Gut on mains?

[Pookie]

For about a year I have been using gut on my crosses and a Polymono for the mains.

The other night I was at a WTT match in my home town and was able to chat with some of the players and their coach, during our conversation we talked about stringing and they more or less said for the best feel and power reverse what I am doing and use gut on the mains and Big Banger on the crosses.

Any ideas about this? all that I have read says to do it the way I have been?

Thanks

[wonder_wall]

For about a year I have been using gut on my crosses and a Polymono for the mains.

The other night I was at a WTT match in my home town and was able to chat with some of the players and their coach, during our conversation we talked about stringing and they more or less said for the best feel and power reverse what I am doing and use gut on the mains and Big Banger on the crosses.

Any ideas about this? all that I have read says to do it the way I have been?I've heard that the mains influence the feeling of the strings more than the crosses. So, if you put something different in the crosses, you get only a muted effect of it. But if you put it in the mains, it's almost like using it in the whole racket. That's my impression anyway, I personally haven't done many hybrids yet. Since I string my own, I just use whatever I really want all over the racket.

But, gut in the mains should give you a more gut-like performance. Your setup I believe would give a more Luxilon-ish performance.

I believe Lleyton Hewitt uses gut in the mains and Luxilon or some other poly in the crosses, so there are others that do this, but as far as the info on the pros, yes, they generally use the combination you've been using, Luxilon in the mains and gut in the crosses.

[M0rgan77]

I do lux in the mains and gut in the crosses. Try both of them and see which you like more. The only problem is the gut might break really fast in the mains. So you might have to carry 3 or 4 racquets to matches depending on how fast they break. Keep us posted.

[kwick]

Hi Guys 'n Gals,
I've been using Bow Brand NG mains (16L) and Wave Tennis White Shark (1.20mm) crosses from the beginning of the year and am loving it. I use the N-code Tour 90 strung at 54/58 lbs using the full JayCee 2-piece method which includes an extra cross after each edge main. A couple of comments and then a question :
1) I'm not the biggest hitter but I'm no wimp either and I get good longevity (up to 30 hours of quality play). In fact, I'm usually cutting out before they break due to slight fraying of the NG and the risk of breakage during a match. The interesting point is the fraying seems to be closer to the bottom 2 crosses where NG is rubbing against NG (I may revert to a more basic 2-piece pattern and tie off after the edge mains and make new tie-off holes in this frame as I don't like the standard Wilson tie-off holes for a 2 piece pattern). However, the NG against WS appears to be fine and I'm convinced this is because the surfaces of these two strings are complementary in this combination. I would not expect the same longevity using a rough surfaced mono cross like Luxilon Alu Power Rough such as Federer uses.
2) Second point and I'm seeking advice here. On my last restring, I tried a "firm" pre-stretch on both the NG and the WS following advice from another forum regarding pre-stretcing polys/monos. My perception is that it helped and maintained tension much better by doing this however, I also read elsewhere that pre-strtching Wave Tennis White Shark will ruin your strings before you hit a ball ? I'm not sure if what I did would be considered a pre-stretch. What I did was hold one end in a starting clamp which was held firm. I pulled the other end using another SC and just used the strength of one arm while bracing myself against a door frame and pulled for about 30 seconds. I've seen others swing on it with 2 arms and almost full body weight.
I'm definately going to try it again as I'm really pleased with the results but interested to hear comments about (a) pre-stretching WT WS in particular or (b) more generally how you decide which Polys and Monos can take a pre-stretch or not ?
Cheers,
kwick

[Salad]

Hi,

Andy Roddick
Hurricane Mains
VS Gut Crosses

Roger Federer
VS Gut Mains
ALU Power Rough Crosses

Maria Sharapova
Pro Hurricane 17 Mains
VS Gut 16 Crosses

Jennifer Capriati
VS Gut 16 Mains
BB ALU Power Crosses

Tim Henman
BB Timo 17 Mains
VS Gut 17 Crosses

Leyton Hewitt
VS Gut 17 Mains
BB ALU Power Crosses

Mara Safin
Ballistic 16 Mains
VS Gut 16 Crosses

The above data is extracted from
http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/orderhybrid.html

The data is arranged alternatively, natural gut on cross and then on main.
Here I would like to raise up two questions:
1. Do professionals care about playability as winning prize in million?
2. Do professionals care about durability as strings are sponsored?
:cool:

[kwick]

1. Do professionals care about playability as winning prize in million?
2. Do professionals care about durability as strings are sponsored?
I think there are professionals and professionals. When you're winning and do have string sponsorships, I can imagine all they care about is playability. Many top players cut out strings after a few games (at least in a grand slam) when they start to detect a drop (change?) in the performance and long before they break. Conversely, I've heard of other pros counting how many re-strings they get out of a supplied 200m reel. In that case, I guess they do care about durability or at least a combination of both.
I could also imagine that requirements might change depending on what is at stake in terms of tournaments, practice etc..
I think there is still a difference even within the pros so you may need to define what you mean by professionals. Just my thoughts so maybe the tour stringers can add more.
cheers,
kwick

[Salad]

Hi kwick,

The listed professionals should be sufficient to express the questions. Imagine a top player who has total prize money over millions Euros, is always able to go into the final of many tournaments of champion prize over hundreds thousand Euros. What does he/she care about the string? You have already pointed out that all they care about is playability.

Up here, I would like to quote a paragraph from Jay Cee written in this forum, the message title is "Poly/Gut Hybrid Tension" :


I use the example of Henman, a long time natural gut user, switching to a poly hybrid. In the smaller head size frame Henman was using they were working with a small sweet spot from the very start. As it was explained to me by Henman's stringer, he was having trouble controlling the ball --he couldn't take his natural stroke with the gut without the loss of control. When they tried to increase the tension the sweet spot was decreased so this solution was not that beneficial. By going to the poly hybrid Henman was able to use his natural stroke and gain the desired control. Because they were using poly and the poly was less elastic, they were also able to string at lower tensions and therefore increase the sweet spot a little bit in the process.

I admire :) Tim and his team very much, they did to utmost to work out a method to improve Tim's game and the string's playability.

[kwick]

Hi Salad,
With that list, I can't imagine any of them giving a monkeys about durability apart from Safin who is still looking for a frame to last as long as his strings :D
cheers,
kwick

[hvdb]

It seems nobody answered Kwick's question:




2) Second point and I'm seeking advice here. On my last restring, I tried a "firm" pre-stretch on both the NG and the WS following advice from another forum regarding pre-stretcing polys/monos. My perception is that it helped and maintained tension much better by doing this however, I also read elsewhere that pre-strtching Wave Tennis White Shark will ruin your strings before you hit a ball ? I'm not sure if what I did would be considered a pre-stretch. What I did was hold one end in a starting clamp which was held firm. I pulled the other end using another SC and just used the strength of one arm while bracing myself against a door frame and pulled for about 30 seconds. I've seen others swing on it with 2 arms and almost full body weight.
I'm definately going to try it again as I'm really pleased with the results but interested to hear comments about (a) pre-stretching WT WS in particular or (b) more generally how you decide which Polys and Monos can take a pre-stretch or not ?


I was waiting for the reply because I read the same comments on the GSS forum about the white shark being ruined after pre-stretching. Anybody any thoughts :confused:

Hans

[Tim Strawn]

If a piece of White Shark is pre-stretched, as in stretching the entire length as normally done you will see a marked difference in the string after the pre-stretch. There is no recovery as with other synthetic guts or a piece of natural gut. JayCee is very familiar with this and hopefully he will comment on this post.

Cheers