shanghai tennis masters︱domestic stringers appear on the top stage: "we make progress together with chinese tennis"
2024-10-04
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entering the stringing room in the fan interactive area of the shanghai masters, you will see the busy figures of six stringers. with a thin thread, a precision machine, and a pair of dexterous hands, zhang kui concentrated on stringing the racket of norwegian star rude. in just half an hour, the racket was completed. the label of the racket records in detail the string type, poundage, knotting method and the time point of "14:00 on october 4th", which means that zhang kui must deliver the racket to the players before then.
zhang kui, who has served in five masters tournaments, runs a tennis equipment sales store in zhengzhou, henan, and took this opportunity to enter the stringing service field. as time went by, he gradually accumulated valuable experience and good reputation, and then became involved in stringing services for amateur tennis events. like players, stringers often start their careers in the amateur arena. as their skills become more sophisticated and experience accumulates, they step by step move to the challenger league, tour, masters and even the grand slam stage.
the stringing process requires machine assistance to ensure balanced tension, but weaving an ideal racket with a uniform grid, horizontal and vertical lines, and meeting the unique needs of each player requires careful manual craftsmanship. this is the essence of zhang kui's daily work. . each player has different requirements for ball string, poundage, and knotting methods. zhang kui must strictly follow the player's individual needs without leaving any room for error, because even the most subtle differences will be keenly noticed by the players, thus affects the feel when hitting the ball.
the stringing team for this year’s shanghai masters consists of ten people – eight stringers and two front-office staff. in addition to the six stringers in the fan activity area, there are two stringers and two front desk staff in the player area stringing room. they have a clear division of labor and work together to ensure the smooth progress of the event. players usually hand over their rackets, strings and stringing requirements to the front desk of the stringing room in the player area. after the stringer completes the work, the players go to the front desk to collect them. zhang kui treats every racket he handles as carefully as a doctor treats surgery: "our job is to do our best to fit each racket for each player to meet their game needs."
in addition to the time "11 o'clock on october 4th" written on the racket of australian player jordan thompson, it also specifically stated "stringing in the morning". this means that zhang kui cannot complete the threading work in advance on the evening of the 3rd, but must perform related work on the morning of the 4th. "some players prefer to put on their rackets before the game. they believe that rackets that have been left overnight will not be in optimal condition when used," zhang kui said. "we will all respect the players' requests and try our best to meet their needs. "
during the more than ten years of vigorous development of chinese tennis, the group of tennis stringers has also continued to grow. at the 2016 australian open, zhang kui, as an outstanding representative of chinese stringers, took a historic step at melbourne park - he became the first mainland chinese stringer to appear on the stage of a grand slam event.
recalling more than ten years ago, zhang kui was filled with emotion. at that time, there were few domestic tennis events, and his opportunities for training were limited. what is gratifying is that with the rapid development of tennis in china, the number of events has exploded.
in recent years, zhang kui has served for domestic and foreign events such as the tokyo open, wuhan open, chengdu open, australian open, hangzhou asian games, etc. he said frankly: "we are very lucky to have caught up with the good opportunity for the rapid development of chinese tennis. in recent years, not only have there been more and more domestic competitions, but the performance of chinese players has also become better and better. our group has grown together with chinese tennis.”
as zhang kui said, the continuous progress and breakthroughs of chinese tennis at the competitive level have injected strong development momentum into the domestic tennis industry, and also provided a solid foundation and the best nutrients for the common development of various subdivisions in the industry.
author: wu yulun
text: our reporter/wu yulun picture: our reporter/chen long editor: gu miao editor: shen lei
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