US Open Stringing Room 2011 - Day 15

US Open Fri 2^nd September

This is my last day stringing. I am looking forward to having a couple of days off afterwards. There is lots of shopping to be done.

The morning is fairly busy. We have a steady stream of racquets leading up to the 11am start time. Zvonareva has decided to go back to the Gamma string she was using previously. This spells trouble. Once her match starts we are hit with a stream of on-court racquets from her. She sends in 4 for the match. All have broken at the grommets inside the tubing. There is nothing we can do about this.

The day slows down after lunch. There are still racquets for me to string but the urgency of the last few days is not there. I don’t have to string 4 racquets an hour. We are losing another 2 stringers today. It is Vasiliy’s last day as well.

Ron has started organising the team for the Australian Open. Everyone on the team here has been invited back for Australia. One or 2 of the Americans are undecided but the team will be essentially the same.

We saw the new Wilson range today. The new BLX’s have all undergone a cosmetic change. There are a couple of new models. The Wilson has also introduced a new handle system to the range to increase feel.

Before today the team had strung 2666 racquets for the tournament. I had strung just under 200 racquets. My fingers feel fine. The new taping has worked wonders. After the Australian Open in January my fingers were shedding skin for a month. Looking at my hands now it is like I have been on holidays for the last couple of weeks. They show no adverse signs.

I finish my last racquet just after 9pm and jump on the 9.30 shuttle with a few of the guys. We are off to get noodles. The restaurant closes at 10pm and we get there right on closing time. Tadashi manages to talk our way in. The noodles are great. One of the best meals I have had in New York.

I have 2 days to shop now. It hardly seems like enough time but I only have 8kg of baggage allowance to play with so it’s probably a good thing. I am looking forward to coming home.

Shane Mikic is the pro-shop manager for the Tennis Gear stores and their online store www.tennisgear.com.au in Brisbane.  He has over 16 years racquet stringing experience and is currently part of the Wilson Global Stringing Team at the 2011 US Open.  The following blog shares his experiences during his time in the Wilson Stringing room.

US Open Stringing Room 2011 - Day 14

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US Open Thursday 1^st September 2011

It started out as a busy morning today. Even though we are into the second round and the number of players has halved all stringers were working flat out leading up to the 11am matches. Players have a habit of dropping in racquets at very short notice. It’s not a problem to string a racquet quickly but scheduling the stringers can become tricky. If one of my players drops in a racquet and needs it back in 30 minutes but I am already stringing for another of my players my day gets really interesting. I have to work as quickly as I can on the current racquet so that I can get to the next one in time. During the morning session you really have to work as fast as possible even if you don’t have any racquets to follow because you never know when one of your players is going to walk through the door with a racquet for you. The quicker you have your machine clear the better.

I have had a few strings pop on me this week. This morning a set of 17 gauge gut broke as I was pulling tension. I have done a lot of Babolat and Wilson gut over the last 2 weeks with no problems. The gut this morning was Prince gut. It was perfectly clean and just snapped under tension about 2 mm in from the grommet. At the Australian open this year I had no issues with breakage at all. But this week it has been carnage. There were the Zvonoreva racquets yesterday. The day before that I had a set of unmarked poly break on the long side turnaround as I was halfway through the crosses. Some of the cheaper strings cannot handle the pattern we use. We never have breakage issues with Luxilon strings. They stand up to the pattern very well.

We had a lot of tour groups coming through the room today. We don’t have many groups coming through the room during the Australian Open because the setup there is much different.  It is open to the public for viewing.

I told my life story to a TV crew from the Tennis Channel. They interviewed Ron (who runs the team) about how the team works and then they interviewed me for about 10 minutes or so. The interview airs Friday on the Tennis Channel over here.

Today was supposed to be my last day but I have been asked to stay one more day. That only leaves me 2 full days of shopping here. I’m not sure that will be enough.

US Open Stringing Room - Day 12

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US Open Wed 30^th August 2011

Slow morning so far. Just a steady stream of racquets, then Zvonoreva sends in 3 on-courts at once. I get one of them. She uses a Prince Exo Black and Gamma Zo string. The string has been breaking at the grommets all tournament so we have tubing on all of the mains. Tubing an Exo is not the easiest thing to do. There are no traditional grommets to hold the tubing in place so keeping the tubing there while you tension the string is a fiddly exercise. As I am tensioning the 2^nd last main the string pops at the tension head.  Happy days. She has not given us any spare sets. Well at least she will get 2 of her racquets on time. We spend a few minutes hunting around for some string and find a spare set so I start again. The racquet is bagged 25 minutes after it came in the door.

Ten minutes later she sends back another which I get straight into. And then 5 minutes later she sends another. They have both broken at the top inside the tubing at the head. Ten minutes or so after sending those 2 out she sends back another. The break is in the same spot. There is nothing more we can do to stop the breakage. The string she is using just does not work with the racquet she is using. She has not sent any string in with the racquet. The runner has to go back to the court and get some more from her. As soon as I have the string I start again. As I pull the 4^th right main string it snaps inside the tubing. This is funny. We have no more string for her. Even if we did have string it wouldn’t do any good. By this stage she is serving for the match. We all sit and watch hoping that she closes it out. She always has issues with her string breaking at the grommets in her racquet. It is the string not the racquet that is the problem. After the match we do some racquets for her with different string.  That should fix the problem.

It is a quiet day. Only about 200 racquets. I spend most of the afternoon sitting around doing the occasional racquet. Ron goes around the room filming all of us stringing. In particular he is looking at our weaving techniques. There are a few different types of weaving. The technique I use is unusual so he has me go in slow motion and then super slow motion so he can see exactly what my hands are doing. Luis is the other guy on the team with a different weave. His hands move up and down like pistons. I could never learn that technique. Ron will be presenting a seminar on weaving techniques at the Grand Slam Stringers Symposium. So our techniques will all be analysed and critiqued.

I have to wait til last of the outside courts are finished before I can go home. They are done by 9.40 so I catch the 10pm shuttle and get home around 10.30. Pizza for dinner then I’m in bed catching up on some sleep. Tomorrow will be my last day stringing. I am looking forward to having a few days off before I fly home.