What is the early history of poly strings and their use by ATP pros?

[Slapper]

As the story goes, Guga won the French Open in 1997 with Luxilon Big Banger ALU Power, and the rest is history. But, as I understand, Guga was not the only player who used poly at the 1997 French Open. Who were the other early adopters, and in what year did Guga himself switch to poly?

Also, Luxilon released BB ALU Power in 1994, and prior to that they released BB Original, in 1991. Was BB Original the first poly tennis string to become widely available? Were ATP players using BB Original between 1991 and 1994? Why did it take so long for ATP players to notice the benefits of poly strings and adopt the new technology? Why didn't players like Jim Courier and Andre Agassi get on board?

When Guga won the French in 1997, his strings were stenciled with the Luxilon logo. Perhaps other early adopters of poly can be identified this way.I haven't been able to find any photos from the 90's of other ATP pros with the Luxilon stencil. But I noticed that Thomas Muster had his strings stenciled with the Isospeed logo when he won the French Open in 1995. Was he using Isospeed poly?

 

[Play2win]

yes, muster used isospeed earlier

 

[lazywombat]

In Europe first pro players using poly started to appear in Germany in early 90ties. They used mostly some Polystar (it's a german company) string. I think I've read somewhere that polys were produced in 80ties too, but can't remember specific brand names.

 

[Steve Huff]

When you look up "When were polyester strings introduced", you get some speil about Luxilon Original being introduced in the 90s being the first, but they weren't. I moved to NM in 1984, and I was using poly before then. I think it was Leoina that made Poly X or Poly 7 back then. It was an opaque gray color. It was stiff, and it squeaked when you moved it with your fingers.

 

[Slapper]

When you look up "When were polyester strings introduced", you get some speil about Luxilon Original being introduced in the 90s being the first, but they weren't. I moved to NM in 1984, and I was using poly before then. I think it was Leoina that made Poly X or Poly 7 back then. It was an opaque gray color. It was stiff, and it squeaked when you moved it with your fingers.

That’s interesting that you mention the squeaking sound. I remember my coach back in the day used a whitish poly string that squeaked when you move it with your fingers, very thin, maybe 1.10, not sure of the brand. It would have been the year 1996 or 1997. That was also when I started using poly for the first time; a sort of colourless, semi-opaque poly made by Isospeed, and it did not squeak. I never came across another squeaky poly after the one that my coach used.