Best Tennis String for Tennis Elbow: Arm-Friendly Picks

Sore elbow after tennis? Before you spend money on a new racket, look at your strings. For most players fighting arm pain, the fix is a soft multifilament like the Tecnifibre NRG2 or Wilson NXT, strung a few pounds lower than usual. If money is no object and you want the plushest hit there is, natural gut like the Babolat Touch VS is the gold standard. On a budget, the Head Velocity MLT and Wilson Sensation give you most of the comfort for a fraction of the price.

This guide sorts real, currently-sold strings by the one thing that actually matters for a cranky arm: how soft and forgiving the string bed feels on contact. A quick, important note first. This is arm-comfort advice, not medical advice. If you've got real, persistent elbow pain, see a physio or doctor. What follows is about giving your arm an easier ride while you play.

Why the string matters more than the racket

Here's the part a lot of shoppers get backwards. When your elbow starts complaining, the instinct is to blame the racket and go buy a "arm-friendly" frame. Frames do matter, but the string is cheaper to change and often the bigger culprit, especially if you're playing a full bed of stiff polyester.

String is the first thing the ball touches, and it's the first thing that decides how much shock reaches your hand. A stiff string barely flexes, so it dumps a short, hard spike of force into your arm. A soft string stretches on impact and spreads that force over more time, which your elbow feels as a cushioned thud instead of a jolt. Tennis Warehouse's testing lays this out plainly: stiffer strings give more control and less power, but they're less comfortable, producing a higher peak force over a shorter window. That spike is what a sore elbow hates. You can read their breakdown of string stiffness if you want the full version.

There's a research angle too. In a review of tennis elbow published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the authors note that racquets with less string tension, or more strings per unit area, transmit lower loads to the elbow. The same review found that about half of tennis players develop pain around the elbow at some point, so if your arm is talking to you, you're in a big crowd. Worth knowing: that same review reported vibration dampeners did nothing measurable for the shock reaching your wrist and elbow. The little rubber worm is a placebo for your arm. The string is where the real gains are.

If you've drifted over from padel or pickleball and picked up "tennis elbow" from those, the same logic travels: softer contact, less shock. But this guide is about tennis strings specifically.

How we chose these

Rallyary doesn't run a stringing lab. What we do is synthesize the manufacturer specs, the long-running consensus among stringers and players, and each string's reputation for comfort, then turn that into plain recommendations. Every price here is a range because string prices bounce around with sales and gauge, and a precise number would be stale by next month.

We picked across the budget spread on purpose: two value multifilaments, a run of premium multis with different personalities, and one natural gut for the splurge. Every pick is a currently-sold string you can find in 16 and 17 gauge without hunting. If you want a broader look at frames, our guide to the best tennis racket for seniors digs into comfort-first rackets that pair well with these strings, and the best tennis racket for women guide covers how stiffness and weight play into arm comfort too. Here's how we research if you want the method.

What actually helps a sore arm

Three things decide how kind a string setup is to your elbow. None of them is the brand on the package.

Material: soft beats stiff

String comfort runs on a ladder. Natural gut sits at the top as the softest and most shock-absorbing option, which is why touring pros with the budget still swear by it. Multifilament comes next, and it's the smart-money choice for most players: hundreds of tiny fibers bundled together flex and cushion much like gut, at a quarter of the cost. Below that sits soft synthetic gut, and at the bottom for comfort is polyester, the stiffest common type. If your arm hurts and you're playing a full poly bed, that's the first thing to change.

Tension: drop a few pounds

This is the free upgrade. A looser string bed flexes more on contact and returns less shock to your arm. A 2016 study in Shoulder & Elbow measured the force reaching players' elbows on backhands at three tensions and found it climbed as tension climbed, from 200 N up through 245 N, with the jumps reaching statistical significance. Plainer version: tighter strings hit your arm harder. Take two to four pounds off your usual number and you'll feel the difference without losing much control. Comfort strings like these are happiest in the low-to-mid tension range anyway.

Gauge: thinner feels softer

Gauge is the string's thickness. A thinner string (17 gauge) tends to feel a little softer and gives you more touch and bite, but it wears out faster. A thicker string (16 gauge) lasts longer and holds up if you're a string-breaker. For an arm-first setup, 17 gauge is a nice touch if you don't snap strings often. If you do, stay at 16 and get your comfort from the material and the tension instead. Don't chase thin gauge and then have it break every two sessions.

The picks, and why

Wilson Sensation: best budget comfort

If you're stepping off a stiff poly bed for the first time and don't want to gamble much money, start here. Sensation is one of the original soft multifilaments, and it's still one of the softest you can buy this cheap. It won't dazzle you with liveliness, and the feel is a little muted next to the premium multis, but for a sore arm on a budget it does the job. A great "just fix my elbow" string.

$Check price· around $10–14 a set (opens in new tab)

Head Velocity MLT: best value with control

Velocity MLT has a reputation as the best-value premium-feel multifilament, and it earns it. It's comfortable and low-vibration, but it's a touch firmer than the softest multis, which control players actually prefer. That firmness is the trade: if your arm is only mildly sensitive and you want a string that doesn't feel spongy, this is a sweet spot. If your elbow is really barking, one of the softer picks below will treat it gentler.

$Check price· around $11–14 a set (opens in new tab)

Tecnifibre NRG2: softest synthetic feel

When people want the plushest possible hit without paying gut prices, NRG2 comes up over and over. It's among the softest and stretchiest multis made, and it has a lively pop that rewards players who bring their own pace. The flip side of all that stretch is durability and control: it won't last as long as a firmer string, and it's not the one for a player who wants to flatten out big, precise drives. For pure arm comfort, though, it's hard to beat under $25.

$Check price· around $17–22 a set (opens in new tab)

Babolat Xcel: comfort that still controls

Most soft strings ask you to give up control to get comfort. Xcel is the one that mostly doesn't. It's plush and gentle, but it grips the ball and gives you more control than its softness suggests, and it holds tension better than a lot of comfort strings. It also shines as the soft main in a hybrid setup. If "soft but I still want to aim" describes you, this is the pick.

$Check price· around $20–24 a set (opens in new tab)

Wilson NXT: the trusted all-rounder

NXT is the string a lot of stringers hand to a customer who says the word "elbow." It's soft, rounded, and reliable, sitting a hair firmer and more durable than the very softest multis, which many players like. It can feel a touch powerful, so if you already hit a big ball you might string it lower to keep it in the court. As a safe, do-everything comfort string, it's tough to argue with.

$Check price· around $20–24 a set (opens in new tab)

Tecnifibre X-One Biphase: closest to gut

If natural gut is the target and your wallet says no, X-One Biphase is the synthetic that gets closest. It's plush and near-gut in feel, but it keeps real power, so you're not trading pop for comfort. It sits at the top of the multifilament price range, which is the only real knock. Think of it as the "I want gut but can't justify gut" answer.

$Check price· around $18–24 a set (opens in new tab)

Babolat Touch VS Natural Gut: the plushest hit there is

This is the ceiling. Natural gut is the softest, most elastic string made, and Touch VS is the benchmark version. It soaks up shock better than any synthetic and stays lively and gentle even if you string it a little tighter. The catch: it's expensive, and it hates moisture, so you baby it and you don't play it in the rain. If comfort matters to you more than the receipt, nothing else feels like this. A lot of arm-conscious players split the difference by using gut in the mains and a cheaper string in the crosses.

$Check price· around $55–65 a set (opens in new tab)

A note on polyester and hybrids

If you play with spin and control and can't imagine giving up poly, you don't have to go cold turkey. A hybrid setup, a soft multifilament in the main strings and a softer co-polyester in the crosses, keeps some of poly's bite while easing the harshness. Strung low, that's a real compromise for players who want both. And if you insist on a full poly bed, at least pick one of the softer ones. Volkl Cyclone Tour, for instance, is easy on the arm by poly standards and has helped players off stiffer polys, though it still feels firmer than any multi and loses tension quickly. It's the arm-friendlier poly, not an arm-friendly string in the way gut and multis are.

Quick comparison

Bottom line

Fix the string before you fix the racket. For most players with a sore arm, a soft multifilament strung a few pounds lower is the cheap, effective answer, and the Tecnifibre NRG2 or Wilson NXT are the safe picks. If your budget is tight, the Head Velocity MLT and Wilson Sensation deliver most of the comfort for a fraction of the cost. If you want the softest hit money buys and you'll look after it, natural gut in the Babolat Touch VS is the one. And no matter which you choose, take a few pounds off your tension and get out of a full bed of stiff poly. Your elbow will thank you long before your game notices any difference.