 Hey guys and welcome back. So I'm joined here by tennis stringing legend Paul Skip. Now if you don't know Paul already, Paul is the head stringer at Wimbledon and we're very very lucky to have him here at the Avenue Tennis. Now the reason I've got Paul with me today is I've had a few people ask questions about what type of strings I use, what sort of tension I use and I thought Paul's probably the best person to talk about it. So in this video we're going to talk through the basics of restringing your racket and some of the reasons why you should restring your racket and how often you should as well. So hey Paul, lovely to have you. So first question Paul, when we're talking about restrings that I know there are different types of strings could you tell us about the string types? Yeah sure, so we normally say there's four main families of string, synthetic gut, multi-filament, polyester and natural gut. There's one other but it's not very used very often so we don't really cover that. For most players we're looking at those four different types of string. So for a synthetic gut it's just a basic nylon string, it's nice it's crisp, it's not going to do a fantastic job, good all-round string and it's going to be okay for club players. But it's not going to give you a lot of performance, it's not going to give you a lot of spin, it's not going to give you a lot of power. Good for juniors, maybe some older players not performance players string. So that's synthetic gut so how does that compare to natural gut? Compared to natural gut strangely enough synthetic gut has no relationship to natural gut. Natural gut in itself is basically it comes from the intestines of cows and hence that's why it's expensive. In my opinion natural gut is actually the best string out there will give you the most comfort, the most power, the most control, the best size sweet spot, best vibration dampening and it holds tension very very well. Obviously for people in this country the weather is a little bit sort of not good as we can see today. In the snow? Yeah this was not ideal natural gut weather great in the summer when it's nice and hot when it's a bit damp it's not the best thing to use to be honest. Yeah so I know a few players that I work with that have a natural gut string but they also have a different string type for weather conditions like this so you know if it is a wet day they tend to put their natural gut string away and play with something different is that quite a common thing? Yeah I mean it's a good idea to do and in fact actually the best option to a natural gut is a multi-filament so multi-filament is usually a PU based string maybe mixed with a couple of other materials it's nice it's soft it's comfortable to use it's great for the arms so tennis elbow anything like that very good for that it's got good feel it's got good control so it really is sort of a true synthetic gut down size of it can go a little bit mushy after a while and it won't give you the spin like some of the other strings can do so again older players maybe a tennis elbow it's definitely a very good alternative. And the multi-filament is kind of made from multi-fibers you know classically you'll see when the strings start to go they almost start to fray? Yeah exactly exactly that's why it mimics natural gut and once the coating starts to wear you start seeing those internal fibers and then they start breaking down very very quickly. So just to summarise string types then if I was looking for the most durable string what would it be? The actual durable i.e. the one least likely to break quickly is polyester the polyester is become probably the biggest evolution in tennis over the last 30 or so years it's why the pros can you know hit big hit with lots of spin you hit like dipping balls you know it's the biggest revolution we've had it is very durable but the thing is to look at polyester is polyester is actually a performance string so it's going to give you great control great spin you know hit those accurate shots the dipping shots great for serves big forehands things like that what it doesn't do it doesn't hold tension very well so what it will actually do is it'll die away quite quickly and you could have a playability life of somewhere between 8 to 12 maybe 15 hours if you're lucky before it actually drops the tension and we'll just not play anything like it used to do. Durability absolutely big hit it'll make the last hit those shots last a little bit longer compared to something like the synthetic guard certainly a multi-filament but really if you're leaving it in there too long you're just not going to get performance out of it so it's better to actually cut it out and have it restrung more often yeah so lots to consider when thinking about string types and I guess it kind of comes down to your game style and what you want from the racket absolutely I mean we can fit it into certain types of players so I said juniors better with the synthetic guards multi-filaments natural gut probably not because it's quite expensive for the performance players definitely looking at polyesters different types of polyesters they're going to give you the control they're going to give you the spin obviously if you're playing a lot they're going to give you that durability as well for the older players we're looking more at sort of synthetic guards multi-filaments and natural guts again we want to make comfortable obviously as our bodies start breaking down as we get older more prone to injury we want to make that nice and comfortable polyesters are really definitely off the board unless you are a high performance player okay so that was really interesting so let's talk about tension now so how does the tension of your restring affect what you get from the racket okay so we have a few general rules basic ones are if you want more power you string lower if you want more control you string tighter a lot of people think it's the other way round but basically the string will actually rebound like a trampoline so the lower it is the ball will compress less which means all the energy is going to come from the string if it's nice and tight when the ball hits the string the ball compresses and there's no energy coming back or less energy coming back from the tighter string bed so again lower more power tighter more control but also lower will give you make it more comfortable so again for older players for juniors or beginners trying to just feel the way into the game to give them a bit of encouragement lower is definitely better you'll also get a bigger sweet spot things have changed with the event of a big spin game now so lower strings actually help with that because it allows particularly if you mix it with polyester strings it will allow you to actually create a little bit more spin obviously you've got to have your technique down to as well so that will really help if you have tighter then you're probably going to get slightly less spin because the strings just can't move as much obviously tighter you are going to get that extra control so those performance players may want to go a little bit tighter just to make sure they're not over hitting or hitting the ball long obviously tighter can also make it more uncomfortable so again if you've got older player long string so polyester that's not going to do there are many good or in fact obviously anyone would suffer with tennis elbow we don't need them to have tighter strings we want to make it nice and comfortable for them so that's where we go for that loose attention to do that nice because you know tennis elbow and golfers elbow quite common issues that we see with club players you know partly down to technique but actually a lot is down to the equipment they're using and the strings that they're using all the tension so would you suggest a slightly looser tension and potentially a multi-filament or a softer string for those people tennis elbow yes so for tennis elbow or in fact anyone within some sort of wrist or arm injury anything like that definitely softer strings ideally natural gut but again as we've said with the weather at the moment multi-filaments for sure go that lower tension get that larger sweet spot make it more comfortable let the racket do more the work don't overdo your arm and there's an interesting story you told me once before when we first met and I was asking about all of the pros that you've strung rackets for and I asked who is or have you ever strung a really really loose tension for somebody and on the flip side have you ever strung a really really tight tension for somebody and can you remind me what was the the loosest tension you've ever strung so the loosest tension that I have actually ever strung is for Daniel nester he was a doubles player retired now so he had a hybrid of string natural gut and polyester and he was stringing as low as 15 pounds on the mains 13 pounds on the crosses so just just for the viewers so 1515 not 50 and 13 not 30 which to put into perspective I have my strung at 52 so 15 and 13 pounds is incredible and I can't even get my head around it and I would love to try it one day yeah well yeah I think let's let's do that one day or string up really low and then we can actually see what happens with that and so so remind me why would a player want it that loose my feeling with with Daniel nester because he's a doubles player I think for him it's all about getting the first volley away coming in behind the serve and obviously a lot of doubles at pro level is a bit reactionary so the more energy that he can put into the ball straight off funny off straight off the bat I think that's where it's going to help him not obviously tensions for players all players is a personal thing trying to find that right tension and going low was the best thing for him to do I guess a lot less work when he's at the net you know less of a swing needed when you've got that loose tension you know you get the energy off of the strings as opposed to off of the swing absolutely absolutely it's all about that quick short punch on the volley that's what you want to do great great so can you remember a time where you've strung a racket very tightly so one of the people who strings Titus on tour was Dustin Brown I've strung up to about 37 kilos which off the top of my head you're probably looking in the round about the 82 pound mark so that's very very tight but also with that I'm just going to throw this in there so I bet he uses pre-stretch which is basically where we pre-stretch the stream before we actually finalize it at that 37 or so kilos and it comes out like a board we've asked him why he says if he strings too low he doesn't find the touch which is a little bit strange thing for you know us to understand obviously he's a pro they do things slightly differently but if you notice his game he's a relatively flat hitter it's almost like to be honest using a frying pan and he just finds he just gets that touch and he's a strong guy so yeah so he finds the power he needs it but actually his game revolves around you know his skill his ability to feel the ball around course absolutely for you know he needs that and if it's obviously too low he's just not going to get that feel yeah interesting so I would suggest if you're watching this don't get your racket strung at 82 pounds but it works for Dustin so yeah an interesting one so you mentioned about the different string types and obviously in different string types there are also different string shapes and different string gauges as well could you just briefly yeah sure so obviously strings come in different thicknesses usually for most people we're looking at a about a 1.2 millimeter to 1.3 millimeter thickness doesn't sound like a difference but once you start putting it into your racket particularly if you have something like an 18-20 so 18 mains 20 crosses that will really close up the difference between a 1.2 millimeter and 1.3 millimeter the benefits are we obviously 1.3 the thicker strings should be more durable so again if you're a big string breaker then that will really help obviously if you're playing a lot or you know you've got a child who's playing a lot go for those thicker strings for the durability to help offset potential breakages the thinner strings should actually bite a little bit more on the ball and interestingly enough they'll tend to be a little bit more elastic so again if you are someone suffering from tennis elbow then actually thinner softer strings is better than thicker strings yeah it's just it stretches you know twice up to twice the amount more it sounds a bit strange in saying that I won't go too much into that but that is the basics of it and obviously when we come into the shape of things most strings are round except when we get into polyester when we've started to get a fantastic range of different shapes of strings now because it's a lot easier to manufacture with a polyester with it you can't really do that with the synthetics or a Malteser or the synthetic natural guts so we can have triangular shapes square a heptagonal you can have gear shaped ones the whole idea behind that is just trying to get more bite on the ball and more spin on the ball that's what it's all aimed to do there's no advantage with the durability or anything like that it's all about trying to get the control and trying to get the spin that's where the different shapes will come into play and when you talk about bite you've mentioned that word a couple of times you're talking about the friction between the string bed and the ball to really create that spin you know whether it be slice or topspin yeah absolutely it's for the ability for the string to grip onto the ball because obviously there should be more friction you can do hopefully the more spin you can produce it won't shape strings won't turn a flat hitter into a raffle and a dowel overnight that's never gonna happen because you need the technique to do that but what those strings may help you do is enhance your technique to get a little bit more spin just don't expect you said to turn you into a spin monster yeah awesome so final questions then how often should you get your racket restrung we know how important it is you know to have fresh strings in your racket you know it's the part of your racket that hits the tennis ball and obviously it's so important for you to enjoy your tennis and it for it to feel comfortable but how often should you have your racket strong so the old ad is used to be the same number of times a week you play you should have it strong in the year so if you're once a week player at least once a year my personal preferences basically say at least twice a year now for us in the in the UK where obviously we have a changing climat through the year I normally say match it to the start of the season so spring summer you know definitely have it strong then you know it's going to go get a little bit warmer if you're playing on a fast surface you may need a little bit extra control and then when you get to the winter obviously like it is now it's a bit cooler the balls are heavier potentially picking up a lot of moisture maybe string a little bit lower because then that will obviously help you actually get a little bit more on the ball make the ball go a little bit deeper obviously if your performance player when they break you get it done you know as soon as you can but if you're a strong polyester player then you may want to consider stringing more often because like I said that performance level will drop off so if you're someone playing you know maybe three four times a week I would be looking to say yeah you should consider ideally every month but push every two months try and keep it nice and fresh try and have a nice fresh one in your bag at all times yeah and if you are a player that doesn't break your strings very often what sort of things will you feel that over time you know if you are leaving it a few months before we string how will the playability drop what sort of things will you start seeing so what happened is obviously the the big thing is the tension loss will go so when we get nice and fresh the strings going to be full of energy as it goes over the period of time you'll find that actually you're not quite getting the same response things aren't quite going as fast or as hard as what you want to do and the problem that we then have with that is that people overextend themselves trying to hit the ball as hard as what they have when they had new strings as soon as you start doing that that's when you want to change because otherwise you just kind of risk yourself over injuring yourself yeah yeah brilliant well thank you very much for talking Paul it's been fantastic information and if any of you have any questions about what Paul said or if you'd like any more detail I am going to spend a bit of time with Paul making a few more videos you know it might be that we try out a few different tensions during a hit it might be that we talk a little bit more detail about certain things it could be string patterns or different string types that sort of thing so pop a comment below if you've got any questions for Paul and hopefully we'll see you in the next video take care