fe77b71c8525698b005cfc2f).

The chip, plus the use of piezolectric strings that carry electrical impulses, converts the mechanical energy of the ball striking the head into electrical energy.

The electrical impulse changes the shape of the “intellifiber” strings in the racket’s throat area to make them stiffer. That eliminates 20 percent of the vibrations running down the handle, according to Head.

I also went to RacquetResearch.com, where it provided me with lots of information, including how to choose a racquet and specs of 167 currently available rackets.

Then I saw a page with lots of algebraic equations. I tried to follow along. And I’m sure if I had a few days, I could understand what they were talking about.

But the clock was ticking and we had to get out and hit the stores.

Good vibrations

“So what do you think?”

Julie and I both gaped at the wall of rackets hanging before us.

I explained to a store clerk why we were there and he made a couple of recommendations.

Julie reached up and grabbed a Prince Hornet, swung it in the air and said it felt good. The clerk had Julie make sure it was the right grip size.

We picked out some nylon string and were told they would string it and we could pick it up the next morning.

When we got to the car, I wondered if she liked it because it had a “triple threat” sweet spot, a 110-square-inch head size and it was only 9.5 ounces.

“I could just see myself using it,” Julie explained as she drove us home. “And it was red and black (the school colors).”

She smiled and shrugged.

Go for style

Wondering how badly we had picked, I called Dick Wedel, Julie’s coach.

He talked about grip size being important and said you should also get as big of a head as you can handle.

“I think that all the companies Wilson, Prince, Babolat and others, have spent a lot of money designing high-tech rackets that cut down on the vibration that’s passed to your arm and maximize the power that’s gone to the ball,” he said.

“So I figure any of the rackets we buy are going to outperform the person, if you get up into the $80 to $100-plus range.”

So Wedel had a low-tech recommendation for novices.

“Buy the prettiest one you can find. Buy the one with the graphics you like the best,” he said. “Buy a pretty one and then you’ll use it more and be happy with it.”

Julie’s instincts were on the money.