3 posts categorized "September 2009"
Most of us have the luxury of experimenting with the full gamut of racquets and strings, ranging from extra-long wide bodies strung with gut at the low end of the recommended tension range for more power to standard-length sticks with narrow beams and polyester strings weaved tightly for more control.
But if you’re recovering from a hitting-arm injury (as many of you apparently are, based on the feedback we’re getting), comfort is the all-encompassing concern. As TENNIS.com racquet advisor Bruce Levine puts it: “If you’ve got arm issues and you’re not playing with gear that softens the blow when the racquet collides with the ball, you won’t be playing for long.”
Maria Sharapova knows that – she’s recovering from rotator cuff surgery. So does Katy Koch, a 4.5 recreational player in rural Ontario – she’s getting over a bout with tennis elbow.
They may be worlds apart in ability, but neither wants a return engagement of their respective hitting-arm-invading injuries.
“After Maria’s injury, we took at look at everything – her technique, her racquet and especially her strings,” says Michael Joyce, Sharapova’s coach. The three-time major champion worked with Joyce on technique modifications, most noticeably her new and celebrated “abbreviated” serve.
But she also tried various racquet and string combinations in conjunction with Joyce, personal stringer Roman Prokes and the technical folks at her racquet sponsor, Prince. She ultimately switched to a different racquet within the Prince 03 Speedport family, exchanging the “White” model she’d been using for a slightly more flexible and forgiving version of the “Black” Speedport that also has Prince’s new string-hole grommet inserts for added cushioning. Sharapova’s new racquet is also a half-inch shorter than the 27½-inch-long Speedport White, which lightens the swingweight load and should help her prevent late hits that cause additional stress on the shoulder and arm. The stationary weight is also about 2/5 of an ounce lower.
Sharapova also softened her main strings a little as a concession to her shoulder without compromising or throwing off her highly fine-tuned game. She went from Babolat Hurricane, a harsh polyester, to Luxilon M2, a slightly softer co-polyester blend in the main strings, while maintaining easiest-on-the-arm natural gut in the cross strings.
The majority of tour pros opt for polyester or co-polyester string either as a full set or mixed with gut because polyester has a dead-like-a-board feel that lets them swing their hardest and impart incredible spins and still keep ball in the court. They also generally string their racquets tight at the very top of the recommended range, which usually runs from the mid 50s to the mid 60s (in pounds) for optimum control. Sharapova strings hers at 63 pounds.
Recreational players recovering from arm injuries can take a racquet cue from Sharapova by considering a more flexible racquet. Katy Koch, for example, currently uses a 27½-inch long and head-heavy Wilson Hyper Hammer 5.3, named by TENNIS as the playtesters’ choice for power when it was introduced in 1999. Koch also uses a nylon monofilament string at the top of the tension range.
Katy wants to remain within the Wilson family, so Levine suggests she playtest the brands’ K Factor K Surge and K Factor K Pro Team. Both have narrower and more flexible beams along with the creature-comfort qualities of lower swingweights, a result of their head-light balances and shorter (27-inch) lengths.
But Levine points out that she needs to have her racquet strung at the lower part of the tension range and switch to a natural gut (best) or at least a multifilament nylon synthetic that create more stringbed deflection and a softer landing area. (The new string combination will also increase the power, but the more flexible, head-light frame should largely offset it.)
Gut offers the best protection for the arm, but it’s expensive and breaks easily. Multifilament synthetics (such as Babolat XL Premium, Wilson NXT, Prince Premier, Head FXP and Gamma Livewire) are more cost effective and generally last longer. Gauge thicknesses range from a scale of 15 to 18; the higher the gauge number, the thinner, more comfortable (and more breakable) the string.
And unless recreational players have the almost impeccable stroke mechanics of a Maria Sharapova, they should run – not walk – from polyester, especially if they’re recovering from a hitting-arm injury.
 When Melanie Oudin continues her Cinderella run tonight at the U.S. Open, her slipper company will be along for the ride. All the way to the bank.
Oudin's pink and yellow Adidas Barricade V's that she and her boyfriend designed this summer on www.miadidas.com may look more like neon bowling rental shoes than tennis footwear, but they've become the big fashion buzz of the Open. As the 17-year-old Georgian has spun her way through four rounds of against-the-odds Russian Roulette -- first Pavlyuchenkova, then Dementieva, Sharapova, and Petrova -- traffic and sales on the Adidas website has increased five-fold, according to a company spokeswoman.
Oudin's performance has been a match made in marketing heaven. Adidas couldn't have paid for better on-court exposure in front of the packed Flushing Meadows crowds and the global TV cameras. All eyes are naturally drawn to Oudin's hip-hoppity Barricade V-clad feet, reminiscent of Jennifer Beals in "Flashdance" ("she's a maniac on the floor"), the 1983 movie musical that, not unlike the Melanie Oudin story, also tugged at the heartstrings and made you believe in the power of dreams. And the shoes' wild colors pop even more with the contrast to her muted dark purple tank and skirt.
Be-Like-Melanie fans can click and buy her shoes or they can substitute their own color picks from a huge palette for the midsoles, midfoot, laces, outsole and uppers on a computer model for $140. The "MI Adidas" ("MI" stands for 'My Individual') build-a-pair webstore was launched this year by the company for some of its tennis, soccer, basketball, running and training shoe products. (Nike also has a color customization shoe program at its www.nikeid.com site, but it doesn't include tennis.)
Of course, the biggest draw of the MI Adidas program is the option of inscribing a personal message on the side of the shoes. As everybody around the world knows by now, Oudin elected the word, "Believe" on hers.
Adidas spotted Oudin's potential three years ago at the Racquet Club of the South in Atlanta when she was 14 and her star power was just a twinkle in her coach Brian de Villiers' eye. The company enlisted her to join its National Junior Team, a group of about 25 boys and girls in the United States who are supplied apparel and footwear. Adidas became Oudin's official sponsor when she turned pro last year, but the company declines to discuss the money relationship.
Ironically, her opponent in the quarterfinals tonight is Adidas' most prominent women's tennis endorsee, Caroline Wozniacki, who presumably signed a megabucks deal this summer as Adidas' spokesplayer for its tennis line designed by Beatle daughter and celebrated designer Stella McCartney.
So tonight's fashion match-up at Arthur Ashe Stadium under the bright lights pits Wozniacki in her pale purple-colored ensemble with ruffles from the "Adidas by Stella McCartney Collection" against the kid from Georgia in the "Adidas by Oudin" shoes.
 We hit the same yellow fuzzy balls and we run in the same shoes as the U.S. Open players. Maybe we even juice up our racquets with lead tape and change the balance points like they do.
But the biggest worlds-apart difference in their gear and ours is the zing in their string and how often it's reapplied to the racquet face. For most recreational players, we restring when it breaks; for them it can be something as minor as a small break in the weather.
Indeed, most U.S. Open players will drop the tension a pound or two on cooler Flushing Meadows nights to put more zip on the ball and lessen the harshness on their hands and arms, while tensions go up on warm days as the balls get heavier collecting moisture from the humidity. Sometimes they'll split their usual eight racquets they bring to a match evenly between lower and higher tensions.
But no matter what the weather, Roger Federer picks up a freshly strung racquet each time new balls are put into play because he's looking to control their fresh-from-the-can liveliness. Ivan Navarro, the Spanish serve and volleyer, uses one racquet for serving (strung at a looser tension for power) and another for returning (strung higher for control).
In fact, all U.S. Open players are as fussy about their strings as first-chair violinists in a symphony orchestra. They are the maestros of multifilament and monofilament and can detect the smallest deviation from the rigid set of specifications they provide to the stringing crew that could send their games more out of tune than a Roseanne Barr/William Hung duet.
"There's no room for error here," says Wilson's Ron Rocchi, who is running the U.S. Open stringing room in Arthur Ashe Stadium these two weeks, where a crew of 14 craftspeople are busier than Santa's elves on December 23. The handpicked crew from around the globe each string as many as 35 racquets in an 18-hour shift. By the men's final on Sunday, they will have collectively strung some 3,500 racquets.
And no two will be strung the same, starting with the biggest variable, string tensions. Some players string tight for better control. The all-gut strings in the Williams sisters' Wilson K Blade Team sticks are stretched to 68-70 pounds, exceeding the top of the manufacturer's recommended tension of 53-63 pounds, which is the equivalent to blowing up a balloon to see how big it can get before it pops. This is why Venus usually sets the mark for most broken strings at Grand Slams. She will probably go through more than 40 sets before her doubles matches end this week.
Then there's Taylor Dent, who lives on the other side of the string-tension fence. His racquets are strung the loosest at only of 40 pounds, 10 pounds under the lower end of the recommended tension on his Wilson n Six-One 95. That provides him with some additional comfort he needs after coming off a pair of back surgeries, and gives him more bombs-away pop on his groundstrokes and serves which is part of the reason he hit a tournament-high 147 mph serve last week. The loose-string tradeoff is control, which is why you saw a lot of his volleys fly off the court in his loss to Andy Murray (who strings his Head YouTek Radical Pro at the top of the recommended range of 62 pounds for control).
While Dent and Murray may string at opposite ends of the tension scale, they both swing racquets laced with Luxilon string, along with about 60 percent of the rest of the U.S. Open field, who use this blend of rugged polyester mixed with a number of other carbon or metallic fibers.
"Luxilon gives them tremendous bite when they hit, and allows them to create spins they just can't do with other strings," says Rocchi.
But the downside is Luxilon is as harsh on the arm as Lex Luthor was on Superman, which is why recreational players with sore arms or elbows should stay away no matter how much it might improve their slice-and-dice game.
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