By Chris Oddo | Tuesday October 3, 2017

We’ve all been there. Sitting courtside watching a professional tennis player hammer topspin drives as our jaw hits the pavement. How do they do it with such brutal efficiency? How do they make the ball bend so viciously and kick off the court with such force?

A better question: Shouldn’t we know better than to try it at home?

More: Stringing for Tennis Elite is Grueling, but Rewards Outweight Difficulties

Many of us can’t resist doing just that. So we buy a light racquet and load it up with a full string bed of polyester strings and begin chasing the dream.

MUST. CRUSH. BALL!!!!

Dave Dorsey, National Sales Manager for Tecnifbre U.S.A. and bona fide tennis enthusiast wants you to know that there is more than one way to skin the tennis cat. Polyester strings are great for pros, and even some amateurs (depending on ability, age, weight of racquet), but they’re not right for everyone.

“There is a market and a need for polyester strings, it’s just for a very small segment of the tennis playing population,” he told me this summer when we met at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. “The problem that we’re seeing in the industry and people are starting to agree now is everyone is playing with polyester string even though it’s not a perfect fit for their game. We use an analogy all the time: You don’t put Formula One racing tires on a jacked-up Chevy Silverado. Not if you’re wanting that truck to go off-roading. And conversely I’m not putting big knobby tires on a Formula One race car.

In other words. Recreational players all over the world may want to crush buggy whip forehands like Rafael Nadal or launch crosscourt forehand winners like Serena Williams—but you never will (sorry to be the bearer of bad news).

So maybe it’s time to choose a string that actually preserves your health and gives you the additional power and pocket of feel you most likely need.

It makes sense, people want to play with what they see the pros using on tour,” continues Dorsey. “But the average tennis player like me—3 or 3.5 level player, maybe 4 on a good day—I am not as good as Federer, my swing speed is not as fast as Nadal’s and I do not hit with the precision and the pace that Djokovic hits with. So for me to play with their equipment, that’s custom made for them, for me to play with the exact same stuff that they play with, there’s a little bit of a disconnect there.”

Dorsey, who began working with Tecnifibre in 2012, and has gradually seen his role expand as the French company has grown it’s business within the domestic United States, says that recreational players simply need to put a little thought into their choice of string. A set of strings may not cost as much as a racquet but the role they play is every bit as profound.

“Most people don’t even understand what the string is supposed to do,” Dorsey told me. “From the very beginning the string was created to do what the racquet cannot do. These pros provide all of their power because they are so skilled and they are so strong and they are so athletic. They don’t need power from their string. People like you and me, we need all the help we can get.”

Dorsey isn’t trying to single-handedly sabotage his company’s polyester market, mind you. Tecnifibre manufactures a vast array of polyester strings like all major string producers, and they want to sell them to the players that benefit from them. But more than anything else, Dorsey and Tecnifibre want you to choose the string that’s right for your game.

“There’s a market for poly and we make some of the best polys on the market, but the population as a whole should not be playing polyester as heavily as they are, and many players are hurting their arms and they are hurting their games because they are not playing the right string for their game.”

Take it from the author of this story. I played for several years with a full set of polys strung at a very low tension. I haven’t played for two years because of a shoulder issue. Not what I had in mind.

Dorsey knows the story all too well.

“We are not naïve enough to think that this is the one problem that everyone is facing but when I’m in a shop and I see a 55-year-old woman walk into the shop and she has a 110 head size racquet and she’s talking about the team that she’s on and it’s a 2.5-level team. So I have three pillars there. I have a less than average ability player, a large head size, a lightweight racquet and either an older player or a younger player where they are not as athletically developed; those are the three pillars that scream to me that you need to be playing a multifilament string.”

Make Wise Decisions and Play Longer

Dorsey feels a sense of responsibility to keep the public educated on the products he is selling them. He sees too many players just hand their racquet to a stringer and say “I’ll have what he’s having,” without giving it any thought.

“We’ve done a lot of research of an impact of a tennis ball on a racquet," he says. "As we’ve done our testing we’ve realized that the impact of a ball in a racquet at 50 miles per hour is basically the same as a Formula One car crash. One hundred times the force of gravity, every single hit on your wrist, your elbow, your shoulder. That’s unavoidable. There’s nothing we can do about that, that’s just the game of tennis.”

The impact of the ball hitting a racquet may not be avoidable, but it can be lessened. And that’s where multifilament strings—ones that use sophisticated technology to mirror the effect of natural gut at a significantly reduced price—come in.

“The data we have says that that impact is now 22 percent worse if you are using a polyester string versus a multifilament string, and it gets even worse in a lightweight racquet, and it gets even worse if you have slight arms or you are at an advanced age or you are a younger player. So what we’ve done is we’ve take 100 Gs worth of impact, basically a formula one car crash and we’ve multiplied it several times over. That 100 G car crash, there’s nothing we can do about that. We signed up for that, so let’s not stack up on top of that and make it worse with the choices we make. Tecnifibre's speech is choose the right string for your game, and we use the weight of the racquet as a measuring stick. If I am playing with a racquet that is 300 grams or less Tecnifibre will tell you that you really in no way shape or form should be playing with a polyester string. If you are playing with a heavier racquet—300 grams or above—you can play with a polyester or multifilament depending on how well you play, how old you are and what you need.”

It may sound simple, even practical, but many people are unaware of the detriments of choosing the wrong string. It might feel good for a month, maybe even two or three, but cram a few seasons together and the effects can often become significant enough to derail even the most gung-ho recreational player—take it from me.

Or, take it from Dorsey, who knows the string market better than anybody.

“There’s a product for everyone. Multifilament strings aren’t the right product for everyone, but it’s a great product for a lot of players—a lot more than are playing with it right now,” Dorsey says. 'Ask yourself: What do I need from my string?' If everyone asked that question we would make better decisions. What people would discover is they would have less discomfort and they would get better performance from their racquet string combination and therefore they would play better.”