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Day 9 – US Open Fri 26th Aug 2011
Busy day. A lot of the main draw players are starting to arrive. We did around 250 racquets. It is more than we did the same time last year. All up we have done 1050 for the tournament so far. I have been given Xavier Malisse to string for. This is going to keep me busy. He gets a lot of racquets strung. He strings at a very tension with Babolat Fibre tour which is a very stretchy nylon multifilament. He also likes his racquets to be strung in the morning. As a stringer this makes your life hard. Each morning before you even get hit with players wanting their racquets just before their match, you still have the backlog to clear from the night before. When I go in tomorrow morning I will have 5 racquets to get through before 10am. Busy morning.
I had my first on-court racquet today. It was a Prince Exo3 Tour with Big Banger Original. I had it strung in 11 minutes and it was out the door 16 minutes after it came in. Not world record speed but fast enough.
Everything is shutting down with the hurricane coming. We have been told that the tennis centre will close before 5pm tomorrow. The last shuttle bus will be at 5pm. We will not be finished by then. Peak hour for us is usually 4pm – 8pm. Everything will be closed on Sunday. This means we will have a huge backlog waiting for us on Monday morning. The shuttle buses start at 8am so we will have to catch the train in. A 6am train might not be out of the question.
I feel ordinary. The nights of no sleep have caught up with me. I am battling a head cold. Not fun. I will have to stock up on food from the café tomorrow before we head 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.
