Consistency is Key

Oftentimes when people first learn how to string rackets, they focus on trying to become as fast as possible. While speed is important when stringing, consistency takes a higher precedent. As a stringer, your job is to be able to recreate the same service over and over again. Having clients consistently come to you is essential in building a foundation for your stringing business. Most of the time returning clients will give you the same racket, and more time than not the same string. Making sure there are no crossovers, misweaves, and same tie-offs are all important when trying to recreate the same quality of stringing each racket. In this post, I want to talk about some of the things all stringers can do to help improve consistency and keep your clients coming back for more.

Mounting the Racket

Mounting the racket is often overlooked as something that can be done poorly. Regardless of how many points your machine has, make sure to not overly tighten one part of the frame. Make sure to evenly tighten each mounting point so as to not warp part of the frame. Another key part when mounting the frame is to mount them the same way each time. For example, I always make sure the handle of the racket is facing the tension head. The other thing I pay attention to is what direction the logo faces on the buttcap, I always make that the logo faces up. This way when returning customers bring me rackets, I will mount them the same way again so it feels and looks identical to the previous restring.

Pulling Tension

Pulling tension is obviously required to string a racket, but one thing stringers may not think about is how long tension gets pulled. This is going to vary depending on the machine. Electronic machines typically have some sort of beep or chime for when the tension head has pulled to the desired tension. You should not be clamping the string until you hear this beep or chime, this way the string will be clamped at the same tension no matter what. For drop weight machines there is no beep or chime, but you can see once the weight balances out then you know you can clamp the string. Try your best not to clamp too early, even though it may be tempting to try and save time. Lockout/Crank machines are a little different. When stringing with polyester on a crank there normally shouldn’t be an issue. Differently, when stringing with natural gut, multifilaments, or synthetic guts the string may stretch after “locking out”. With this in mind if you use a crank machine, just do your best to always pull at the same speed every time.

One Piece or Two-Piece Stringing

Deciding whether to always one-piece or two-piece a racket is completely up to the stringer. One-piece stringing often looks cleaner on the outside of the racket, but when doing hybrids you need to switch over to a two-piece. Another issue with one piece stringing for beginners is if the mains in the racket end in the throat then you must do the around the world stringing method. Many racket manufacturers have a fine print in the warranty of frames saying the warranty is voided if the crosses are strung from the throat up. If you decided to string all the rackets with the two-piece method it is easier to be more consistent with tie-offs, but often makes the outside of the racket look messy. Just pick a preferred method and stick with it!

Keeping the racket clean

Keeping the racket clean is arguably the most important part of the process. People do not want a racket their racket to be handed to them with messy tie-offs, crossed strings, or random paint chips you may have accidentally caused. The messy tie-offs are something I see often when new customers bring me rackets. When doing tie-offs just make sure the knot is pulled tightly and cut short so the customer won’t hit the “tail”. Another thing to keep in mind is crossed strings, when going over main skips or tying off the racket make sure to not cross the string on the outside of the frame. Lastly, be careful when removing old strings, and mounting. Accidental paint chips can happen, but do everything in your power to make sure the frames don’t get any unnecessary damage.

Becoming Second Nature

All of this information may seem like obvious knowledge to some of you, and it may all be new to others. Little things like this are what separate the independent stringers from the club only stringers. Gaining new clients is difficult on its own, keeping them is just a matter of being consistent with their rackets. Over time all of these things will become second nature and you will be on your way to being a consistent stringer!.

Patience & Ball Tolerance

Tennis is considered one of the few sports that can be played for a lifetime. If you begin playing tennis at a younger age, then you probably went through the “hit the ball as hard as possible” phase. Trust me, I went through/am in that phase, so I know what goes through your mind. “If I learn how to hit the ball hard all the time, eventually I will make that shot 9 times out of 10, so I would rather suffer the unforced errors now, and be just like Federer in a couple of years.” I feel like this kind of mentality exists, because well… hitting the ball hard is fun! When I initially watched professional tennis, I saw how hard my favorite players hit the ball, and I wanted to be just like them. After quickly learning that I am a mere mortal in the tennis world, I began to watch professional tennis differently. One of the main things I noticed in the higher-ranked players was their level of patience. Another word for this is “ball tolerance”, which means to understand what and when to hit a certain shot.

When I first thought about patience in the sport of tennis, I looked at the attitude of the player rather than the actual game style. After a lot of thought, I have changed my mindset and thought of patience as more of a game-style trait. Patience in tennis is more about knowing when to go for the bigger shots, and when to wait for your opponent to give you an opening. I have just recently noticed the extreme importance of this trait and thought to myself that many coaches do not focus on patience in a player’s game.

Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Naomi Osaka all come to mind when I think of professional players that exhibit patience and ball tolerance. These players are all considered aggressive but at the right time. We have all seen Federer hit that picture peRFect one-handed backhand winner up the line, but we rarely see him go for it in an average point. He waits for an opportunity: such as when his opponent closes in on the net, or he pulls his opponent to the other side of the court. Nadal does the same thing with his killer topspin forehand, showing his patience by holding back the flat shot until he is presented with an opportunity for a winner.

Denis Shapovalov (one of my favorite players) is a prime example of a player with little patience in points. He goes for the big winner ball more times than not which makes him hit a higher amount of unforced errors than someone like Nadal. This seems to be a pretty consistent problem with the “Next Gen” players, which is the sheer number of unforced errors they hit (I do it too!).

So how can we begin to incorporate better ball tolerance into our own game? For starters, even though it may seem obvious, just be more conscious of the position of our opponent. For example, if you and your opponent are both in the middle of the baseline that is not the time to go for an up the line winner. Try and move them around a little bit, create some open space that gradually turns into a gaping hole allowing a big winner! Another thing to keep in mind is to not get overly excited especially when we get that high ball on the baseline. Many times when we get floaters that come our way the only thing that goes into our head is “oh this is gonna be one for the highlight reel!” *BOOM* and… it hits the fence. Learning to control shots like that and keep your adrenaline under control is a key part of developing your tennis game.

To work on ball tolerance and patience I typically will try and grab a hitting partner who wants to work on the same thing. For the first drill, one player is the one focusing on controlling their adrenaline and picking the right shot, while the other player holds a rally and then purposefully gives a floater. The key to this drill is for the rally player to mix up what kind of floater they hit, but this drill helps both players learn to build a rally and handle the “easy” balls with patience. Another drill I would highly recommend is similar but rather than a floater give the player a shorter ball they can approach on, learn to control the approach shot, and make it set you up for a volley put away rather than hitting it as hard as possible.

Building patience and ball tolerance takes time and will require hours of practice. Those practice hours will eventually start to translate into matches and trust me you will understand the root of each unforced error. Many times unforced errors happen due to going for too much at the wrong time, so learning how to control yourself will help bring those errors down.

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