Hey, blog-gears. Thanks for your response to last week’s introductory post on gear game-changers that clearly showed I’m not alone with fond memories of my first racquet fling. Special kudos to SouthPaw for writing the line I wish had been mine -- “Love at First Strike” -- that in four best-chosen words describes Paw’s first date with the Prince Graphite 110.

I also sent your first batch of gear questions to Bruce “Mad Dog” Levine, TENNIS.com’s chief racquet guru. He’ll get back to you with his picks of three or four racquets he thinks you should playtest based on the personal playing bios you sent -- your level and style, and the racquet you now use and what you need most that you’re not currently getting from it.

But be a little patient with us because the Dog is always in high demand at U.S. Open time. But we’ll have his responses for you sometime after tonight when the Dog woofs on the latest equipment trends for WNBC-TV here in New York (tune in at 7 p.m. if you’re in town), and before next Sunday when he receives his national award from the USTA for running one of the 12 best tennis facilities in the country – the Courtside Racquet Club in Lebanon, N.J.
 
Meanwhile, I’m off to the Big Show at the BJK National Tennis Center where I’m meeting up with another of TENNIS.com’s top-of-the-crop gear advisors, Roman Prokes, a.k.a. the king of strings, to get the skinny on the pros’ picks and the stories behind them. 

Roman and his team of 14 stringers are the hardest working and most skilled artists and craftspeople at the Slam this side of Venus and Serena. The team is spending from 7 a.m. until the wee hours each of the 14 days, restringing and refitting some 3,500 racquets from their shop inside Arthur Ashe Stadium.  

Roman is the stringer, racquet customizer and technical go-to guy for some of the biggest names in tennis where he modifies their frames’ lengths, weights, and balances, and then matches it all with tailor-made string. Think of Roman as the tennis equipment equivalent to Billy Joel’s piano tuner and Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s chief mechanic.

His A-list clients range from Rafa to Roddick, and often they call on him for more than just his string expertise. He helped Maria Sharapova, for one, find a new racquet a few years ago when she wanted to control the extra power she’d been carrying around a few years ago and helped guide her to her current stick, the Prince 03 Speedport. I’ll ask Roman this week if Maria has altered her racquet characteristics or string tension to accommodate her recovering shoulder and her new compensating shortened serve.

Got a question about your favorite player’s string combination, tension, or racquet weights and balances? Email me by using the "Contact" tab at the top of this blog and we’ll take it to the highest court.

Talk to you from Flushing.