Roger Federer pulling out a new racquet from a plastic wrapper every time new balls were taken, was a regular sight in the Grand Slams.
Federer was one of the few players using natural gut that takes nearly a year to process, to string his racquet and get the best feel.
Despite graphite making it a pleasurable exercise to wield a tennis racquet, there are many other factors that decide the quality of a player’s game, explains an expert in the field, Sarfras Navas.
With more than 20 years of experience in marketing Fischer and Babolat tennis equipment in the country, Sarfras has opted to focus on racquet customisation, as his core objective, to provide the best support for indian tennis.
“There is a plus or minus 7 grams factor when you buy a racquet. So, even if four racquets from the same brand look the same, they will behave differently. We first balance the racquet and advise the right strings, tension, grip size etc., to suit a player’s style”, said Sarfras in an educative conversation on the subject.
“Even when a player has a few racquets, he or she feels a particular racquet as favourite. With our system, the right way of stringing, we make it difficult for a player to distinguish one racquet from the other. They all will feel the same”, said Sarfras, who has invested a lot on having the right equipment and gadgets to gauge and tune every aspect of a racquet.
There are a wide range of strings, mono filament, multi filament, the hexagon shaped string, the RPM Blast that Rafael Nadal uses to generate tremendous spin.
“From having the basic strings, the Indian players have become knowledgeable to choose the right strings to play their best game, rather than stress merely on durability”, he said.
Sarfras is also happy that from being a “labour” job, stringing has become a professional job, done with electronic machines to achieve the desired levels of accuracy.
“I have learnt a lot over the years as I was exposed to a lot of knowledge from the very best in the game. I have also learnt a lot from my interaction with coaches like Sureshkumar Sonachalam, Nandan Bal, M Balachandran and Rattan Sharma. My aim is to provide the right racquet and expertise to even the young players so that they don’t miss out on what technology has to offer these days”, said Sarfras.
One of the impactful photos depicts the strings in a tennis racquet as the engine that drives your game. Based in Delhi, Sarfras is trying to provide the right engine to every racquet, that is tuned fine, to help Indian tennis scale new levels.
