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2016 Big Time Tennis Year in Review

Posted on January 9, 2017 by bigtimetennis

It’s hard to believe that 2016 was the 9th year in business for this hobby-gone-mad, and between racket stringing and customization our busiest year ever.

Thanks largely to our work for the Wake Forest men’s tennis team and professional tournament stringing, we crossed the 2,000 racket threshold for the second time and for the first time since 2013:

2016: 2,095
2015: 1,974
2014: 1,759
2013: 2,149
2012: 1,467
2011: 1,265
2010: 1,171
2009: 750
2008: 251

All told, we’ve strung nearly 13,000 rackets since 2008, in our spare time, which is hard to fathom.

Highlights of the year begin and end with the Wake Forest men winning their first Atlantic Coast Conference championship. So much hard work by so many people went into that championship and we are so proud to have played a part.

We also did the stringing again for the ITF Pro Circuit Futures of Winston-Salem, which was upgraded to a $25K event for 2016.

And the ATP World Tour/WTA Tour Citi Open in Washington DC.

Last, we always enjoy working as the part of the MOZI Tennis stringing team at our hometown ATP World Tour Winston-Salem Open. 2016 was special because we were given the responsibility of managing the stringing service.

We learned recently that the Winston-Salem Open was voted by ATP Tour players as 250 Tournament of the Year!

In my 2015 Year in Review, I concluded by saying it was hard to imagine 2016 being as great as 2015, but I do believe we were able to exceed our own expectations. I won’t make any predictions or promises for 2017, but just say CHEERS! to a great year.

2015 Year in Review – Big Time Tennis

Posted on January 1, 2016 by bigtimetennis

Our 8th year in business, 2015 was another great year for Big Time Tennis, many thanks to our individual customers, the Wake Forest University men’s and club tennis teams, and opportunities to string at some big tournaments.

The year started in a very special way, with David being named Tennis Industry Magazine’s “Stringer of the Year” for 2014. To make it even more special, Wake Forest tennis alum David Hopkins accepted the award on David’s behalf.

Although we did not match our record number of rackets (reached in 2013), we nearly crossed the 2,000 threshold thanks to steady work form the Wake Forest men’s team (almost 900 rackets) and the opportunity to string some new tournaments:

2015: 1,974
2014: 1,759
2013: 2,149
2012: 1,467
2011: 1,265
2010: 1,171
2009: 750
2008: 251

The Wake Forest men had an outstanding year, and I (David) was excited to be a part of it, including spending nearly two rainy weeks in Waco, Texas at Baylor University working on the MOZI Tennis stringing team.

It was fun to work the tournament on site because I could also see Wake Forest play in the Sweet Sixteen (losing to TCU, alas) and Noah Rubin make his run to the men’s singles final.

Selfie delivering rackets to the NCAA men’s singles finalist

Almost immediately after getting home from Waco, the ITF Pro Circuit Futures of Winston-Salem began. I had never strung a Pro Circuit event, and I found it very fascinating, posting a number of blogs about it. Of course we treat all players equally in the stringing room, but with only one customer playing in the final, I was able to support Matija Pecotic, who brought home the championship trophy.

Thanks again to MOZI Tennis, I had the chance to string at the ATP World Tour/WTA Tour CitiOpen in Washington, DC. A highlight was having the chance to string one more racket for the Australian stalwart player and Grand Slam Champion Lleyton Hewitt.

The Yamane family made a big contribution to the MOZI Tennis stringing team at our home town Winston-Salem Open. We even got to meet “The Magician,” Fabrice Santoro who was there coaching. Tournament stringing can be exhausting and stressful, but it is made much easier when you have a great boss, Dustin Tankersley, and get to work with your loved ones.

A final highlight of the year was having the opportunity to string rackets for all of the members of the Mount Tabor High School Girls Tennis Team. I am thankful that their coach, Taylor McDaniel, appreciates the importance of strings to performance. It is the only part of the racket that is supposed to touch the ball after all!

It’s hard to imagine 2016 being as great as 2015, but we are hoping to have the opportunity to exceed our own expectations.

Stringing at the Winston-Salem Open: It’s Good to Be Home

Posted on August 20, 2015 by bigtimetennis

It seems like just yesterday I was neck deep in rackets at the combined ATP World Tour and WTA Tour Citi Open in Washington, DC (more on that later). But yesterday I was at the Bridger Fieldhouse at the Wake Forest University sports complex setting up to string the ATP World Tour Winston-Salem Open.

As at the Citi Open, I will be on the MOZI Tennis stringing team, headed by Dustin Tankersley. Dustin and I will be joined this year by my son Paul, which is always a great experience for me, and my wife Sandy will help with the front of the house. A Yamane family affair!

Beginning this morning, I am on site here, and looking forward to an exciting 10 days stringing at my home town tournament. It is a treat to string a professional event and sleep in your own bed.

NOTE TO REGULAR CUSTOMERS: We are still available to string. If we can help you, please be in touch.

Stringing Report from 2015 NCAA Division 1 Tennis Championships

Posted on May 28, 2015 by bigtimetennis

As noted previously (here and here), I recently spent 2 weeks as one of the official on-site stringers for the NCAA tennis tournament at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Although we had some competition from off-site stringers who aggressively solicited business away from us, the four members of the MOZI Tennis team still strung several hundred rackets. This included the women’s doubles champions from Alabama, and the men’s singles, women’s singles, and men’s doubles finalists (from Wake Forest, Stanford, and Texas).

Selfie delivering rackets to the NCAA men’s singles finalist

I personally worked on rackets for 49 different players from 27 teams. This included 18 women from 12 teams and 31 men from 15 teams. Although this is not a random sample of all players in the tournament, it is a fairly diverse group of players.

For these 49 rackets, the string tensions I observed were:

Overall: 43 pounds to 63 pounds
Men: 43 pounds to 59 pounds
Women: 46 pounds to 63 pounds

Overall average: 53.3 pounds
Men’s average: 52.25 pounds
Women’s average: 55.2 pounds

I find it interesting that even though men can generate more power on their own than women, women tend to string tighter than men. Part of this may be due to women generally using more open string patterns than men, but it is also the case that each player develops their own feeling for the optimal string tension for their particular racket and game. To wit: the highest recorded tension in our stringing room was 69 pound mains and 68 pound crosses.

Almost all of the players, men and women, used all polyester monofilament strings – 44 of 49 players. 4 players used hybrid stringing (monofilament mains and synthetic gut/multifilament crosses), and 1 player used all multifilament string.

A few string brands were most common:

Luxilon – 31%
Solinco – 20%
Babolat – 16%
Pacific – 12%
Wilson – 6%
Prince, Tecnifibre – 4%
Head, Kirschbaum, Pros Pro – 2%

Pacific was overrepresented because I strung all of the rackets for Wake Forest men’s tennis team which has an agreement with Pacific.

Racket brands are even more concentrated than string brands:

Babolat – 41%
Wilson – 29%
Head – 24%
Dunlop, Prince, Tecnifibre – 2%

An amazing 94% of players used one of three brands.

Stringing at NCAA Division 1 Tennis Tournament in Waco, Texas, Hosted by Baylor University

Posted on May 25, 2015 by bigtimetennis

I have strung rackets at the NCAA Division 1 tennis tournament on three previous occasions, in 2010, 2012, and 2014. Each time the tournament was held at the University of Georgia in Athens, so I would drive down two days before the start of the event and leave before the quarterfinals of the team competition were contested. Basically just working 3-4 of the busiest days of the event.

In Athens, I was an unofficial off-site stringer working for the team stringer for another ACC school. That meant I was holed up in a hotel miles from the University of Georgia tennis complex. In the three years I worked the event, I only saw a couple of matches — and had to pay to see those to boot.

This year was very different. I was hired by my friend Dustin Tankersley whose company, MOZI Tennis, won the contract to be the official on-site stringer for the tournament.

The stringing room was in the press box of Baylor University’s softball stadium. It wasn’t an ideal location, since players and coaches didn’t know where to go for stringing, but it had plenty of windows and a nice view, which was a huge improvement over stringing in a hotel room off-site.

From the hallway leading to the press box, we could look out over Baylor’s incredible outdoor tennis complex. We could only partially see matches on court, but we could keep track generally of what was going on court. This was especially important this week because Waco experienced a tremendous amount of rain.

Being on-site was also a particular bonus for me this year because Wake Forest’s men’s team qualified for the Sweet Sixteen, and Noah Rubin, Romain Bogaerts, Skander Mansouri, and Christian Seraphim all competed in the individual tournament. It was easy for me to sneak away from the stringing room to catch the Wake matches, including Noah Rubin’s history run to the men’s singles final.

A final benefit of working for Dustin was the opportunity to work alongside other stringers whose professionalism is unquestionable. Dustin is a member of the Wilson/Luxilon International Stringing Team, and has strung at the U.S. Open, Australian Open, China Open, and other major tournaments. Also on the team were two other Wilson stringing team members, Joe Heydt and Todd Mobley. Joe owns Racket Corner in Omaha, Nebraska, and Todd owns Stadium Tennis in the Atlanta area, is the Captain of the Wilson stringing team, and was the 2009 Tennis Industry Magazine Stringer of the Year.

But enough about me. In my next posts I will review the strings and tensions we saw most commonly in the tournament, and then I will reflect on some lessons to be learned from stringing this sort of tournament.

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