The handle still fits. That is what makes the Cracked Frame difficult to put away. A player can close their hand around years of familiar movement before their eye reaches the damage near the edge.
Strength Tales remember what the racket endured. Responsibility Tales remember the people who shared the court when it was used beyond its condition. The same object can hold a proud account and an uncomfortable one. Neither requires the other to vanish.
Imagine keeping it in a drawer, then lifting it out months later: the grip brings back a point, a partner, the unlikely afternoon when nothing seemed to miss. Then the crack comes into view again. The memory is intact. The equipment is not.
Strength, the Tower and the Court After Rain gather around this widely attested object. Endurance has a history; a break changes the conditions of return. Keeping the frame, repairing it for display or letting it go can each acknowledge that history. Its story cannot authorise play against its material condition or transfer the risk to everybody else.
The owner puts it back. There is room in the drawer for something that mattered, even after there is no place for it in the next match.