Pro Stringing Analysis

The following statistics are from the racquets strung onsite by Wilson - the official stringing service of the 2007 US Open. Wilson is the global distributor of Luxilon strings and there is considerable co-operation between the two companies. For example, Wilson sells Champions Choice - a hybrid set of Wilson Natural Gut and Luxilon Alu Power Rough - the strings used by Roger Federer. Some players - including Roger - have their own, personal stringers who string their racquets offsite and are not included in this report from the event. A few others may use offsite, independent stringers but by far the majority string their racquets with the onsite stringing service.

First, some quick facts:

·         2,726 racquets were strung at the 2007 US Open – nearly 400 more than in 2006.

·         Nikolay Davydenko strung the most racquets with a total of 40

·         Rafael Nadal was a close second with 39

·         Venus Williams was highest among women with 32 (her sister, Serena, was close behind with 30)

·         The highest tension used was 79 lb mains (natural gut) and 60 lb crosses (Luxilon Alu Power) – don’t ask me to comment..!

·         The highest tension used by a woman was 73 lb mains (Luxilon Alu Power) and 71 lb crosses (Prince)

·         The lowest tension used was 22 lb mains and crosses using Luxilon Original – by a 6’+ man..!

·         5 players strung their racquets at more than 70 lb

·         10 players strung their racquets at less than 40 lb

Top of my agenda was, of course, to find out the the popularity of Luxilon strings among the top players.  We know, of course, how many players we actually provide strings to as part of our sponsorship programs – but these are generally focused on up-and-coming professional and junior players and we have no way of knowing which players actually reach into their pockets to buy our strings from suppliers or who have racquet sponsors who buy our string for their players (yes, manufacturers who produce their own strings do buy our strings for their players – but would prefer you not to know that particular snippet of information..!)

I needn’t have had any concerns – Luxilon remains by far the most popular string on the pro tour..!

Over 50% of racquets strung at the event contained Luxilon in the mains, crosses or both - well ahead of the next-highest – Babolat - with 27% (a decline from 2006 where it accounted for 31%). The full details are:

Others were 1% or less of the total racquets strung.

Only Luxilon and Wilson (sole distributors of Luxilon strings) increased their percentage of racquets strung with their products.

2,076 racquets had strings of the same manufacturer in both the main and cross strings. Luxilon accounted for the highest number with 45% of the total. The breakdown was:

1,596 racquets were strung with the identical string – Manufacturer and type. For this purpose, some Babolat strings have been grouped together as one string – for example, VS Team/VS Tour have been regarded as the same as well as Hurricane/Hurricane Tour and Pro Hurricane/Pro Hurricane Tour.

Luxilon strings accounted for over 55% of all same string racquets. Luxilon’s Alu Power was the top-rated string in this grouping - well above its nearest rival (also a Luxilon string) with 41% of the total same string racquets. The breakdown was as follows:

Others were 1% or less.

 ‘Hybrid’ is the most common word I hear these days when the conversation turns to strings or I am asked questions on the luxilon.com website. Some tennis magazines have hyped the mystique of hybrids to such a degree over the past year that many people think that practically every pro player is using a hybrid these days and that using a hybrid (any hybrid) is a way to magically improve their game..!

Just 861 racquets (31.6%) were strung with a hybrid. If hybrids of natural gut and poly are excluded (which have been used for many years and are not a new phenomenon) only 169 racquets were hybrids – 6.2% of the total. This supports my view that the current pre-occupation with hybrids is extremely exaggerated (incidentally 57% of these hybrids used Luxilon string…)

But, for those interested in hybrid usage and putting Natural Gut back into the grouping, Luxilon still remains the most popular strings for use in a hybrid. It is interesting to see what strings are used with Luxilon. Here are the numbers from the 2007 US Open where Luxilon strings were used as the main string:

Where Luxilon strings were used as the cross string, the numbers were:

Here is a complete breakdown of the use of different manufacturers’ strings in same-string and hybrid racquets. The table represents a racquet viewed with the handle downwards – the horizontal rows represent the cross strings and the vertical columns represent the main strings..  So, for example to find the number of racquets with Wilson cross strings and Luxilon main strings, find Wilson in the left-hand column and then go horizontally across the table (Wilson crosses) until you find the vertical column for Luxilon (Luxilon mains). The number is 86:

Follow the green-highlighted diagonal center line from top-left to bottom right for same-string racquets.

The table shows that the majority of pro players who use Luxilon strings choose Luxilon for both the main and cross string - 935 racquets (67%).

 Of players that do use a hybrid, the majority combine a Luxilon synthetic with natural gut – which Luxilon does not produce – and which explains the popularity of Babolat (which produces the VS range of gut) and Wilson (with its popular Natural Gut) as a hybrid string.

Surprisingly, Pacific is ranked very low as a hybrid choice.  As the official string of the ATP, Pacific offers automatic entitlement to a sponsorship agreement to the 250 top-ranked ATP players that provides them with free Pacific gut. In spite of this, its gut ranks a distant fourth in popularity to products from Babolat, Wilson and Prince.

Another popular topic of conversation over the past year has been the predicted decline in the use of gut becoming a reality. The US Open stringing records provided an opportunity of testing this. In fact, the proportion of racquets using gut as a cross string actually increased - by just over 1% over the past year. Use of gut in as a cross string increased by a similar proportion. These increases can be explained by the increased use of gut as a hybrid string as a result of the current pre-occupation with hybrids. However, the proportion of racquets where gut is used as a main and cross string is exactly the same as it was a year ago. The numbers do not show any decline – a fact that contradict the predictions of many 'experts'.

The following table shows the percentage of racquets strung with gut in 2007 compared to 2006:

And so to tensions…

Tensions used at the 2007 US Open ranged from 22 to 82 lb..! Anyone out there want to use either of those?

Here are some statistics: First, tensions used

The 2 tables below show a complete breakdown of tensions used. As in the hybrid table above, imagine the table as a racquet with the handle at the bottom. The columns represent the mains strings and the horizontal rows represent the crosses. The intersection of each row and column shows the number of racquets strung having that combination of tensions. All tensions are in lb. The cells shaded green are those where main and cross strings are the same; red shaded cells indicate the number of racquets where the crosses are exactly 2 lb below the mains – a popular combination for many pro players; the blue shaded cells show a group of what can only be called ‘strange’ combinations.

The data has been divided into 2 separate tables because of its width: