Tennis racket assembly

Claim 1

In a tennis racket frame having a substantially rectilinear cross section with opposite faces and having a handle and an ellipsoid head attached to one end of said handle and a grip element at the opposite end of said handle, in which said frame comprises an assembly of a long structural member and a short structural member, each of said members comprising a core of an expanded porous resinous material and a shell comprising at least one layer of resin coated unidirectionally oriented graphite fibers with said shell completely encasing said core at any cross section transverse to the length of said member, in which frame said long member extends from one end thereof at the grip end of said handle, up one side of said handle, around a major portion of the head of said frame and down the other side of said handle to the opposite end of said member at the grip end of said handle, and said short member extends across a minor portion of the head to complete its ellipsoid shape and is attached at its ends to junction points in said long member in the head portion thereof, the improvement comprising a yoke piece at each of said junction points, each yoke piece having the external shape of the letter "Y" and having a trunk portion and at least two branch portions meeting at a fork point, the trunk portion of each yoke member being at least partially wrapped around said long member in said major portion of said head, a first branch portion of each yoke piece overlying a surface of an end portion of said short member, and a second branch portion of each yoke piece overlying an opposite surface of said end portion of said short member.