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.
