Someone posted a thread about why poly strings should be banned. It will not happen, nor should it happen. And I want to post a separate thread explaining my reasoning.
I won’t call that person a Luddite but I could. And to ban poly strings? And to say they are like spaghetti strings? You don’t know your history and you don’t know tennis. The great Guillermo Vilas had a winning streak of 61 +/- matches that was stopped when he played Illie Nastassie who was using spaghetti strings. So you think Nadal has the same unfair advantage that Illie Nastassie had because you think spaghetti strings play like poly strings? Well no, they don’t play alike. Unlike poly strings, spaghetti strings put an unnatural action on the ball. By contrast, Nadal puts an action on the ball that is facilitated, or made easier, by poly strings; the poly strings do not put something on the ball that is separate from the player. By contrast, spaghetti strings put an action on the ball that is independent of the player’s ability.
The argument is further soured by the echoes of those who said non-wooden racquets should be banned. Yes, Bud Collins, the greatest tennis sports journalist of all times, 20 years ago suggested that tennis should follow baseball and ban all non-wooden racquets from professional tennis. (Professional baseball allows the use of wooden bats only). His argument rested on the idea that had professional baseball allowed aluminum bats, everyone could hit a home run, so in professional tennis everyone using a non-wooden racquet could hit a winner every time, thus ruining he game.
Well now we see what has happened, and for what it's worth, I like it.
