I have seen some ;ess power pro players now have normal strung racquets but have loser strings like a little kids racquet using thin synthetic deigns closer to what a little kids racquet might use only more durable materials or some kind of full gut, and this is probably one of the only ways to have a racquet set up so a player can use a similar bend in strings helping create more topspin.
large amounts of money shot sports to never before seen heights while simultaneously destroying the culture behind them. I wonder if it was worth it :(
I am doing a "pre sponsor sport" woth occasional single event sponsoring and TV coverage, some ask themself the same question but most of the "professionals" (some can live from selling and developing tech) are sure rhey don't want the sport to change. Right now we can do world records and Championships where basically everybody knows each other abd buy stuff where we actually pay the people who develop and build it instead of marketing teams.
It would've been pretty funny if he had played with a spaghetti racked *and* then thrown a fit and resigned when faced with an opponent doing the same.
My brother wa sa tennis pro in the eighties. reached number 35. (not as a result of the spaghetti racket). but he did play with it for about 3 months, and beat Vilas on clay somewhere in Europe. He still has is on a wall in his house. He was sponsored by Slazenger. I have often asked him to take it down and lets get on a court, he says it would probably crumble within the 1st 5 minutes as it has been on a wall for about 40 years. Thanks for the vid, it brought back memories
Recently I played with someone locally. He played over 10 years ago. He put on his shoes from when he was 20, there were bits of shoes all over the court.
@@tzimiscelord8483 actually these rackets were strung very loose which is why it had all the "extras" added to prevent strings from rubbing together and wearing out quickly.
As a table tennis player, when you mentioned that Fischer went down the route of racket improvement rather than skill, I thought that was very much a table tennis mindset. Then learning that Fischer a indeed a table tennis player made so much sense
Agree!!! The gap between racquet characteristic between each table tennis blade and rubbers can be enormous.for example, in table tennis, we can make one side very spinny but other side very slippery. Good luck making tennis racquet tennis like that. 😍😍😍
@@QwertyUser1983 In tennis, we have rackets with heads ranging from less than 80 to 135 square inches. We have rackets from 230 to 400 grams. We have stiff or flexible rackets. Control, power, beginner, intermediate, advanced rackets. We have over 700 different strings (with specifications from brands), from various materials (nylon, poliester, kevlar, natural gut, etc...). We have different string gauges (from 0.60mm to 1,80mm). To over complicate, we can make hybrids with those strings (one type in the mains and another on the crosses). We have different string tensions, ranging from less than 30 to over 65 lbs, according to each player. We have at least 5 grip sizes. I will not details about grips, overgrips, vibration dampeners, lead or tungsten weights, string savers, different types of shoes (according to each surface: cement, grass, clay, carpet, synthetic), socks, etc.... Tennis market is way bigger than table tennis market. Believe me.
I've done this with kevlar string on the mains and a smooth poly on the crosses. First time I had just fucked up the weaving on accident but I like the spin it generated. I usually do it just above the sweet spot so I can still hit a nice flat shot.
I knew an ambidextrous lawyer, Rob, who came on a squash court with a raquet in each hand.. they had to add a codecil ".. and the maximum number of raquets to be carried is one." 1974ish.
I'm 67 years old and my tennis playing days are behind me. However, I was also a table tennis player and wanted as much spin on the tennis ball as possible. In the '80s, I used to play tennis frequently. I got the largest racket possible and had it strung as loosely as possible (within reason). That caused the impact to form a "pocket" in the strings, which caused the ball to stay on the strings longer, which made it possible to put unreal amounts of spin on the ball. Not only that, but when I played someone who hit the ball extremely hard, my looser strings would return the ball at a slower speed. Being used to overpowering opponents and making them hit their returns long, they had a LOT of difficulty suddenly having to run up to get to returns, when they were used to never having to leave the baseline. I frequently had opponents actually run into the ball, when my returns hit the forecourt and suddenly took off back toward them like a rifle shot. My main problem was I was NOT consistent with serves, no matter how much I practiced. I ended up taking some speed off my serves and adding spin, which helped quite a bit and which also gave my opponents fits when the ball would leave the service court at a 45 degree angle.
I love crazy spin too! there was one windy day where I hit a super spinny slice serve, it curved into the next court into their no man's land zone. My first return in an official highschool match was pulling a dropshot return from opponents serve, just sailed a bit over their net and back over to my court, stunned my team mate and the opponents! At the time I was a stand in for an absent player because I was still too new at tennis to make the team, but because the coach saw the shot he ran to me and yelled for me to do that again and im now a permanent part of the team! Since then been crazy about heavy spin whenever I felt someone wouldnt expect it
More and more pro players are stringing their racquets at lower tensions these days. Many play with tensions in the 40s. One, Adrian Mannarino, unbelievably plays well with a tension in the 20s! I guess it's what you get used to. Every racquet and string tension combo yields plusses and minuses.
It is shocking how many old-fashioned games have very little in the rules about these things. It took until 1979 for cricket to explicitly say that their bats had to be made of wood (after some controversy about someone using one made of aluminium).
Does anyone remember the 80s and 90s when all of those wooden rackets hit the thrift stores, garage sales, and estate sales? _They couldn't give them away._ Seeing McEnroe with one is shocking and nostalgic all at the same time.
I remember the spaghetti racket when Nastase used one against Vilas. It created a double hit by design and so was rightfully banned. However, as John McEnroe complained a few years later, there were no strict rules about what a tennis racket could be. He pointed out by contrast how Major League baseball bats were strictly controlled. As a result of the lack of tennis racket restrictions, Prince started the larger racket revolution. Add graphite frames and better synthetic strings and tennis was completely transformed from 1980 to 1990+. Ironically McEnroe was at first best able to take advantage of a larger graphite racket. But soon Lendl, Agassi and Sampras overpowered him.
I remember in 1990's or early 2000's when a maximum head size had to be instituted for play at most levels as you saw 120 square inches or 305 square cm as a big jump in late 1990's due to Willams twins and heard the pro levels racquets at 135 square inches or 343 square cm in play by no later then 2001 and Jr capped later at X for each age group.
@@caseysmith544 yes, super sized rackets became a problem. Since I’m an older guy I remember the classic wooden rackets of the 1970s (Bjorn Borg) which had a head size of 65 inches. Racket size exploded quickly (by Prince) to over 100 square inches. I believe the limit today involves length and width which as you wrote comes out to be a maximum of about 135 inches.
@@bb1111116 Yes and I remember when 110 square inches was broken by Kent or Kennex and everyone in tennis was in an uproar making issue go on mainstream sports news until older traditional brands like Wilson or Spalding were soon at same sized heads. I have seen perfectly round heads on tennis racquets mainly on kids smaller Jr racquets where size is 135 square inches of head size in very late 2000's. Same round 135 square inch racquet design ended up being used for new game Speedmitton that never lasted as a new sport. Now if brands making speedmiton were not using round 135 square inch head, they used long design Kennex and Head pioneered for 117--120 square inch head. A main reason Speedmitton died off was lack of a head shape and how the birdie should be, some wanted foam in a bigger tennis sized shuttlecock while others used a tennis ball in a shuttlecock deign. Some odd versions of Speedmiton made for beach used same big wooden paddle as in Paddleball/beach tennis.
I've heard of the spaghetti string racquet but had no idea what it was all about. Such a pity Werner Fischer got screwed by the tides of controversy, but sometimes it's innovative dead ends like these that really force the conversation to move forward. Definitely wouldn't mind seeing this racquet in action today, just to see the spin!
increased spin is one thing, but unpredictability should be regulated fiercely. Having an opponent that can hit shots with unpredictable bounces equivalent to hitting divets in clay... it makes it something too random to still be considered sport. The fact that people retired from matches (lol) proves it must have been INFURIATING. Not just better spin, but no consistency at all with the bounce. also, unless every player is ivo karlovic, pros today arent hitting casual rally balls that bounce higher than the fence. They might produce more mphs with their rpms than the spaghetti racket allowed, but the ratio between power input and spin was surely absurd on that old thing. It's better that it was banned. It's something to use for fun between friends.
Please make a video about Matteo Berrettini. From Wimbledon finalist and top 3 contender to barely staying in the Top 100 now. What happened to him? He is an absolute fan favourite, id love to see a video about him.
The way you put it "rather than attempt to improve his lousy game, he instead became fixated on the prospect of improving his lousy equipment", I loled so hard. So many times in life I have seen several people including myself falling into that mindset. Thankfully, I have tried and mostly succeeded in walking the path of "its the Indian not the arrow".
I was lucky to hit wirh one Fischer racquet spaghetti strung and I have to tell you, it really is a cheat code. The amount of topspin and sidespin that thing can produce, coupled with clay, produced some unpredictable and sometimes hilarious bounces.
It's not correct though. In any normally strung racquet, the tennis ball comes in contact with only one string initially, when it strikes the first atom of the first string. As the ball continues sinking into the stringbed of the racquet, it comes into contact with more of the strings before rebounding away. Nobody considers this to be a double contact and the logic is the same as the faulty logic used to classify the spaghetti-string racquets as illegal because of a double contact.
A $650 racket? The advertisement for the spaghetti racket in 1976 said it was $119.99. That’s $650 in today’s money. How many people today spend that much on a tennis racket?
It's easy to spend $300 on a production racket today. For a totally custom, innovative, minuscule production run option paying double is not unreasonable.
I hate how often someone comes up with an innovative and intelligent way to play a game only for the people in power to reject it and change the rules themselves to ban it.
This is neither innovative or intelligent. It’s a cheat. Before they dictated what a “conforming racquet” was it was already a cheat and everyone knew it. Removing the aspect of skill from competition is not a good thing. Ever.
If something comes along that dominates a sport, the decision should be based on what's best for the sport. If it makes the game boring because it's impossible to return a volley, nobody will want to play or watch it. TCGs do that kind of thing all the time. They ban cards that dominate tournaments and make the game stale.
@@cadekachelmeier7251 TCGs are actually a perfect example of why this is trash. Someone could spend hours, days, or weeks researching hundreds of thousands of card combinations to find something unique that works and wins. Then invest thousands of dollars to get the required cards. Only for some judge at the event to make a single ban ruling to not only remove the person's deck from the competition but invalidate everything they have done and all the money they have spent. how is that in any way fair to the player? You know what would be a much better option than that. Full open selection so we just don't see mirror decks with slight changes and if a card is truly uncontested create counter cards to be released in the next batch.
If the racket was actually this good they didn’t have much choice. It’d be like allowing aluminum bats in MLB. It fundamentally breaks the sport in a way that would destroy the sport long term.
@@CoconutMigrating or people would learn to adapt. a lot of things we do in modern sports would have been considered impossible in the past and are only now seen as normal due to the increase in technology and technique. if I went back in time with any of the modern equipment should it be banned because it would be hard to play against? people would find a way to play with or around these bats they just didn't want to "change the meta"
What are you talking about? It's just simply unfair, making it impossible to tell where the ball would go when hit. Where is the favoritism in that? It's like how Nike's shoes were banned from the Olympics and full body swimsuits as well, just because they were unfair and gave an advantage not by thr player but by their equipment.
Also happened when a high-school girl softballer struck out Babe Ruth when they were trying to decide if desegregating baseball meant degendering it too.
@@tbicedshot2819Aight. All footraces shall henceforth be run barefoot or with flat-soled leather sandals. Strip all technology to render all participants equal.
@@tbicedshot2819 If everyone has access to the same equipment its not an advantage anymore. Its not unfair at all. The skillset to play the game would just move or change to something else with a focus on something else than it is now. Who are you to say this is good or bad? Especially without even seeing the real consequences of new innovative equipment (at the time atleast) being played out to a point where way more people used it and learned to play with and against that equipment. I'd love to see games advance not only with players but also with equipment and new and exciting technology! Thats also more fun to watch, imho. ;)
Don't worry, hybrid stringing with sub 100cm head rackets allowed for players to develop insane spin. In high school I played with prince tricomp 90s while everyone else was playing with Head TI S6 rackets and oversized heads with oversized sweet spots. My entire game was control and spin so I have insane respect for someone that made a racket where the entire point was unpredictable spin and absolute chaos on the other side of the net.
I can understand why they removed it. The racket introduced a high level of randomness to the game which takes away from the skill vs skill aspect of it. No completive sport can have the outcome rely on randomness it destroys the competition
My father actually beat the TC Grün-Weiß Vilsbiburg in the German Bundesliga many years ago by starting to hit short and slow balls to get the opponent to the net and also to make him miss a lot of shots, because you could not generate any pace on you own with that racket.
Less of who they attract and more so the kind of people they keep. Do also keep in mind a lot things have some form of barrier to entry that make it more appealing to different groups.
Owned at one time a Pancho Segura Sweetspot. A Garcia Frame ( think Harold Soloman) with many strings missing. LOVED this frame but eventually it suffered cracks from wear and tear. I wanted another one but they were no longer available. SO sad!!
I like your sponsor, but it’s not only that. It’s a knowledge of how the opponent usually plays, getting a feel for how they play against opponents similar to yourself and rode repetition against a myriad different play styles. It’s strategy which is based on knowledge, muscle memory and a balanced and honed body with the instincts/feel/zoning in and reaction time to back it up.
If its good at groundstroke and bad at serve, what if you had a thicker racket with a different string set on each side? Use the Werner side for groundstroke, and the regular side for serves and volleys.
I feel it's very sad that it ended this way A part of table tennis is designing a racket that fit your play style and even in tennis we see a bit of this with the selection of weight and materials
@@verlatenwolf and what are you basing your comment on? genuinely curious, machine learning is doing immense damage to our society, as you're demonstrating, and I am very interested in exactly what triggered this paranoia for you (hint: bots don't tend to bother with saved playlists or actual unique usernames)
Fitting your play style and making it so that there is NO way for your opponent to prepare for what’s coming are not the same thing. Tennis wouldn’t have survived if this had continued.
I’ve never watched tennis, but it sounds much more interesting if you could choose your type of racket that would have different advantages and disadvantages and be forced to play around it. Basically what I’m saying to everyone that lost against is: skill issue
@@2MeterLP It simply shifts the skill focus of the game from the player receiving a hit to the technique of the player hitting the ball due to the increased ball control it offers. The skill factor wasn't removed and thinking it was betrays a lack of insight.
Huh....Not too long ago at the recycling center I noticed some old racquets in the heap. As I'm assuming most of the fans of this channel would do I wandered over towards them to see if there where any hidden gems, the one that caught my eye was a wooden Wilson "Chris Evert" racquet, but I was puzzled by the weird orange stain on the middle of the racquet's (now very broken) strings, it looked part intentional but also, was very sloppy and very damaged so I didn't really go out of my way to inspect it closely. The frame itself didn't look in good shape either so I left it there...but that weird orange stain in the middle seems suspiciously similar to the spaghetti string adhesive and pattern.
I started playing tennis in the 80s when wood was being phased out for metal. Ive picked up a few wooden rackets years ago to compare with the rackets of the present. You understand why serve and volley died out with the modern technology in tennis.
@@jaaklucas1329 Between racquets and I think it was McEnroe that said something along the lines of courts being better built/maintained and less grass courts mean a far more consistent bounce, so less need to keep the ball in the air and far less risk of the ball skidding/dying on you if you let it bounce. I do want to hit with a good wooden racket just to see how different the game is.
Agreed on the grass courts getting better bounces and less skidding. They started using sand and laser levelling to make it more like a modern putting green. Slower and more consistent.A few years ago Misha Zverev won Eastbourne doing pure serve and volley, the grass was old school. Johnny Mac had the Dunlop Maxply wooden raquet mid-career and it was the pinnacle of wooden rackets. Then they came up with steel ala Jimmy Connors. I kept an old wooden raquet around for years to prove to my son that it was the shotmaking that was more important than power. Less errors,etc. We called the power on those old rackets "trampoline power"! I think theres some videos around with modern players using wood...@@zeroelus
@@jaaklucas1329 Yeah I think it was Dimitrov and Zverev hitting with some old school racquets? In any case I've seen the video you mention. It's so cool you've been able to play through such an important phase in tennis, so much variety! How do you feel about the last 10 years of racquet evolution? I personally feel that strings and frames have been improving incrementally, but nothing really big that stands out from the initial advent of poly strings and graphite racquets. And if you don't mind me asking, what racquets do you use?
Holy shmoley. I am not kidding, my group in middle school had a project where we had to come up with our own invention, and my group tested exactly this, essentially. This is crazy. Buried memories.
This gives me a really good idea. I know how to maintain the same pattern no double strings and still generate the same spin. This new racquet will bring this back.
Still i think it would be fun to see a solid player use a modern racket and modern strings to recreate that string pattern to see what would happen. Like if you are just as curious as i am to see what would happen because no actual video other than the close up is not shown.
Today with the oversized racket, strung with different strings and different tensions between the mains and crosses you can generate massive topspin. Think Rafa. Interestingly, Djoker is one of the few to still use a 95 which I can say from experience has more precision but the sweet spot is smaller so its harder to use...
Believe it or not, I first learned to play tennis with woood rackets in the mid 90's. They had the shape of modern rackets, but were made of wood. I've no idea what happened to them, I wish I had kept them as a momento. Now that I'm middle aged, I wouldn't mind an old wood racket to hang on the wall.
Very interesting history. Thanks for sharing this. This was a bit before my time. I do remember when one of the Australian Woodies (Woodbridge? Woodford?) using a diagonally strung racket that caused controversy. I also remember when textured stings (Gamma Ruff?) showed up. After one set the balls were shaved clean. I would like to see regulations put in place regarding rackets ... not unlike Major League Baseball requiring wooden bats.
Great video as always! I reckon you should cover the Isner vs Mahut 2010 Wimbledon match. It is very historical and would very great if you’d do a video on it.
First time visitor to the channel, pretty interesting and well edited video. I feel like you could have used some footage of real match shots that show this crazy spin catching players off guard. off I go to search for videos showing what this racquet actually does...
It seems like Mr. Fisher was the last man (that we know about) who wanted to change something. Tennis is the modern Roman circus. It's too much money involved in this industry for any unexpected results.
Just started the video. But minor error here, the Dunlop Maxply Fort (the model mcenroe used to win that Wimbledon) actually ended production in 1980, not 1981. McEnroe was probably sent a large supply of them to use (painted as Maxply Mcenroe’s), but the racket was off the public market by 1981.
My mother used to own a diagonally-strung racket back in the 1980s which was eventually passed on to me in my high school years. I think the manufacturer 's name was Volkl or something. Personally I thought the coolest innovation was the length-adjustable racket by Puma which was used by Boris Becker in his early years.
This story is a great demonstration of tennis being first and foremost a snob's pastime. This design was rejected and banned because it was not invented some rich guy of the establishment or a a billionaire equipment maker. And for no other reason.
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I have seen some ;ess power pro players now have normal strung racquets but have loser strings like a little kids racquet using thin synthetic deigns closer to what a little kids racquet might use only more durable materials or some kind of full gut, and this is probably one of the only ways to have a racquet set up so a player can use a similar bend in strings helping create more topspin.
I really like the idea of pre-sponsor sports having these crazy innovations and upsets by random people.
large amounts of money shot sports to never before seen heights while simultaneously destroying the culture behind them. I wonder if it was worth it :(
I am doing a "pre sponsor sport" woth occasional single event sponsoring and TV coverage, some ask themself the same question but most of the "professionals" (some can live from selling and developing tech) are sure rhey don't want the sport to change.
Right now we can do world records and Championships where basically everybody knows each other abd buy stuff where we actually pay the people who develop and build it instead of marketing teams.
Ilie Nastase didn't break a promise. He promised not to play AGAINST someone that is using the spaghetti racket. He didn't say HE wouldn't use it.
... become a 'Pasta Masta' 😂
Average romanian mental gymnastic
It would've been pretty funny if he had played with a spaghetti racked *and* then thrown a fit and resigned when faced with an opponent doing the same.
@@jeanxza5395 It is true though. It's a odd thing to use it himself but he didn't break any promises.
so he didn't break a promise he's just a shitty hypocrite. got it.
My brother wa sa tennis pro in the eighties. reached number 35. (not as a result of the spaghetti racket). but he did play with it for about 3 months, and beat Vilas on clay somewhere in Europe. He still has is on a wall in his house. He was sponsored by Slazenger. I have often asked him to take it down and lets get on a court, he says it would probably crumble within the 1st 5 minutes as it has been on a wall for about 40 years. Thanks for the vid, it brought back memories
Recently I played with someone locally. He played over 10 years ago. He put on his shoes from when he was 20, there were bits of shoes all over the court.
Racket strings really don't last very long. Of course, over 40 years, the rest of the racket might not either
That's pretty amazing, Vilas was essentially the new Borg on clay in the early 80's, can you say who your brother is?
Your father is right, there is a lot of energy bound into a racket, any stress and it'll probably come apart pretty quick
@@tzimiscelord8483 actually these rackets were strung very loose which is why it had all the "extras" added to prevent strings from rubbing together and wearing out quickly.
As a table tennis player, when you mentioned that Fischer went down the route of racket improvement rather than skill, I thought that was very much a table tennis mindset. Then learning that Fischer a indeed a table tennis player made so much sense
Table tennis requires as much skill as tennis
but why is the table tennis mindset blames so much on equipment instead of skill
Agree!!! The gap between racquet characteristic between each table tennis blade and rubbers can be enormous.for example, in table tennis, we can make one side very spinny but other side very slippery. Good luck making tennis racquet tennis like that. 😍😍😍
Becuae tt has so much variety, he created the long pips of tennis and the wimps couldnt handke it so banned it
@@QwertyUser1983 In tennis, we have rackets with heads ranging from less than 80 to 135 square inches. We have rackets from 230 to 400 grams. We have stiff or flexible rackets. Control, power, beginner, intermediate, advanced rackets. We have over 700 different strings (with specifications from brands), from various materials (nylon, poliester, kevlar, natural gut, etc...). We have different string gauges (from 0.60mm to 1,80mm). To over complicate, we can make hybrids with those strings (one type in the mains and another on the crosses). We have different string tensions, ranging from less than 30 to over 65 lbs, according to each player. We have at least 5 grip sizes. I will not details about grips, overgrips, vibration dampeners, lead or tungsten weights, string savers, different types of shoes (according to each surface: cement, grass, clay, carpet, synthetic), socks, etc.... Tennis market is way bigger than table tennis market. Believe me.
Fishbach: "I could play with a shoe..."
After beating Stan Smith
Stan Smith: Chalenge accepted
American Dad???
Maybe 3 weeks ago I strung a racquet without weaving the mains. It produced a wild amount of topspin, but the strings broke in 20 minutes.
Get 50 racquets and show up to a tournament
only stringing mains you could get away with 10 racquets and string between matches.@@JimmyButler101
@@JimmyButler101lmao
That would be amazing 😂
I've done this with kevlar string on the mains and a smooth poly on the crosses.
First time I had just fucked up the weaving on accident but I like the spin it generated.
I usually do it just above the sweet spot so I can still hit a nice flat shot.
Without those string savers mentioned, the Spaghetti would have only lasted mere minutes before a string snap!
I knew an ambidextrous lawyer, Rob, who came on a squash court with a raquet in each hand.. they had to add a codecil ".. and the maximum number of raquets to be carried is one." 1974ish.
Too bad. Can you imagine people learning how to play with more racquets? So many possibilities were closed! Professional sports are no fun.
Did he get charged with….racketeering?
[Rob walks onto the court and Duel of the Fates begins playing]
I want to see someone using 3... somehow
Sounds unfair to change the rules just because someone is better than you.
just when I think you've covered every possible quirky/interesting story in professional tennis, you find something else
I'm 67 years old and my tennis playing days are behind me. However, I was also a table tennis player and wanted as much spin on the tennis ball as possible. In the '80s, I used to play tennis frequently. I got the largest racket possible and had it strung as loosely as possible (within reason). That caused the impact to form a "pocket" in the strings, which caused the ball to stay on the strings longer, which made it possible to put unreal amounts of spin on the ball. Not only that, but when I played someone who hit the ball extremely hard, my looser strings would return the ball at a slower speed. Being used to overpowering opponents and making them hit their returns long, they had a LOT of difficulty suddenly having to run up to get to returns, when they were used to never having to leave the baseline. I frequently had opponents actually run into the ball, when my returns hit the forecourt and suddenly took off back toward them like a rifle shot.
My main problem was I was NOT consistent with serves, no matter how much I practiced. I ended up taking some speed off my serves and adding spin, which helped quite a bit and which also gave my opponents fits when the ball would leave the service court at a 45 degree angle.
That's such a cool story, thank you for sharing!
...at a 45 degree angle. haha! That was the punch line your talents have extended well into your writing.
I love crazy spin too! there was one windy day where I hit a super spinny slice serve, it curved into the next court into their no man's land zone.
My first return in an official highschool match was pulling a dropshot return from opponents serve, just sailed a bit over their net and back over to my court, stunned my team mate and the opponents! At the time I was a stand in for an absent player because I was still too new at tennis to make the team, but because the coach saw the shot he ran to me and yelled for me to do that again and im now a permanent part of the team!
Since then been crazy about heavy spin whenever I felt someone wouldnt expect it
More and more pro players are stringing their racquets at lower tensions these days. Many play with tensions in the 40s. One, Adrian Mannarino, unbelievably plays well with a tension in the 20s! I guess it's what you get used to. Every racquet and string tension combo yields plusses and minuses.
Funny to think Wimbledon had a restrict dress code but didnt had a single line about how the "instrument" should be.
It is shocking how many old-fashioned games have very little in the rules about these things. It took until 1979 for cricket to explicitly say that their bats had to be made of wood (after some controversy about someone using one made of aluminium).
WELCOME BACK OUR GOAT 🐐
Very interesting video, and incredible editing as usual!
The love is mutual Wivo ❤
The graphics are unbelievable in your videos. Top quality
Thought I knew it all on rackets... But this is new to me and a great summary video!
Love it mate another great video!
Oh my, Cam, you’re everywhere!
^ The real GOAT of tennis RUclips
Does anyone remember the 80s and 90s when all of those wooden rackets hit the thrift stores, garage sales, and estate sales? _They couldn't give them away._ Seeing McEnroe with one is shocking and nostalgic all at the same time.
no footage or showcase of this racket at all? :(
Makes you wonder if such footage even exists tbh
@@Graceclaw it may but maybe not in public domain, or no one bothered to digitise them
might be on the dark web...@@shreya1100
It wouldn't be that special anyway, less spin than the Nadal forehand we've been watching for over a decade.
THE GOAT CULT TENNIS
I remember the spaghetti racket when Nastase used one against Vilas. It created a double hit by design and so was rightfully banned.
However, as John McEnroe complained a few years later, there were no strict rules about what a tennis racket could be. He pointed out by contrast how Major League baseball bats were strictly controlled.
As a result of the lack of tennis racket restrictions, Prince started the larger racket revolution. Add graphite frames and better synthetic strings and tennis was completely transformed from 1980 to 1990+.
Ironically McEnroe was at first best able to take advantage of a larger graphite racket. But soon Lendl, Agassi and Sampras overpowered him.
I remember in 1990's or early 2000's when a maximum head size had to be instituted for play at most levels as you saw 120 square inches or 305 square cm as a big jump in late 1990's due to Willams twins and heard the pro levels racquets at 135 square inches or 343 square cm in play by no later then 2001 and Jr capped later at X for each age group.
@@caseysmith544 yes, super sized rackets became a problem.
Since I’m an older guy I remember the classic wooden rackets of the 1970s (Bjorn Borg) which had a head size of 65 inches. Racket size exploded quickly (by Prince) to over 100 square inches. I believe the limit today involves length and width which as you wrote comes out to be a maximum of about 135 inches.
@@bb1111116 Yes and I remember when 110 square inches was broken by Kent or Kennex and everyone in tennis was in an uproar making issue go on mainstream sports news until older traditional brands like Wilson or Spalding were soon at same sized heads. I have seen perfectly round heads on tennis racquets mainly on kids smaller Jr racquets where size is 135 square inches of head size in very late 2000's.
Same round 135 square inch racquet design ended up being used for new game Speedmitton that never lasted as a new sport. Now if brands making speedmiton were not using round 135 square inch head, they used long design Kennex and Head pioneered for 117--120 square inch head. A main reason Speedmitton died off was lack of a head shape and how the birdie should be, some wanted foam in a bigger tennis sized shuttlecock while others used a tennis ball in a shuttlecock deign. Some odd versions of Speedmiton made for beach used same big wooden paddle as in Paddleball/beach tennis.
I've heard of the spaghetti string racquet but had no idea what it was all about. Such a pity Werner Fischer got screwed by the tides of controversy, but sometimes it's innovative dead ends like these that really force the conversation to move forward. Definitely wouldn't mind seeing this racquet in action today, just to see the spin!
What's innovative. It breaks the game
As a Video Editor myself, this is one of the best edited videos i've seen lately. Congratulations.
We need more of your videos mate :)
Too much spin, huh?
"chuckles in table tennis"
“Chuckles at the thought of only having to manage a five foot wide table”
Lol ok have fun covering a court larger than a table
1:40 That's a very young Andy Murray!
increased spin is one thing, but unpredictability should be regulated fiercely. Having an opponent that can hit shots with unpredictable bounces equivalent to hitting divets in clay... it makes it something too random to still be considered sport. The fact that people retired from matches (lol) proves it must have been INFURIATING. Not just better spin, but no consistency at all with the bounce. also, unless every player is ivo karlovic, pros today arent hitting casual rally balls that bounce higher than the fence. They might produce more mphs with their rpms than the spaghetti racket allowed, but the ratio between power input and spin was surely absurd on that old thing. It's better that it was banned. It's something to use for fun between friends.
Wake up babe, new CULT TENNIS video just dropped
Please make a video about Matteo Berrettini. From Wimbledon finalist and top 3 contender to barely staying in the Top 100 now. What happened to him? He is an absolute fan favourite, id love to see a video about him.
0:39 love an intro that contradicts itself within a single sentence
Ownage ownage ownage
Two cats watching a game of tennis.
One says to the other, "I've got a brother in that racket."
If one could produce strings that are very grippy like table tennis rubber then it would not only be legal, but also consistent spin
The production quality of your videos is next level
The way you put it "rather than attempt to improve his lousy game, he instead became fixated on the prospect of improving his lousy equipment", I loled so hard. So many times in life I have seen several people including myself falling into that mindset. Thankfully, I have tried and mostly succeeded in walking the path of "its the Indian not the arrow".
well in his case he just upgraded his arrow and it worked
@@robertgarcia2266added some dynamite to the arrow lol
I was lucky to hit wirh one Fischer racquet spaghetti strung and I have to tell you, it really is a cheat code. The amount of topspin and sidespin that thing can produce, coupled with clay, produced some unpredictable and sometimes hilarious bounces.
That technicality is the purest form of “watch me” I’ve ever heard of.
Two hits because of two distinct points of contact against two sets of strings.
It's not correct though. In any normally strung racquet, the tennis ball comes in contact with only one string initially, when it strikes the first atom of the first string. As the ball continues sinking into the stringbed of the racquet, it comes into contact with more of the strings before rebounding away. Nobody considers this to be a double contact and the logic is the same as the faulty logic used to classify the spaghetti-string racquets as illegal because of a double contact.
A $650 racket? The advertisement for the spaghetti racket in 1976 said it was $119.99. That’s $650 in today’s money. How many people today spend that much on a tennis racket?
It's easy to spend $300 on a production racket today. For a totally custom, innovative, minuscule production run option paying double is not unreasonable.
I hate how often someone comes up with an innovative and intelligent way to play a game only for the people in power to reject it and change the rules themselves to ban it.
This is neither innovative or intelligent. It’s a cheat. Before they dictated what a “conforming racquet” was it was already a cheat and everyone knew it.
Removing the aspect of skill from competition is not a good thing. Ever.
If something comes along that dominates a sport, the decision should be based on what's best for the sport. If it makes the game boring because it's impossible to return a volley, nobody will want to play or watch it.
TCGs do that kind of thing all the time. They ban cards that dominate tournaments and make the game stale.
@@cadekachelmeier7251 TCGs are actually a perfect example of why this is trash. Someone could spend hours, days, or weeks researching hundreds of thousands of card combinations to find something unique that works and wins. Then invest thousands of dollars to get the required cards. Only for some judge at the event to make a single ban ruling to not only remove the person's deck from the competition but invalidate everything they have done and all the money they have spent. how is that in any way fair to the player?
You know what would be a much better option than that. Full open selection so we just don't see mirror decks with slight changes and if a card is truly uncontested create counter cards to be released in the next batch.
If the racket was actually this good they didn’t have much choice. It’d be like allowing aluminum bats in MLB. It fundamentally breaks the sport in a way that would destroy the sport long term.
@@CoconutMigrating or people would learn to adapt. a lot of things we do in modern sports would have been considered impossible in the past and are only now seen as normal due to the increase in technology and technique. if I went back in time with any of the modern equipment should it be banned because it would be hard to play against? people would find a way to play with or around these bats they just didn't want to "change the meta"
why fishbach looking like Wolverine😭
Fantastic information!!! Really enjoyed your research and presentation!!
The classic case of "If our favorites can't beat it, ban it..."
What are you talking about? It's just simply unfair, making it impossible to tell where the ball would go when hit. Where is the favoritism in that? It's like how Nike's shoes were banned from the Olympics and full body swimsuits as well, just because they were unfair and gave an advantage not by thr player but by their equipment.
Also happened when a high-school girl softballer struck out Babe Ruth when they were trying to decide if desegregating baseball meant degendering it too.
@@tbicedshot2819 If everyone can use its not a unfair advantage
@@tbicedshot2819Aight. All footraces shall henceforth be run barefoot or with flat-soled leather sandals. Strip all technology to render all participants equal.
@@tbicedshot2819 If everyone has access to the same equipment its not an advantage anymore.
Its not unfair at all.
The skillset to play the game would just move or change to something else with a focus on something else than it is now.
Who are you to say this is good or bad? Especially without even seeing the real consequences of new innovative equipment (at the time atleast) being played out to a point where way more people used it and learned to play with and against that equipment.
I'd love to see games advance not only with players but also with equipment and new and exciting technology!
Thats also more fun to watch, imho. ;)
Would have been nice to see actual examples of the spaghetti in use in a game 🤷🏼♂️
Honestly I don't care about tennis at all, but I love someone coming up with something new...
dude, this channel is great!!
you're not allowed to show the wimbledon passing shot without a trigger warning. my lawyer will be in touch :P
with this racquet the ball played tennis.. no wonder Meuller drank beers between games
Don't worry, hybrid stringing with sub 100cm head rackets allowed for players to develop insane spin. In high school I played with prince tricomp 90s while everyone else was playing with Head TI S6 rackets and oversized heads with oversized sweet spots. My entire game was control and spin so I have insane respect for someone that made a racket where the entire point was unpredictable spin and absolute chaos on the other side of the net.
As a romanian, i have only one thing to say: i hope nastase kept the spaghetti string raquet. Makes for a good story about being salty 😂😂
Fantastic video! Didn't have to bring up the trauma from that match point from the Federer-Djokovic 2019 Wimbledon Final though 😭
I can understand why they removed it. The racket introduced a high level of randomness to the game which takes away from the skill vs skill aspect of it. No completive sport can have the outcome rely on randomness it destroys the competition
My father actually beat the TC Grün-Weiß Vilsbiburg in the German Bundesliga many years ago by starting to hit short and slow balls to get the opponent to the net and also to make him miss a lot of shots, because you could not generate any pace on you own with that racket.
I play silent temnis now. Its just like regular tennis, but without the racket.
Good one
I wonder why certain games attract certain types of people.
Tennis, Chess, Rock-Climbing, MMO's, League of Legends etc.
Less of who they attract and more so the kind
of people they keep. Do also keep in mind a lot things have some form of barrier to entry that make it more appealing to different groups.
12:43 Ash exactly predicted how tennis is played today. And without the spaghetti racket.
Owned at one time a Pancho Segura Sweetspot. A Garcia Frame ( think Harold Soloman) with many strings missing. LOVED this frame but eventually it suffered cracks from wear and tear. I wanted another one but they were no longer available. SO sad!!
Your videos have an energy akin to those of summoning salt’s. They inspire fascination for a world I’ll never join myself.
I like your sponsor, but it’s not only that. It’s a knowledge of how the opponent usually plays, getting a feel for how they play against opponents similar to yourself and rode repetition against a myriad different play styles. It’s strategy which is based on knowledge, muscle memory and a balanced and honed body with the instincts/feel/zoning in and reaction time to back it up.
Your maps are wrong, the reunification of Germany was only in 1990
It also has the Czech Republic instead of Czechoslovakia
If its good at groundstroke and bad at serve, what if you had a thicker racket with a different string set on each side? Use the Werner side for groundstroke, and the regular side for serves and volleys.
I feel it's very sad that it ended this way
A part of table tennis is designing a racket that fit your play style and even in tennis we see a bit of this with the selection of weight and materials
You must be a bot using ai generated comments.
@@verlatenwolf and what are you basing your comment on? genuinely curious, machine learning is doing immense damage to our society, as you're demonstrating, and I am very interested in exactly what triggered this paranoia for you
(hint: bots don't tend to bother with saved playlists or actual unique usernames)
true
Fitting your play style and making it so that there is NO way for your opponent to prepare for what’s coming are not the same thing.
Tennis wouldn’t have survived if this had continued.
Table tennis rubers need to be ITTF approved
I’ve never watched tennis, but it sounds much more interesting if you could choose your type of racket that would have different advantages and disadvantages and be forced to play around it.
Basically what I’m saying to everyone that lost against is: skill issue
All I hear is a bunch of crying cause they got beat.
Thats tennis
It seems to me that making the game less predictable also makes it less fun and less about skill.
@@2MeterLP It simply shifts the skill focus of the game from the player receiving a hit to the technique of the player hitting the ball due to the increased ball control it offers. The skill factor wasn't removed and thinking it was betrays a lack of insight.
@Atlas-nf2gw Do you play tennis? I dont want to assume anything.
Hmm, you should try court tennis, real tennis or Jeu de Paume. The balls are the random element!
reminds me of the argument for aluminum bats in MLB lol
The best racquet ever made was the Davis Classic II. Not the best for power, but for control and lack of arm/elbow stress, it is still unbeaten.
Your editing is amazing
Huh....Not too long ago at the recycling center I noticed some old racquets in the heap. As I'm assuming most of the fans of this channel would do I wandered over towards them to see if there where any hidden gems, the one that caught my eye was a wooden Wilson "Chris Evert" racquet, but I was puzzled by the weird orange stain on the middle of the racquet's (now very broken) strings, it looked part intentional but also, was very sloppy and very damaged so I didn't really go out of my way to inspect it closely. The frame itself didn't look in good shape either so I left it there...but that weird orange stain in the middle seems suspiciously similar to the spaghetti string adhesive and pattern.
I started playing tennis in the 80s when wood was being phased out for metal. Ive picked up a few wooden rackets years ago to compare with the rackets of the present. You understand why serve and volley died out with the modern technology in tennis.
@@jaaklucas1329 Between racquets and I think it was McEnroe that said something along the lines of courts being better built/maintained and less grass courts mean a far more consistent bounce, so less need to keep the ball in the air and far less risk of the ball skidding/dying on you if you let it bounce.
I do want to hit with a good wooden racket just to see how different the game is.
Agreed on the grass courts getting better bounces and less skidding. They started using sand and laser levelling to make it more like a modern putting green. Slower and more consistent.A few years ago Misha Zverev won Eastbourne doing pure serve and volley, the grass was old school. Johnny Mac had the Dunlop Maxply wooden raquet mid-career and it was the pinnacle of wooden rackets. Then they came up with steel ala Jimmy Connors. I kept an old wooden raquet around for years to prove to my son that it was the shotmaking that was more important than power. Less errors,etc. We called the power on those old rackets "trampoline power"! I think theres some videos around with modern players using wood...@@zeroelus
@@jaaklucas1329 Yeah I think it was Dimitrov and Zverev hitting with some old school racquets? In any case I've seen the video you mention.
It's so cool you've been able to play through such an important phase in tennis, so much variety! How do you feel about the last 10 years of racquet evolution? I personally feel that strings and frames have been improving incrementally, but nothing really big that stands out from the initial advent of poly strings and graphite racquets. And if you don't mind me asking, what racquets do you use?
Truly a fantastic video. Great job! 👍
Holy shmoley.
I am not kidding, my group in middle school had a project where we had to come up with our own invention, and my group tested exactly this, essentially. This is crazy. Buried memories.
in table tennis we have the pimpled rubbers. So, somehow "spaghetti" did survive in table tennis.
This gives me a really good idea. I know how to maintain the same pattern no double strings and still generate the same spin. This new racquet will bring this back.
So no actual footage of this thing in action whatsoever?
I just love this channel
Still i think it would be fun to see a solid player use a modern racket and modern strings to recreate that string pattern to see what would happen. Like if you are just as curious as i am to see what would happen because no actual video other than the close up is not shown.
Today with the oversized racket, strung with different strings and different tensions between the mains and crosses you can generate massive topspin. Think Rafa. Interestingly, Djoker is one of the few to still use a 95 which I can say from experience has more precision but the sweet spot is smaller so its harder to use...
So before the ban, you could use a baseball bat?
Yes(I think), but good luck making shots in.
God damnit Cult, you did not have to include a clip from the 2019 Wimbledon final.
Believe it or not, I first learned to play tennis with woood rackets in the mid 90's. They had the shape of modern rackets, but were made of wood. I've no idea what happened to them, I wish I had kept them as a momento. Now that I'm middle aged, I wouldn't mind an old wood racket to hang on the wall.
He’s back!
"ranked 200 in the world"
"little hope for future success"
lmao
10:56 we want to make tennis not fun
ok then I'll play a fun sport instead
Very interesting history. Thanks for sharing this. This was a bit before my time. I do remember when one of the Australian Woodies (Woodbridge? Woodford?) using a diagonally strung racket that caused controversy. I also remember when textured stings (Gamma Ruff?) showed up. After one set the balls were shaved clean. I would like to see regulations put in place regarding rackets ... not unlike Major League Baseball requiring wooden bats.
love this story.... bravo!!!!
didnt even know i was still subscribed to this channel...tks for the trimester video
Cry me a river dude. Free top quality content. Gtfo
5:00 you gotta love it when the “experts” don’t know what they’re talking about
Great video as always! I reckon you should cover the Isner vs Mahut 2010 Wimbledon match. It is very historical and would very great if you’d do a video on it.
Honestly would've been interesting to see different players wielding their own type of "weapon"
this channel is tennis ❤
I love two handed backhands. I had a power two handed back hand that shot just over the jet and super quick diagonally
We can’t have tennis being interesting, now can we?
First time visitor to the channel, pretty interesting and well edited video. I feel like you could have used some footage of real match shots that show this crazy spin catching players off guard. off I go to search for videos showing what this racquet actually does...
It seems like Mr. Fisher was the last man (that we know about) who wanted to change something. Tennis is the modern Roman circus. It's too much money involved in this industry for any unexpected results.
i totally understand why people install ad blocker i pay for premium but still have to listen to sponsorship ads i really understand people now
But you didn't ask the question: What if all of the new racket technology since was combined into a new spaghetti racket
Just started the video. But minor error here, the Dunlop Maxply Fort (the model mcenroe used to win that Wimbledon) actually ended production in 1980, not 1981. McEnroe was probably sent a large supply of them to use (painted as Maxply Mcenroe’s), but the racket was off the public market by 1981.
Good catch!
"I need my racquet strung."
"OK, let's... nope - fuck THAT."
Fischer and Fishbach was a natural partnership
My mother used to own a diagonally-strung racket back in the 1980s which was eventually passed on to me in my high school years. I think the manufacturer 's name was Volkl or something.
Personally I thought the coolest innovation was the length-adjustable racket by Puma which was used by Boris Becker in his early years.
That's nothing.
When I was in jail I got so good at table tennis that I'd use a flip flop to play people just for a laugh, quite effective lol
Would be interesting to see what would happen if the current top players try this racquet
Absolutely amazing video.
5:00 Biggest mistakes doesn't happen from things you don't know; they happen from what you know for sure.
This story is a great demonstration of tennis being first and foremost a snob's pastime. This design was rejected and banned because it was not invented some rich guy of the establishment or a a billionaire equipment maker. And for no other reason.
We need a WRO Wacky Racket Open, specifically for all these inventions