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More on a ‘Restring Campaign’

After reading the letters in the August edition of RSI about a “restringing campaign” I do have one thing that I think needs to be mentioned. Television announcers do a disservice when discussing polyester strings. Yes, for the pros they do a great job, however the announcers rarely, if ever, give the rest of the story. They don’t tell of the quick tension loss, the reduction of power when switching from a typical synthetic to a poly, and the biggie, the harshness due to its inherent stiffness and the increased potential for arm problems.

I have customers at the 2.5/3.0 level — who can only break a string if they hit a sharp rock with their racquet — wanting to put a poly into their frame because of what they heard watching a televised match. I have a pretty much canned speech that I give them, to allow them to have the other side of the story so that they can make a truly educated decision about their stringing needs.

Will this change the announcer’s philosophy about strings? Probably not. But it should, for the health of our customers.

David Pavlich, MRT
Mandeville, LA

Strings are vitally important to player performance and physical well-being. For the first time in many years, we are hearing television commentators discussing the strings that the tour players use or the tensions or the reason for changing racquets during a match when new balls are introduced. This is a good trend for the recognition of the importance of strings as a key component of equipment with regard to performance.

As we all know, not every player can get the same benefit from a string as a tour player, so it does remain incumbent upon stringers, retailers, facility managers, teaching pros, coaches and manufacturers to provide education and knowledge about string technologies that will improve a player’s performance and enjoyment of the game at all levels.

We highly appreciate the efforts of RSI and the USRSA for suggesting a campaign that recognizes the importance of string for performance and the importance of restringing a racquet to maintain and enhance performance.

Paul Kid
Tecnifibre USA

State Sales Tax Issue

The “Our Serve” in the August issue (“Leveling the Field”) addresses the very complex topic of state-by-state sales tax and how it affects brick-and-mortar specialty shops extremely well. I especially appreciated the research that put the dilemma in historical and political perspective. As part of a company that sells nationwide, this is also an issue for us with our customers in our home state of Texas.

Joe Dinoffer
President, Oncourt Offcourt, Ltd.

From the September 2012 issue
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