Interview with Peter Lehrner, Part III: "That's the only reason Jimmy Connors won so many tournaments"
For over 45 years Peter Lehrner has strung rackets for the best tennis players in the world. In the third part of the interview with tennisnet.com , the thoroughbred service expert devotes himself to the softest coverings on the tour and explains why even the world's best players do not necessarily have to rely on a personal service man.
by Michael Rothschädl
last edit: Jul 07, 2021, 07:47 am
Click here for the second part of the interview with Peter Lehrner!
Mr. Lehrner, on the softer side of the string spectrum is Pablo Cuevas, who allegedly strings only 12 kilos - have you ever strung a racket for the man from Uruguay?
No, I haven't, I don't know what racket specification he plays either. But in 2007 there was the minimum for me, a certain (Filippo) Volandri played 10 kilos across and 11 kilos across. That was really strange because he played against Fernando Gonzalez and he didn't know what to do in the first set. Because this extremely soft covering has an insane spin effect.
That has nothing to do with the speed, as many believe. The tension has no influence on the speed, it only has an influence on the control. This has to do with the fact that with a soft string the ball sinks into the string bed a little longer and emerges at a slightly higher angle. This higher angle - that's about two degrees on average - means that the trajectory becomes higher, the ball flies further and bounces off higher. And because of the longer trajectory, many believe that they have a lot more power, a lot more speed, which is not true. The ball just has a different trajectory. Of course you have to learn to control it first, but as an opponent you are confronted with a trajectory that you are not used to otherwise. Gonzalez, for example, needed a set to adjust to these balls, but then he had it under control.
I claim that Jimmy Connors only won so many tournaments because he played a racket that no one else in the entire circus has played at this level. This T2000 from Wilson, that was a metal frame, had a much lower frame hardness than the wooden clubs and the other metal frames. There are machines that measure the bend line of the club. The frame is bent over a beam with a unit weight and this resistance is measured. That means the RA value from a wooden club was 45 to 50. Today the graphite frames have a value between 60 and 70 - just for comparison. And this metal club from Connors had a value of 35. It was very, very soft, it was like a sling.
It was like a sling.
Lehrner on Connor's bat
I experienced that myself as a player when I played against a young Frenchman. At first I didn't know what was going on because the ball had such a strange trajectory. It wasn't until years later that I realized that it had to do with the framework. If you now play as a top player against the others and have such a weapon, then of course you have an advantage because they are not used to it. Because they can't train non-stop with the Connors.
In truth, that is exactly the advantage of the Nadal. The Nadal with its high spin potential, nobody can get used to it because you don't have anyone to copy the game from the Nadal - because nobody can. So we don't need to be surprised that the one on sand is so annoying (laughs).
However, there are two extremes: How hard or softly strung the average professional at the moment?
20 to 24 is now the average, at least that was the case in the town hall when we covered the strings. But, as I said: especially the monofilament strings. The Andrey Rublev played 25, 26. In addition, a really thick string in this Head Gravity. It also depends on the number of strings in the braid, of course. A racket with a tight braid with 18 longitudinal and 20 cross strings is strung a little softer. Borna Coric also played 26, 25, also mixed with natural gut. Everything that brings more acceleration in the string, of course, compensates for it with more string tension.
Are there differences in the upholstery between men and women?
Well, hardly, except that the women mainly play thinner strings. So if anything, not everyone does that. So Anastasia Sevastova, from whom I am also allowed to make the rackets, strung with 22/23. Babsi Haas with 21/21. When I was with (Barbara) Schett, (Barbara) Paulus and (Petra) Huber, I was even more involved with the women. Babsi Paulus, for example, also played the Isospeed with 23 kilos, which Tom played with 38 kilos. She also waited for the string to deteriorate, so the racket had to lie down for at least two days after stringing so that it would not feel any change during the match.
In the case of the women, there is also the fact that the clubs are longer on average, I think, and they can handle this increased acceleration better. For men, around 20-25% play longer clubs, for women it is possibly a little more. But they don't have such high racket weights either, the girls played the wider frames a lot more. So you can already control this increased acceleration, for the men, on the other hand, the main thing is that the ball can stay in the field.
You have worked as a personal serviceman for Muster but also as stringers at tournaments. How is it with the absolute top players, do they trust in a personal string, or did a Novak Djokovic approach you at the Erste Bank Open last year?
This time in Vienna he had his own stringing machine. This time he and the Wawrinka came with their own service man. There is also an American organization called P1, which has contracts with a large number of top people. They pay a certain amount a year and are guaranteed the club service, the club tuning. You get the guarantee that P1 will be there at the Grand Slam tournaments and the 1000 tournaments.
The way Tom - as far as he could and wanted to afford it after his first victory in Paris - took me to Paris three times, I think that is rather rare. But that also has to do with the fact that the stringing services have improved by lengths. As I said, in the past Tom often didn't even know whether he would get a club back from the stringing service on site that he could play with halfway. Because his string, the Isospeed, was so sensitive that the people who have strung on cheap, bad machines, have torn the string in rows while stringing.
It used to be that you, as the organizer, brought in a local stringing service. They were still happy that they were allowed to string for the players so that they could take a few photos. That was far, far from a certain professionalism - even at the big tournaments. Today, there are still hair-raising things going on in futures. But in principle the organizers cannot afford to put any amateurs there because it would fall on their heads and the players would be terribly upset. Therefore the quality of the stringing service has become much better and it is no longer so important that a player takes a stringing machine with him.
That is also a great effort. I remember when we drove with my stringing machine - it weighed 40 kilos - just checking in was an adventure. If we didn't fly to Paris by private plane. At the Davis Cup, for example, it was always a bit difficult when I flew there.
But what is important for the player is the habit. After about 60,000 stringed clubs, I naturally have a little more routine than many others. And when a player like Tom, who has got 400 to 500 stringings per year from me, is of course used to my way of stringing. And if you are used to something, then any deviation is really annoying. So of course he liked it best when I was there. Even with his string. Today - when we are allowed to string in the town hall, for example - then the racket comes from the player, you string one, he tries it out and if that suits him, then you do the next one as well. Then you always have to stay on the same machine with the same stringing machine. So if someone starts looking after the Medvedev at the beginning of the tournament, then he has to be there for as long as he is in the tournament. This is how it is done today.
Is the difference between the different stringers really that big?
It is a handicraft. It's neither good nor bad, but everyone has their individuality as long as they keep certain basic principles. As long as he always does the clamping and braiding in the same way on the same machine, he will always achieve the same or approximately the same results. Of course, if he drinks three beers in between and keeps walking away from the machine and not staying with it, then of course it won't be so good. It's also a matter of routine. I always checked with my employees in the store that if I had them make clubs for the professionals, they would get five clubs in a row at a reasonable speed with the same end result, which we could measure. It just takes a few hundred clubs and a little practice.
If we come to a much more unprofessional level, we come to the hobby stringers. Here, what are the biggest and most common mistakes that you have seen in the past?
During my covering seminars, the most common mistakes happen when clamping the frames in the machine. What I even saw once in a sports shop was someone who strung and always tightened two strings at once. That is of course madness. It is also about the control of the clamps, the quality of the fixation, i.e. how the string is fixed after the stringing process before the next string comes. That the string doesn't slip when you hold on. This is a big point that is often disregarded.
But yes, I always compare it to cooking. There are a lot of hobby cooks who are great at cooking, at least certain dishes. If you are a gourmet chef, then of course you have to be able to do more. If, as a private stringer, I string my own rackets at home and always have the same process, always the same racket and always the same string, then I will certainly achieve very good results. Even more because I don't know anything else. It gets tricky when the hobby stringers string rackets they don't know, when there are always models that require a certain amount of care. Then they warp and maybe even crack, which is just not good.
But as I said: The hobby stringers who deal with it, they do very good things. Learning by doing is also possible, I didn't do it any other way. I had two role models: One in our tennis club, he was still stringing the wooden rackets without a machine. And the court master: He always strung the clubs for everyone - I learned my braiding technique from him. So you just have to try something and it is also good to check and measure your results - if you have the equipment.
For over 40 years, Peter Lehrner has been offering world-class racket service in his “House of Tennis” in Mödling.You can find all information about the racket service of the tuning expert here!