Mixing Old and New, Williams Began Surge With Racket Change
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Version 0 of 1. WIMBLEDON, England — The sight of Serena Williams sending a ball zooming past a helpless opponent, as she frequently did during the first week of Wimbledon, has become familiar at the All England Club in the last 15 years. But for Williams, who is on a career-best 34-match winning streak, the equipment that sends the ball across the net has changed significantly. In late March 2012, Williams switched from playing entirely with natural gut strings, made from dried elastic fibers extracted from cow intestines, to using a mix of natural gut and synthetic strings. Her rackets now contain a hybrid of old and new technology, with natural gut in the mains, or vertical strings, and Wilson Luxilon 4G in the crosses, or horizontal strings. Since making the switch, Williams has been on perhaps the best run of her career, compiling a 94-4 singles record. In that 15-month stretch, she has won 13 titles, including three Grand Slam titles (Wimbledon and the United States Open last year and the French Open this year), her first Olympic gold medal in singles and her first three titles on red clay since 2002. Williams sought a change after a disappointing straight-sets loss to Caroline Wozniacki in Miami. She asked Wilson representatives to replicate the strings of the only active player who had more Grand Slam singles titles than she did: Roger Federer. (At the time he had 16 to her 13; now he has a 17-16 lead.) “She inquired: ‘Hey, what’s Roger using? That seems to be working out pretty well for him,’ ” said Ryan Polito, the global product manager for Wilson. Williams tested Federer’s setup, a hybrid of natural gut and a different type of Luxilon string, but was not satisfied. Wilson representatives then gave Williams some Luxilon 4G string that had not been released. “Honestly, she went out on the court for an hour, and she said she loved it,” Polito said. “And she wanted as many sets as I could give her, so she could go practicing and playing with it in tournaments.” Williams’s switch was unusual because it came midseason, Polito said. “Most players tinker with equipment in the off-season, even though tennis has a very short off-season, and the time to tinker is very limited,” he said. “It’s just kind of a unique circumstance, where she just wasn’t happy with the loss and wanted to see what else was out there. And lo and behold, she found something.” The synthetic string keeps its tension longer and is less affected by the weather. It also adds control while sacrificing some power, a trade Williams can afford to make. “Some of those balls that may have landed an inch or two out as an unforced error, she was able to bring those balls back into the court,” Polito said, “and she’s just become lethal out there.” Williams said that she felt “zero difference” with the new strings, but that her success since the switch spoke for itself. “I loved the results, and I just love playing with them,” she said, adding, “I’ll try anything.” Polito said that Williams’s continued use of natural gut had made her one of the last holdouts in the top 100 of singles or doubles. He said he could “count on one hand” the number of players still using it. Williams’s older sister Venus made the switch about a month after Serena did. “No one wants to get left behind in the arms race, essentially,” Polito said. “If they think someone has an edge, they’re going to try it and see if it works for them.” Serena Williams’s longtime hitting partner Sascha Bajin likened her stubbornness to Bjorn Borg’s decision to attempt a comeback in 1991 with an outdated wooden racket. Bajin said he had been trying for a long time to persuade Williams to switch. “I was asking for a while, because she was one of the last players who was playing all gut,” Bajin said. “But she’s also one of the girls who doesn’t want to change a winning way. I think she won more than 20 Grand Slams basically with all gut, combining singles, doubles and mixed. And it is a big decision to change string and try something new.” Williams, 31, said she had become more open-minded with age. “I definitely have grown on that,” she said. “I always want to keep my mind open because I don’t want to be someone that’s just so used to just one way and looking at things one way.” Bajin said that he had seen changes in Williams’s playing style since the switch and that her feel for the ball had improved. “She’s actually starting to play drop shots; she’s got nice volleys,” he said. “I think that the string is affecting her net game, too, where she has a better feel for the ball. It stays longer on the strings compared to when you play just all-natural gut.” Bajin adjusts the string tensions of Williams’s rackets, taking into consideration factors like altitude and the weather forecast. “I have been with her for so long that I know what she wants without her even saying it,” Bajin said. Despite his happiness that Williams made the switch, Bajin made clear that Williams, not the strings, deserved the most credit for her success. “All of these little points coming together with finding the right tension, finding the right string, finding the right racket for each player, of course, is important,” he said. “But then you’ve got to be out there, hitting the ball at 30-15, 5-5 in the third. The string is not going to get the ball in for you.” |