|
|
| |
| ||
|
| ||
 |
 He's got the world on a string
Posted: Tuesday September 8, 1998
Jay Schweid doesn't have any extra Open tickets. But he's been pulling more strings than you can imagine this week at the National Tennis Center. Schweid, with the assistance of his 14-person staff, is the official stringer of the U.S. Open, the man ultimately in charge of lacing up the rackets of every player—men, women, and juniors—in the draw. A dead ringer for Howard Stern, Schweid works full-time as a "racket customizer and designer" who helps clients like Andre Agassi, Lindsay Davenport and Alex Corretja fashion the perfect implement. But at five tournaments during the year, culminating with the U.S. Open, he relocates his company—Jay's Custom Stringing, Inc.—from Manhattan to the bowels of tennis stadiums and spends 80-hour weeks cultivating calluses over Babolat stringing machines. "It's a lot of work but I can't say we don't have fun doing it," says Schweid, who estimates that his crew will string 3,000 rackets by the end of the tournament. "The players provide the string themselves—almost always gut—but we're basically responsible for a perfect string job. Luckily, we haven't had any major screw-ups I can recall. But, to be safe, we store in our computer all the players' preferred stringing weights." Speaking of tension, Schweid is often called upon to string rackets during a match. Michael Chang, for instance, is so obsessive about his strings that when he takes the court, Schweid knows enough to leave one of the eight machines open. At a recent tournament in Cincinnati, Chang demanded a string job at a crucial juncture in the match. In order to give Chang his new rackets in time for the next changeover, Schweid did the job in record time: nine minutes. "There was smoke coming off the machine," he recalls. Schweid, who began stringing rackets at the U.S. Open 18 years ago, charges a flat fee of $20 per racket. It's an awfully reasonable rate for skilled labor, but can add up fast if you're Mark Philippoussis and request that your eight rackets be freshly strung each time you walk out on the court. Whatever the price, most players are more than happy to pay it. Says Schweid, "Their attitude is that if not worrying about my strings wins me one extra match a year, it's worth every penny."
VOLLEYS: Before the monsoon season arrived in Flushing on Monday afternoon, Amanda Coetzer outlasted Conchita Martinez in a three-set marathon that went on longer than Magnus Larsson's five-setter over Marcelo Rios the previous night...Taylor Dent, the American pro who made it to the round of 64, is seeded ninth in the boys' singles draw...Likewise Jackie Trail, a wild-card from Kentucky who won her first-round match in the women's draw, is seeded eighth in the girls' division...Crazy what a little self-promotion will do for a player. Last night, the buzz in "Stadium Three" (the erstwhile Grandstand Court) was that Anna Kournikova was upset by Arantxa Sanchez Vicario. Never mind that Sanchez Vicario was seeded fourth and Kournikova was 15th; that Sanchez Vicario has won four Grand Slams while Kournikova has won as many pro tournaments as you and I have.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright © 1999 CNN/SI. A Time Warner Company. Terms under which this service is provided to you.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
