If you’ve been to the US Open in the past couple of years, you’re probably familiar with Wilson’s store located beneath the new Louis Armstrong Stadium. But did you know Wilson has been the official stringer of the tournament since 2006? That makes 14 years this year, and they’ve kept tabs, resulting in some truly out-of-this-world numbers. For example, the amount of string used over their past 14 years of service would wrap around a tennis court 13,158 times. So what do they have for us from this year?
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let me point out that Wilson’s 2019 team consisted of 40 total staff members. Among them were 21 stringers representing 11 countries. I bring this up because it really puts the numbers in perspective. Perhaps most insane of all is that the Wilson team can string over 500 racquets in a single day during peak periods of the tournament. The average time to string a racquet was 18 to 20 minutes, while on-court rush requests averaged 12 to 15 minutes. By tournament’s end, the lowest recorded string tension was 31.5lbs, while the highest was 77lbs. Can you imagine playing near either of those ranges? In all, more than 5,500 racquets were strung. Talk about earning your paycheck.
If the job wasn’t cool enough already, to ensure quality, players communicate directly with their stringers to achieve optimal tension and performance. So next time you turn on a match and watch your favorite player switch out their racquet, you’ll have a better idea about all that goes on behind the scenes. To put it simply, it takes a lot of outstanding work from dedicated professionals to keep the tours rolling.
One final tidbit about the tournament: Working with Wilson, the USTA will be recycling all of the used racquet strings from the US Open. That’s more than 35 miles of string, and pretty nice to think about.
That’s all we have for you from Wilson’s 2019 US Open stringing team, but don’t forget you can subscribe for more, and stay up to date on all things Wilson Tennis at TennisExpress.com.
About the Author: Chris Worman
Weight: 190 lbs
Related Blog Posts
