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Day 6 – Tuesday 23 August
I had a dream last night that my unit was flooding. I had friends over and the carpet was all wet. I used a vacuum cleaner to suck the water up. I expected to be dreaming about stringing.
My index fingers are sore today – on the very tips and along the edges of the nails. I really was pretty rough with them yesterday. I will have to not use those fingers at all and they will be fine by tomorrow.
I have some new bandaids to try out. I am trying blister bandaids today. The adhesive is a bit stronger so it might prevent them from coming off so easily. I am waiting in the hotel lobby now for the bus. I have just had a $3 ham and cheese croissant and have a drink called Neurogasm. It improves circulation apparently. We’ll see.
No racquets for me from 10am to 11am. I am killing time on Facebook. Feel sleepy. I have some bottles of 5 hour energy in the fridge. I might have to get into that.
Matches are going on now. There are a lot of players outside the stringing room doing their warm-ups. It is a cool day outside. Definitely jumper weather and here I am without a jumper. The walk home tonight is going to be fun.
Slow, slow day. I had a lot of downtime today. This means that my players must be losing. Sitting here doing nothing is hard work. I have no energy. This is not normal. The long days might be catching up with me.
I am stringing for Fernando Gonzales. I strung 2 racquets for him. He does not have string with him so is buying it from us for each racquet he has strung. I did one racquet at 45lbs with Alu Power and the other at 46lbs. He is using a Pure Storm + but his racquet has no specs printed on it. It looks like he has a custom frame.
The new bandaids are working well. They have managed to stay attached for the whole day and my fingers are feeling fresh again. It looks like my thumb, index finger and fourth fingers are the ones that get all of the action so I will continue taping them.
We survived an earthquake today. It happened just before 2pm. I was at the machine and the ground started moving. At first I thought I was passing out. Then I saw the lights moving in the room. It lasted for about 10 seconds or so. Everyone was leaving the building so eventually I joined them.
We left the courts early tonight. A few stringers stayed for the last matches to finish while the rest of us left at 8pm. I was so tired that I could have gone straight to bed . Instead I went for beers with Joe and Marni. They own Racquet Corner in Omaha. They are fun. Joe is one of the funniest guys I know. After a couple of beers I am back in my room and get to bed just after midnight.
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.
