Reportaje: La raqueta de Nadal
El arma del 'extraterrestre'
Lluís Carles Pérez - 02/05/2008
http://www.elmundodeportivo.es/web/gen/20080502/noticia_53460300206.html
Translated by nou.amic for www.VamosBrigade.com
RAFA NADAL'S TENNIS RACQUET
The weapon used by the 'extraterrestrial'
Every year Rafa uses 25 Babolat racquets - his is a mass produced model customized for him by a department of the firm solely for that purpose - that are restrung some 600 times
By Lluís Carles Pérez
Who is Robin when the tennis player is Batman? Almost certainly his racquet, the only company the player has on court when he fights against the enemy. It is the player's inseparable weapon by means of which he transfers to the tennis ball all the technical, physical and mental knowledge he has acquired through hours and hours of practice. In short, everything passes through the racquet, an innocent object in the hands of a beginner, but a submachine gun in sports terms when people like Rafa Nadal are grasping it. In the Balearic player's case, his friend is called Babolat AeroPro Drive Cortex, a name that could equally belong to a pistol.
The world # 2 has been loyal to Babolat since he was 11 years old and appears to have every intention of continuing to do so until he retires, for in 2007 he renewed his contract for ten more years, until 2017, according to Pablo Palacios, their head of sales for Spain and Portugal. He began his professional career with the famous Pure Drive, the blue one Carlos Moyà uses, but his requirements very soon inspired the firm to develop a new model. "Because of his style of play, the tubular frame of the Pure Drive held him back a little as he hit the ball, and a broader more aerodynamic one was made for him so that the racquet cuts through the air better making a faster swing possible."
Nadal's racquets are mass produced ones - their retail price is 199 euros -, but Rafa is Babolat's 'flagship' and they have a department that deals exclusively with customizing them for him, the usual practice with professional players. In the Mallorcan's case, they add 15 grams of lead to weight and balance the racquet precisely to his taste. Including the strings, which add on about 15 grams, one of Nadal's racquets weighs between 330 and 340 grams, according to Xavi Segura, his usual racquet stringer, who has slaved away at hundreds of tournaments. "Rafa uses 25 to 30 racquets a year, a fairly low number because players usually get through 50 or so. This shows he looks after his equipment well. I've never seen him throw or break a racquet," added Segura.
"However, he does get through a lot of strings. Between 30 and 40 coils of racquet cord a year, at 20 racquets per coil, adds up to 600 to 800 restringing jobs," calculated Xavi. A racquet requires about 11 meters of stringing cord, so Nadal could use almost 9 kilometers a year. "Though he uses a thick gauge, as he hits the ball with so much spin it's easier for him to break the string."
Tensions varying from 13 to 41 grams
The three time Roland Garros champion uses a very normal tension: 25 kgs. As chance would have it, this year at the Godó, Segura has just strung the slackest racquet in his life, 13 kgs, for Volandri. "We were really surprised. A racquet with so much control and so little tension is a contradiction, it's as if you buy a Ferrari and don't want to do over 60 km/h. It's silly. He must have had equally good 'feelings' with it at 13 kgs as at 23 kgs since he was young, though there's no logical technical explanation for it." Thomas Muster is the other extreme: "an iron-man who one day asked us to put 41 kgs, the maximum the machine is capable of. Roberto Carretero was also a tough brute, he used 37-38. I think that's great," he recalls. "I compare our work to that of the mechanics in the boxes at F-1 races. We've been doing this for years and by now we know the players' whims and requirements," he added.
The relationship between a tennis player and his racquet is so close that he immediately knows when something is wrong with it. "One year at Roland Garros they sent Rafa 1.25 mm. gauge string instead of what he uses (1.35 mm.). Finer string is more flexible and projects the ball further. In one of his practice sessions he could see he was doing things well but the balls were going out. It was because of the string. But Rafa is not very problematic. If he sees something strange, he doesn't dwell on it much, either," concluded the stringer.
some interesting numbers in there...
