MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Daniil Medvedev had a problem.
For nearly five years, his career followed an ever-rising arc that took him to No. 1 in the rankings in February 2022. Then came seven months of frustration and premature tournament eliminations as young men like Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner is getting better and more powerful with each passing month.
By the end of the year, he was on the verge of falling out of the top 10. And that’s when Medvedev, a player with a curious brain and an appetite for experimentation, decided something needed to change. He didn’t know what, but something, so when his string guru at Tecnifibre, his long-time sponsor, suggested he try a new, more flexible string fresh from the factory that might give him more power without sacrificing control, he thought: sure. , why not?
“I was honestly saying I was going to try it for a day and I was going to say, ‘It’s not for me, I’m going to go back to my old strings,’” Medvedev said Wednesday night in the bowels of Hard Rock. Stadium, after setting up a semi-final showdown with Sinner. “I hit it with that and thought, ‘That seems to work well.’”
Three months later, after a difficult start in Australia, Medvedev had won four tournaments, including the Miami Open, and reached the final of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, both Masters 1,000, just below the level of a Grand Slam. He reached the US Open final in September and finished 2023 ranked third in the world.
This offseason, he added even more flexibility and power to his strings. He reached the final of the Australian Open and Indian Wells. He is two wins away from defending his title in Miami. So far, so good.
In retrospect, it seems so obvious, a classic Occam’s Razor solution.
Tennis players fire their coaches and radically change their approaches at the drop of a hat. They explore the depth of their experiences on and off the field with sports psychologists, searching for a psychodynamic answer to why they don’t hit more winners. Sometimes though – and Hacking weekend warriors often make the same oversight: The quickest solution involves the only piece of equipment that actually comes into contact with the tennis ball.
“I’ve dedicated my life to these products,” said Laurent Blary, director of product development at Tecnifibre, a tennis equipment veteran who has probably spent more time thinking about stringing than any human . “Tennis is always about different types of compromises. You have to adjust your equipment and your game depending on your opponent.
Some of the best do it.
It took Medvedev a week to fully commit to the string change, even though he had essentially made up his mind after the first hitting session. Blary had equipped the court with equipment to track ball speed and location, while Medvedev tested the strings on identical rackets without knowing which one he was using. The ball felt better with the new, softer strings, and the data showed it moved a few miles per hour faster.
At a tournament in early 2023, Iga Swiatek, women’s world number 1 and another Tecnifibre customer, noticed that Medvedev was playing with a different colored thread and winning – a lot. Blary said she quickly reached out and asked about the ropes, looking for an advantage. She now uses a similar, but slightly more flexible, version of Medvedev’s main strings.
“You have two totally different athletes but they are still engaged and always thinking about how they can improve,” Blary said of Swiatek and Medvedev. “You have to be smart and have an open mind.”
Medvedev will need that and more to win his semifinal Friday against Sinner, the best player in the world so far this year, on a dream day filled with revenge plots. Medvedev beat Sinner in the final here last year, but the Italian has won his last two matches, most recently coming back from two sets down in the Australian Open final. In the other semifinal, Alexander Zverev faces Grigor Dimitrov in a battle between two of the best players never to win a Grand Slam – or any of the Miami/Indian Wells Sunshine Doubles sets.
From an equipment standpoint, if players never spend a second thinking about their strings during a semifinal at one of the most important tour events of the year, then you’re fine in their world. But there is a time and place for everyone to think about their strings.
Guess here – if you’re a weekend hacker, you probably haven’t changed your strings since you skipped one a few seasons ago and you probably don’t even know what you’re playing with, which may explain why your arm hurts. It goes without saying that the most magical equipment cannot improve any player to a certain extent. Alcaraz, Djokovic, Swiatek and Medvedev, and probably your local club pro, could probably beat you, dear reader, with a frying pan. Still, strings can be a big problem. Ignore them at your own risk.
Before delving deeper into arguably the wackiest topic in tennis, a quick introduction to the history of stringing technology is probably a good idea.
For most of the 20th century, top musicians played with strings made from cow intestines, called “guts.” The gut provides a soft, supple feel and a sweet sound. When worn loosely, its trampoline effect provides a lot of power. Done well, the tubular gives a lot of control but also a delicate feel.
“There’s no other feeling in the world like it,” said Randy Orebaugh, one of 14 Tecnifibre stringers who will have racketed a total of 3,000 racquets by the end of the Open’s two weeks. from Miami.
As Orebaugh spoke one afternoon earlier this week, he was finishing the racket that Alcaraz would soon take onto the court with him for his quarterfinal match against Lorenzo Musetti. Watching him work was a bit like watching the guy at the music store record Yo-Yo Ma’s cello before a concert at Carnegie Hall. But we are moving away.
Gut is expensive and frays and breaks easily, especially at professional levels of power and spin. And it doesn’t come back easily. Hence all those fingers adjusting the strings between points.
The 1990s brought a new generation of polyester strings that Brazilian champion Gustavo Kuerten made famous with the type of power and spin that would define the sport. Kuerten crushed balls that appeared to be heading toward the back fence, but then dove just short of the baseline. After each blow, its strings returned to their shape.
These are the ones that have evolved into the most commonly used strings by today’s players, made from polyester and other materials that can improve their elasticity. Their shape can vary, with subtle ridges that can bite the ball or rounder ridges that slide more easily over the bed of horizontal strings, allowing for maximum lift. Most importantly, they don’t break easily or cost players crucial points. But with durability comes stiffness, which is why some players split it in two, using gut in the horizontal strings for a soft, springy feel and polyester on the vertical strings for spin and control.
However, polyester, or “co-poly” as true string geeks call them, tends to lose tension quite easily when pros play with them, since they are made of a single strand of polyester. Alcaraz’s racket will lose approximately 20% of its tension during a one-hour practice session.
They are all easily accessible to the public. Any tennis retailer can set up anyone’s racket with the same Babolat string used by Alcaraz or the Tecnifibre string on Medvedev’s racket. But that would be pretty stupid.
Blary and other experts say the basic weekend warrior, and especially younger players, should play with a multifilament string, which is far more flexible than the strings used by most professionals. Multifilament ropes are constructed with thousands of small nylon fibers and other materials woven together.
Increased flexibility feels much softer and puts much less strain on the arm and shoulder. Even good juniors shouldn’t use professional-level strings until they’re middle school or high school age, said Orebaugh, a federal government official in Maryland whose side hustle is competing in a few professional tournaments. every year.
Orebaugh has been stringing Alcaraz’s rackets since the Spanish champion started coming to Miami. Its order is always the same. Babolat RPM Blast, with 55 pounds of tension on the vertical strings and 50.6 on the horizontals. He takes four or five racquets onto the court and rarely sends one back for adjustment.
“He doesn’t have a lot of reason to change,” Orebaugh said.
Others tweak throughout matches.
Sinner, Orebaugh said, always wants a freshly strung racquet for the start of a third set. Swiatek returned three rackets in her round of 16 loss to Ekaterina Alexandrova earlier in the week, telling the team to reduce tension and look for more power. It did not work. She lost 6-4, 6-2.
Sometimes, however, long-term success requires more than a minor adjustment, especially in a sport that generates constant paranoia.
“I always say that when you stay in one place, when you try to maintain your place, one day you are going to lose because the other players are going to play better, they are going to find a way to beat you. » Medvedev said.
Once again, Medvedev returned to the well, inserting even softer and more flexible horizontal ropes onto his frame to see how much more power he could get without risking too much control. Considering he didn’t compete in a warm-up event before the Australian Open, it was a pretty risky and unorthodox move, which of course is very much on brand for Medvedev.
Trailing two sets to zero in his second round match against Finnish Emil Ruusuvuori, the choice seemed questionable, but he had been here before.
“The hard decision is to tell yourself it’s okay if it doesn’t work, because otherwise you’ll be too stressed and your mind will go crazy,” he said. “You’re going to be at every game thinking, ‘Did I make the right decision?’ »
He came back and won that match just before 4 a.m. He played four five-set matches in Australia and spent more time on court than any player in Grand Slam history en route to the runner-up trophy.
On the one hand, the new string configuration took some getting used to and his serve hasn’t been as deadly this season as in previous years. On the other hand, he won a lot of matches, both in Australia, where he was a few points from the title, and during that March swing known as the Sunshine Double.
“Four tournaments, four semi-finals, two finals, I almost won a Grand Slam,” he said. “It seems to work well.”
(Brennan Asplen/Getty Images)