The Restoration of Poly

For all the talk of racquet innovation since I started playing tennis in the late '70s, I honestly think the really significant change has come in apparel and strings.

Clothes first. Up until the late '90s, cotton, all-cotton, ruled the day. Obviously, cotton clothing, especially all-white cotton clothing, is the most traditional attire for tennis. I'm sure everyone can remember either seeing or wearing a pair of fairly short pleated white cotton shorts and a snug white polo shirt. This was pretty much the Australian uniform in the '60s, the choice of Hoad, Laver, Rosewall et al. As I recall, the big drawback to the shorts was pocket functionality: it was hard to comfortably stuff an extra ball in your pocket when serving. Hence the habit, shared by myself and many others, of holding two balls to serve. Obviously, when the bigger, baggier shorts became the vogue, this problem went away.

Unfortunately, cotton shorts—and even cotton-polyester-blend shorts—and cotton shirts become incredibly weighed down with sweat. I noticed this big time when I began working out with a pro every week in 1999. I needed to change shirts twice in an hour. At about this time, all-polyester clothing was becoming more common. It was lightweight, sleek, colorful, and under brand names such as CoolMax, it could really keep you feeling dry and light over the course of a sweaty match or workout. Now, it has completely taken over. You rarely see a professional wearing anything else. If they switch to a cotton short, it's usually after they've played or practiced.

I bought three very cheap poly shirts at The AthletesFoot in NYC back in '99 and I still wear them today. They're lightweight, the wick moisture nicely, they cost about $5 apiece (I should have bought a dozen), and they sport the AF's logo, a discrete winged foot, a la Mercury, messenger of the gods. I still generally wear cotton shorts, but I do have one pair that are poly (Fila), and I like them.

Along with vastly better shoes, this poly revolution has made tennis a much more comfortable game to play. Of course, traditionalists recoil, but I think it's fairly easy to simulate a classic look with poly threads. And besides, brands such as Lacoste offer poly game-day duds, in classic styles.

Poly's influence isn't just limited to clothing. A big story, largely unreported except in niche publications and on websites, is the almost total shift of top players from gut and synthetic-gut strings to poly-composite strings. As male pros in particular strive to hit the ball harder, they require a string that delivers increased control, and poly delivers, The big name is Luxilon, a Belgian manufacturer whose Big Banger ALU string is used by virtually every top male pro and. Both James Blake and Andre Agassi maintain that it revolutionizedied their games.

I've actually been using a Head version of this string—Ultra Tour 16-gauge—in my Ti.Fire TEs for the past six months. The string does have some amazing properties. For one thing, the strings don't move around, at all. I've never played a string that could reduce string movement to zero, and as I play a frame with an "open" pattern, this is important to me (string movement means string straightened and eventually breakage as the strings "saw" against each other). Also, you can hit the ball harder with more control, and the string seems to generate good bite on the ball, even in 16-gauge.

I'm not sure that poly strings are actually the best news for a classical-type game, however. You do need to take a fair cut at the ball to get the most out of them. When I bunt or chip the ball, it seems to come off very dead. If I were using a synthetic multifilament string, such as Technifibre, or natural gut, I'd get more response. And overall feel is a bit reduced. Some complain that poly strings are stiff, but I find the Ultra Tour 16 I've been using to pretty comfortable.

At any rate, who would have though, as we decried polyester in the '80s, that it would stage such a comprehensive comeback today? In tennis it seems that natural fibers are the way of the past.