Graphite Pro and "American Sales Ethics" (the ero$ion of honesty and good mids)

[plasma]

I'm trying to CAP my graphite PRO like BUD did...went to the two top proshops in the City:

ProShop #1"I'm not going to waste my time with this thing, why don't you just hang it on your wall and buy a more modern racuqet???...this thing is like...20 years old..."

Plasma-" I would be happy to point you to online forums where people have capped these 89.5's"

ProShop #1- in the most rude tone possible, "Listen, if you want to, get me the original non-CAP grommets I can install them, otherwise, I've wasted enough time with this thing, I won't CAP it." followed by a cold blank stare that would make an infant cry...

Plasma- "Uh, thanks"


ProShop #2- "CAPing...ooooh that sounds expensive...it won't be cheap" "why don't you just buy a new model" (as if that were cheaper)

Plasma-" I demoed the new prestige mg and it was crepe, way too stiff for me."

ProShop #2- "this racquet is 20 years old, did you know that???"

guess I grew up in a different place, an honest country, where hucksters and ripoff artists didn't constantly try to rudely steal your money and upsell you on worthless crap, It was a place that now seems very far away, a place called..... America.....funny but it doesn't feel like the same place I grew up in....

[vkartikv]

Not everyone shares our passion for the sport and its equipment. Most people are in it only for the $$ and think of it as a business. They could care less about reviving an old classic. I'm sure today's kids will say the same thing - 'not the place I grew up in' in about 20-30 years. Decadence mate, decadence....

[Virginia]

My commiserations, plasma. These guys don't know what they're talking about.

I'm extremely lucky, as the guy that strings my racquets (1) is the best stringer (and coach) in the country and (2) lives a 5 minute drive away from my house.

Not only would he instal those CAP grommets, he'd (without asking) put a nice stencil on the strings.

Two or three times, he has repaired old racquets for me. Once, I think it was a Seamless, had a missing whatsit (they don't have standard grommets) and it was irreplaceable, so he drilled a tiny hole in the aluminium frame, so that it could be properly restrung.

Now that I put so much business his way, he gives me special rates for both stringing and regripping, e.g. NZ$15 for a nice leather grip all up. If he uses strings he's had in stock for a long time, for a racquet I'm never going to play with, he only charges for his stringing time. He wouldn't use those strings for a playing racquet, so doesn't charge me. How many people do you know, who'd do that?

[Princegod]

Plasma ask the proshop if they can get any new frames made in the USA anymore. Watch the cold blank stare.

[Bud]

Plasma, why not just install the grommets yourself?

They go right into place... no fuss, no muss. Use the MG Prestige CAP grommets.

[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by plasma

guess I grew up in a different place, an honest country, where hucksters and ripoff artists didn't constantly try to rudely steal your money and upsell you on worthless crap, It was a place that now seems very far away, a place called..... America.....funny but it doesn't feel like the same place I grew up in....

Are you joking? America was built on hucksters and rip-off artists trying to steal people's money and sell them on worthless rubbish.

[plasma]

maybe I should get a stringer, too!!!??? one side of the CAP's popped in cleanly, but the frame keeps pooping out the strip on the other half...the ones below the throat were a breeze....what an amazing thing of beauty that the design has remained consistent for 20 years!!!! the grommets seem too short to pop out through to the inside stringbed portion of the hoop and this worries me...can't the strings get cut against the frame if the grommets are not protecting the holes on the inside of the hoop???...(sorry for the explicit language, I'm too old to be shy!) here is an explicit photo, not for sensetive viewers...

[khw72004]

when you string it the garments will be pushed in a little. not as much as the old ones but they should be fine.

[plasma]

so why were the last three idiots so afraid to string and CAP it? When St.Vincent finds out that their love for racquets has turned into $elfish greed he will punish them for seven years. A purgatory of bad racquet karma and an endless string job that has an impossible pattern with no tie off. This is not a joke btw, racquets are for enjoying, st. vincent is at the gates of "racquet heaven" with a kevlar clipboard with pws and a bumpergurad, and those guys are 86ed- permanently!!!

[meowmix]

^Most likely, it's because they have no experience capping these things, and they don't want to "waste their time".

Which is why I find this board all the more amazing. People on here (in general) are extremely nice, freely dish out advice, and help out as needed.

[plasma]

I wish that was the case, it would make this a tennis misdemaneanor and not a federal tennis felony charge I was slapping them with... one was an experienced tech who had an insecure nervous breakdown when I proposed CAP grommet installation, the other was the stringer at this shop for 10 years+, a guy who really knows his stuff. Just proves that these guys are hucksters and don't love or appreciate vintage r's. St. Vincent will curse them, every prostaff they will ever again acquire will be cracked. They'll never find the grommets they need, EVER!!!!!!

this is a great forum...the fact that female collectors have a presence is refreshing as well!!!

[Bud]

Originally Posted by plasma

I wish that was the case, it would make this a tennis misdemaneanor and not a federal tennis felony charge I was slapping them with... one was an experienced tech who had an insecure nervous breakdown when I proposed CAP grommet installation, the other was the stringer at this shop for 10 years+, a guy who really knows his stuff. Just proves that these guys are hucksters and don't love or appreciate vintage r's. St. Vincent will curse them, every prostaff they will ever again acquire will be cracked. They'll never find the grommets they need, EVER!!!!!!

this is a great forum...the fact that female collectors have a presence is refreshing as well!!!

Agreed. You can pop CAPs into the GP in a matter of 5 minutes.

[Bud]

Originally Posted by plasma

maybe I should get a stringer, too!!!??? one side of the CAP's popped in cleanly, but the frame keeps pooping out the strip on the other half...the ones below the throat were a breeze....what an amazing thing of beauty that the design has remained consistent for 20 years!!!! the grommets seem too short to pop out through to the inside stringbed portion of the hoop and this worries me...can't the strings get cut against the frame if the grommets are not protecting the holes on the inside of the hoop???...(sorry for the explicit language, I'm too old to be shy!) here is an explicit photo, not for sensetive viewers...

BTW... I see you got one side on... but the grommets should be poking through the holes

[MichaelChang]

I think if you willing to pay 20 bucks extra to the pro shop, they will CAP it for you. The only reason they refusing to do so is it is harder to string with this CAP on the graphite pro.

[Bud]

Originally Posted by MichaelChang

I think if you willing to pay 20 bucks extra to the pro shop, they will CAP it for you. The only reason they refusing to do so is it is harder to string with this CAP on the graphite pro.

I've strung a number of GP's with CAP grommets and I didn't find it any harder.

[Gorecki]

Originally Posted by plasma

I'm trying to CAP my graphite PRO like BUD did...went to the two top proshops in the City:

ProShop #1"I'm not going to waste my time with this thing, why don't you just hang it on your wall and buy a more modern racuqet???...this thing is like...20 years old..."

Plasma-" I would be happy to point you to online forums where people have capped these 89.5's"

ProShop #1- in the most rude tone possible, "Listen, if you want to, get me the original non-CAP grommets I can install them, otherwise, I've wasted enough time with this thing, I won't CAP it." followed by a cold blank stare that would make an infant cry...

Plasma- "Uh, thanks"


ProShop #2- "CAPing...ooooh that sounds expensive...it won't be cheap" "why don't you just buy a new model" (as if that were cheaper)

Plasma-" I demoed the new prestige mg and it was crepe, way too stiff for me."

ProShop #2- "this racquet is 20 years old, did you know that???"

guess I grew up in a different place, an honest country, where hucksters and ripoff artists didn't constantly try to rudely steal your money and upsell you on worthless crap, It was a place that now seems very far away, a place called..... America.....funny but it doesn't feel like the same place I grew up in....

if someone treated me like that, i can assure you i would never spend a dime in those stores again.

and i would also make sure the people on the boards would know about that.

while we are on subject, one of my favourite pro shops is owned by this older man (around 60 YO) who grew up in wood and gut, so he always takes a lot of time to string my frames, he can perform any sort of string job (including those one piece atw) and is alway very gentle in his ways. he always cleans the racquet when it's full of clay, so complete and well served it's not even real...
only problem is the variety...

thank you Mr. Vieira

[AceInYourFace]

let me say that i work in a heavy traffic public proshop/tennis center and my experience with people that have situations similar to yours is that if we dont want to do the work we are labeled bad business's, and if we do the work and it does not work out quite right because we are putting something where it does not belong, then we are incompetent business's, so we lose either way. in my shop we had to stop doing things like this because we tried to accommodate one customer and fix a problem with retro fitting rackets and grommets, well we ruined the grommets and he got uppity and sent a letter to the city department of parks and rec and slamming us and making us feel like we ruined his rackets, yes we went off and we had to compensate him for not only the grommets but every time he comes into the shop he acts like if we dont wipe his ***** after he sh!ts then he will fire off another letter to the city. sry to rant but we have had more than one similar incident that forced us to have stricter and stricter policies that protect us from *****clowns like this guy

[Bud]

Originally Posted by AceInYourFace

let me say that i work in a heavy traffic public proshop/tennis center and my experience with people that have situations similar to yours is that if we dont want to do the work we are labeled bad business's, and if we do the work and it does not work out quite right because we are putting something where it does not belong, then we are incompetent business's, so we lose either way. in my shop we had to stop doing things like this because we tried to accommodate one customer and fix a problem with retro fitting rackets and grommets, well we ruined the grommets and he got uppity and sent a letter to the city department of parks and rec and slamming us and making us feel like we ruined his rackets, yes we went off and we had to compensate him for not only the grommets but every time he comes into the shop he acts like if we dont wipe his ***** after he sh!ts then he will fire off another letter to the city. sry to rant but we have had more than one similar incident that forced us to have stricter and stricter policies that protect us from *****clowns like this guy

All that drama over a $5 set of ruined grommets?

Anyone worth their salt as a racquet technician should know whether CAP grommets will fit a Graphite Pro after fiddling around with them for 3 minutes. It's not rocket science.

[AceInYourFace]

this guy would not listen to our advice, he came in at least 6 times bugging us and talking to us for sometimes over an hour with useless question of "why" before we folded and said we would do it, he was taking up so much of our time we we just wanted him to leave, and look where it got us, the guy who started this thread, if im not mistaken, is complaining because he did not accept the opinion of someone who obviously had much more experience about the situation than him, and maybe the guy was rude to him, but i would bet that maybe that is the only way to get rid of him, haha its mean but true, and if he was so determined to get it done then just do it yourself, like you said it ain't rocket science.

[plasma]

Hi Ace,
I am always polite and never the type to pester or hang around where I am not welcome. Obviously the grommet stalker left a bad taste in your mouth that still lingers....I am desperately trying to understand your last post though as something other than this lingering foulness and negativity left to you by this person. .... I DID accept the opinion of the expert; had I not accepted it he would have a buttcap labeled "made in USA frame austria" protruding from that place upon which he sits.... I accepted his decision and unnecessary rudeness and disrespect, but feel that he needlesly rewarded my good kind nature by intentionally being an unprofessional jerk.
I have no rack tech experience so your suggestion for me to "just do it myself" is not of much help to me. The tone of your post is meant to sound like common sense, but seems to be criticism masked as helpful suggestions from someone "in the know".. I stand behind my original valid posting as a criticism of what's wrong in the U.$.A. today...it was written from the heart, and I'm sure everyone here has been burned by this type of treatment before, after all, we've all been to the DMV!!!

There is no excuse for greed, rudeness, dishonesty....sounds like I need to find someone who loves racquets, life, and their community, someone rare and special like Mr. Vieira!

These guys are trying to upsell me on crap... just wanted a friggin cheap but great racquet that I love strung. Instead I get *****holes trying to rip me off left and right...disgusting...not the honest small town typa feel I grew up with ...thoroughly disgusting!
Mr.Vieira fan club annonymous member # 36,462!