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Australian Open 2012 – 16 Jan
Day 9 – Main Draw
A few of us start early today. I am stringing from a quarter past seven. Li Na’s racquets prove to be slower than expected. She uses Pro Hurricane for the mains and Babolat Excel for the crosses. Both strings have a very sticky coating which makes straightening them a slow process. The crosses have 10% machine pre-stretch on them which means I am always working ahead of the tension head. The tension head pulls, releases and then pulls again for each cross string. Waiting for the tension head to pull twice slows me down. I am wanting to move quickly but it just won’t happen.
Racquets continue to come in during the morning. Everyone in the room is working flat out. On-court racquets come in thick and fast. We are having multiple on-court racquets come in from the same player at one time. This has the added novelty of 2 stringers racing against each other to get their racquet done. Jeff remains undefeated for the day.
We are busier than we were yesterday. By lunch time we have done over 200 racquets. My racquets start to slow down in the afternoon. I head over to do a radio interview with 3AW. It goes pretty well. They want to know if I would want to travel year round and string on tour. I think they are surprised when I tell them no. A few tournaments a year is fun but to spend most of the year stringing would mean giving up all sport and exercise in general. That’s not a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
I get through 3 Red Bulls today and am distressed when I realize my supply has been exhausted. We get through 354 racquets by the end of the day. I leave the room after 11pm. I need sleep and a massage.
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 17 years racquet stringing experience and is currently part of the Wilson Global Stringing Team at the 2012 US Open. The following blog shares his experiences during his time in the Wilson Stringing room.
