Lacoste’s steel racket
The steel tennis racket invented by René Lacoste and made famous by Jimmy Connors as the Wilson T2000.
The tennis player and businessman René Lacoste, the Crocodile, wanted a racket lighter and stronger than wood. He patented a steel racket in 1963 and sold the rights to Wilson.
Jimmy Connors played with the T2000 throughout the 1970s and won many major titles with it. The racket opened the way for metal and later graphite in tennis.
Materials: Steel profile, strings running through loops of steel wire
Manufacture: Patented by René Lacoste in 1963; made by Wilson in the United States as the T2000 from 1967.
The slim, round steel frame.
The strings running through small wire loops instead of holes.
The slender shaft.