The longest match in history was not only a testament to the durability of the two combatants, but also the polyester strings in their racquets.
Over 183 games, and 215 total aces, at Wimbledon last week, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut broke just one string between them. One of Mahut’s strings popped in mid-marathon Wednesday, and the Frenchman had only one reserve racquet. “It’s really incredible that he only brought two racquets. I think we can safely say he would have taken more with him if he knew the match was going to last 11 hours,” says Roger Dalton, the head stringer at Wimbledon. Dalton and his crew of 20 are responsible for stringing the frames of some 500 players on site, except for the few players, like Isner, Roger Federer and Andy Murray, who bring their personal stringers to the Grand Slams.
Isner, on the other hand, brought six freshly strung frames with him on court last Tuesday and had them all restrung during the course of the match. It wasn’t because he was afraid of breaking strings—polyester is almost bulletproof. He wanted to maintain string tension for better control, as polyester loses its tension quicker than any other string type. Isner uses Tecnifibre Red Code poly, while Mahut chooses a hybrid combination of Wilson Natural Gut in the main strings and Luxilon Alu Power polyester in the crosses.
The advent of polyester strings, by far the most popular variety, has reduced the daily breakage rate to about five a day from about 50 back when Dalton first started stringing at Wimbledon 13 years ago and players used either gut or nylon synthetic.
But now all the players on the men’s side and almost all on the women’s side use polyester or a hybrid combination of polyester with gut or synthetic. And it’s not just for their durability, but also for better spin production. The most notable poly holdouts are Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters, and Venus and Serena Williams, who still use full gut sets. Predictably, the Williams sisters, with their power games and brittle gut strings, go through the most sets of string per match, seven to eight according to Dalton.
At this year’s tournament, stringers will replace about 2,500 sets of strings at their station just a few feet from the Wimbledon practice courts. Stringers use a dozen Prince 6000 machines, which contain a database of the players’ specifications. A typical string job takes about 35 minutes, but when pressed by a special order—like the occasional player who waits until the last minute before a match—these artisans can knock one out in 15 minutes. Belgium’s Xavier Malisse was the player most likely to bring his racquets into the stringing room at the 11th hour at this year’s Wimbledon, Dalton says. The most challenging order was from South African wild card Chanelle Scheepers, according to Dalton. She asked for a few extra pounds of tension on the two outer mains and crosses.
Most players have their racquets strung in the upper registers of the recommended manufacturer’s range (usually between 60 and 65 pounds) for more control. A few go over the top, such as the tight-as-a-drum 68-pound tensions of quarterfinal opponents Serena Williams and Li Na, and Austrian Jergen Melzer’s 66 pounds. Australia’s Peter Luczak is at the opposite end of the tension scale; he strings at a loose 38 pounds for more power.
The neediest player at Wimbledon? Rafael Nadal, who carries nine freshly strung racquets on court for each round. “He only uses about four,” Dalton says, “but he likes to see five fresh racquets in his bag as kind of a security thing.”
In week two, most of the stringing crew will be able to cut back their hours, which were from 6:30 A.M. to midnight in the first week. But in addition to running the stringing room, Dalton is also serving as Nadal’s personal stringer for the tournament. That should keep him busy through the second week.
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