Bad Batch of Strings?

It's the school holidays and I was busy with a lot of stringing and customizations. One after another. Almost non stop. 

With the Black Friday sales and Christmas mood, many were testing new string setups. Almost all wanted more spin.

Strangely, there was one poly string that kept snapping during tensioning. After the initial string snap, every single grommet hole was scrutinized thoroughly. All was in order.

The string gripper and clamps were stripped apart, cleaned and checked before re-assembling. 

The poly string was also examined for kinks, nicks or other damages. None were found.

But when I applied tension on the mains, it just snapped. Not very tight, just 50 lbs on a 1.23 mm shaped poly.

Sustained a small cut on my left arm from the string lashing. Guess this is all part of stringing. Another reason why I just cannot like poly...

Should be a bad batch since I cut it out from the reel. At least it was not as bad as my previous lashing (link).

     

Customizations, Strings and Skill Levels

Whenever someone asked, and I recommended some "exotic" string, like gut/poly, their standard response were always:
- natural gut is too expensive,
- it is too fragile and I am afraid of breaking it, &/or
- I am not good enough to use natural gut yet.

Other times, some readers of this blog would ask what level of tennis I play. To them, the credibility of my claims must be tagged to my ntrp level. The higher the level of tennis I play, the more weightage they would accord my advice. 

I wonder what ntrp is Nate Ferguson and Ron Yu... (link)

As with everything anyone reads from any source, there are always statements of facts and of opinions. It is up to the reader to determine which is which. Fact to me, may be opinion to you.

What I cannot understand is, does it really need a gourmet chef with decades of experience, and a couple Michelin stars, to enjoy and appreciate a perfectly prepared Japanese A5 Wagyu beef steak?

Or must someone attain the driving proficiency of Lewis Hamilton before he knows how to enjoy the handling of a Mercedes AMG?

Some months back, I hit with (actually was clobbered by) a group of ex-college competitive players. They claimed to be ntrp 5.0-5.5 during their active days and could have dropped to 4.5 then. They tested a few of my string setups and we shared the same opinions of how it played.

On another occasion, a beginner with less than a year's playing experience, developed such a massive forehand topspin shot that dwarfed our strokes. But since he had no backhand, could not serve nor volley nor return serve well, he rated himself ntrp 2.5. Nevertheless, he benefited from his gut/poly setup.

Even at the professional level, players' skill levels are not uniform across all their strokes. Federer's backhand is weaker than his forehand. Santiago Giraldo is known for his blazing return-of-serves. Samuel Groth and Milos Raonic made their names mainly from their powerful serves. And Nadal for his spin.

So should these pros' rackets and strings setup be done to optimise their strengths or to cover their weaknesses?

Put simply, I am convinced there is no need to achieve specific levels of play before anyone can utilise a good racket and strings setup. The key is how consistent they are at their individual levels. 

Undoubtedly, the better player will bring out more from the setup than the weekend hacker. But both benefits from it!

As long as one can afford it, and wishes to try any fanciful setup available, go get it done! YOLO!




     

Heavy Rackets Again: 400 grams

For at least about 100 years, between the 1870s to the 1970s, tennis was most commonly played with wooden rackets. (link)

At that time, 13 to 14 ounces rackets (368-400 grams) was the norm. Everyone who wanted to play, had to get used to the weight, including women and children.

The last time I used very heavy rackets (370-390 grams) was about 2 years ago. (link) I stopped after injuring my wrist.

Now, with a better understanding of my limited capabilities, plus knowing how to tweak the racket weights and strings, I thought I should give this another try...

This time, I kept swingweight down to "only" about 365 kg/cm².

Air swings after the final adjustments felt good. The swing speed was definitely slower than lighter rackets, but the heavy plow felt really nice, and familiar.

Surprisingly, the first two sessions on court was very good. It did not take me long to get in tune with the weight and timing. It was like bumping into an old friend on the street, and continuing exactly where we left off last time.

However, my partners suffered. Both LOVED receiving heavy balls. So I did not hold back and let it all out.

The first partner showed no emotions throughout. After the session, my partner showed me the red and swollen index finger base knuckle. Apparently, my shots had been pushing back my partner's stick every impact and the hand bore the brunt of the shock.

The second partner uses a racket about 90 grams lighter than mine. Almost all my shots were returned to me very short. Just barely passing the net a meter or so. I had to tone down to get a decent rally going.

At another session with another partner, the outcome was totally different. He was initially surprised by how heavy and spinny the ball was (see ball fur pic above). But got used to it in about 10 minutes.

Instead of blocking my shots, he took compact back swings with full follow-throughs, just like return of serves, and simply re-directed my pace back at me. I do not recall ever seeing him hit such fast paced shots and so deftly placed. He was using MY energy!

I switched back to my normal racket and immediately saw him struggle to generate pace. His balls fell so short it did not even clear the service line. Or they flew out due to loss of control. In the end, he reverted back to flatter shots hit straight to me.

What was unexpected, was that the change back to a lighter stick was much more difficult to adapt than when picking up a heavier stick. My timing became too fast, my footwork wrong, control became very poor, spin levels dipped and volleys were suddenly so unstable!

If you have never tried heavy sticks and think this is ridiculous, you could have missed the point. There are reasons why top pros insist on such heavy rackets. And these heavy sticks are not as unwieldy nor cumbersome as most people think! 

Don't believe me? 

Take a look at how fast and easily these 10 to 12 years old kids adapted to a male tour pro's heavy racket, and with no warmup:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCw2gZM-eNg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d07GAyQuuY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMeXWXzoJqs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JugXpLT3EVI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uSl3UycOoo

For me, the acid test is when I meet "M" and pit it against his nuclear powered stick. (link) That would be the "Clash of the Titans!"


5th November 2015 update:

Mission accomplished. 

Happy to cross swords with the 200G now!