Hit with my old Tad Davis woodie the other day. Even the sound of it striking the ball brings back memories. I strung that one back in 1971 with Bow brand nat. gut, and it still is playable after all these years.How is that for a 40 year old nat. gut string job.
glenda that post is from 2011...
and most of us hitting with a variety of 20+ year old rackets will have to quickly learn to be less picky and more flexible when it comes to strings. Hell, I've hit with plenty of frames that have strings in them that are older than me, and yet play pretty dang well.
No, that post was originated by me today. And I've gotta pretty high IQ, yet I'm not sure what you mean by "will have to learn to be less picky and more flexible in their last several years of playing when it comes to strings, although I hold an assumption (please don't respond by a predicable reply). And why would anyone want "to have to learn to be less" in a chosen endeavor?
Nevertheless, very good to exceptional players, like experts in any field, remain picky if they continue playing (or working in their career) into their older age. Furthermore, gut strings lose their resiliency rather quickly to going dead. Don't forget that humidity loves to end gut's life.
Still several professional players today use a hybrid of gut and multi-filament polyester strings, perhaps providing them a better feel. But the harder hitting players, which includes about all the highly athetiic, top conditioned, and highly skilled players today, will substantially diminish the gut's liveliness in a game or two. But lesser accomplished and older players might find 40-year-old gut strings provide them a better feel. I don't know. And I don't know when I'll be entering my last several years of playing tennis. When I get to 70 years old, I'll likely still not know the entering day.
But I'm dead certain that my swing, speed, my strength, my conditioning, my quickness will diminish from my current 50's age to 70 years old. I've noticed that my play today isn't quite as sprite as it was in my 20s. I still play five-to-six days a week and I expect to play at the same frequency at 70 years old. And I expect at 70 to still prefer playing on outdoor courts at a temperature of 130 degrees. I like heat, like provided by summer Atlanta and even more by summer Dallas, where the sun presses closer and closer.
Yet today I might prefer tennis to be played with a, say, Wilson Kramer racket. I rarely hit a ball outside the center of the sweet spot. A mis-hit opponent's shot with a Kramer racket, the ball will die before making it to the net, including a mis-hit volley near the net.
