French Open: Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem in the catacombs
No matter what stage of the tournament: The official stringing service for French open 2019 is always busy.
by Jens Huiber
last edit: Jun 03, 2019, 10:34 am
The depths of Court 1 at Roland Garros Stade are thoroughly explorable, but the interested visitor must really want it. Like Rafael Nadal or Dominic Thiem. The two last year's finalists had already gone down two floors on Friday before the tournament started to visit the strings of their supplier Babolat. Benoit Paire and Garbine Muguruza, by the way - which could have been a good omen, after all, all four professionals reached at least the fourth round.
# IMG2 #
After the end of the second Grand Slam tournament of the year, more than 5,600 racquets will have been strung here. A good 60 km of strings have already been rewound. The busiest day was the first tournament Monday, almost 500 rackets were handed in at the reception - and picked up a little later. CEO Eric Babolat can also occasionally be seen in the catacombs; he himself learned the craft of stringing at a young age.
Less plastic sleeves
However, the service is not free. And is not used by all players. Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic, for example, trust other specialists. Since Saturday, on the other hand, the juniors, who have mainly occupied the smaller courts, have ensured that the work is not too scarce.
# IMG3 #
By the way, Babolat takes the debate initiated by Kevin Anderson, among others, about avoiding plastic sleeves very seriously. Says Shirley Ribeiro, who coordinates the string and racket maker. The marathon match between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Stan Wawrinka showed just how differently this aspect is treated by the players: While the Greek always pulled a racket out of a plastic cover for new balls, the 2015 champion had his tools in their natural state .