Sampras's Pro Staff

[jackcrawford]

Doesn't it strike anyone as odd that, let's say when Pete had seven majors under his belt, Wilson didn't come out with a "Pete Sampras Pro Staff" custom made to the specs that Nate built his St. Vincent's to, while at the same time making the publicly available version say 2mm thicker and two ounces lighter with a cool paint job to attract customers and disguise the difference?
Why create custom frames and paint jobs for relative unknowns when it can't possibly affect sales?

[BDAZ]

that would have been difficult given sampras's aversion to paint-jobbed sticks. not that he was against the idea, but he didn't like the feel of the racket (PS 6.0) with a paint job. i think they tried it once, giving him the paint job of the Pro Staff 6.0 (this was a wide body racket with the 6.0 designation, before the 6.0 was added to the original. it was black and teal.), but he didn't like it. later on, they added "Endorsed by Pete Sampras", with his signature, on the inside of the throat. Some years later, I saw a Pete Sampras Autograph model at Sports Authority. It was all black, had that same signature, was 95 in., probably about 20 mm wide. I have since been told that it was the same racket as the Stars n' Stripes 95, but with new paint. Hope this helps.

[brijoel]

bdaz, i think he meant why did wilson never produce a racquet that was pete's exact standard.

sadly there are almost no companies who have done this for any pro's racquet made available to the public in a production run. i think with the current surge of player's racquets that the companies are marketing at redciulous prices, it would be easier to produce the the player's ACTUAL specs since they are already there for use. not to mention they would make loads of money.
however i know the reason the companies dont do it.....the majority of average players can't handle a lot of the sticks the pros use. i think this is even proven further with the insurgence of people selling the "fake" pros' frames because they couldnt even handle those or rather didnt take the time to actually get used to em.
thus, itd be bad marketing to produce a frame only a select few people could truly handle and enjoy.

[BDAZ]

do you think that anyone could really use sampras's 14.5-15 oz club that is close to even balance? i think that would be a tough sell. wilson probably realized that as well.

[jackcrawford]

Thanks for the feedback.
What I actually meant was 1)Why didn't Wilson customize Sampras's racket for him, so he wouldn't need Nate to do it? It makes more since to do that than for Dunlop to customize a frame for Blake or Edwards, since they will sell few racquets.
Then, secondarily, mass-market a paint-job that is say 20mm so the difference is not obvious to the average club player at 11.5 oz.
I think the marketing decisions made by the companies make little sense, since people are not going to switch to the Surge because the Bryans use it, so painting their sticks is a waste of time. It would have been better to concentrate on a record -breaker like Pete.

[kreative]

it's all about visibility. what people see, people recognize.

[Anonymous]

If Pete had switched to a new racket like you are virtually suggesting, then he probably wouldn't have been the record-breaker that he made himself to be. Wilson knew that Sampras didn't even like an updated paint job or new butt cap on his current rackets, so why bite the hand that feeds you?

[Anonymous]

Also, Wilson gave the public a taste of pro's preferred specs in the Tour 90. I'm not sure how many they are selling..