I play tennis with REAL GUT in my stick. So do a lot of
pros. Tennis nerds (oxymoron?) will tell you how its unique triple-helix
molecular structure offers superior performance qualities. I just know it plays better than anything
else. By far.
Gut is good, so why does my gut preference make other people
borderline queasy? Gawkers want to
touch it. Cat lovers are ready to scratch me.
So before anyone coughs a hairball, lets put one myth immediately to
bed. This stuff does NOT come from cats. Never has. Never will.
It comes from cows (more precisely, beef serosa), mostly of
the New Zealand variety. And since a billion humans eat the beasts anyway,
what’s the problem?
Theories on where the catgut moniker came from differ. Long
ago, say the gut gurus at Babolat (by the way, Pierre Babolat pioneered gut
strings in the 1800s), a certain English stringed instrument that sounded like
a meow was called a Cat. Its strings
were made from natural gut (cow, not cat) and became known as catgut. Later,
when the nascent sport of tennis started using natural gut strings in its
racquets, the name catgut stuck.
Environmentalists should be ecstatic about this stuff. It’s
natural. No oil wells were drilled or forests flattened in the making of
this product. Like American Indians who made use of every bit of the buffalo
they hunted, the natural gut string makers are making use of serosa from a
cow’s intestine that, frankly, would probably just be wasted if it weren’t for
people like me who buy it to hit a yellow ball a little better.
(
Gut trivia: How many cows does it take to produce string
for one racquet? Answer: three.)
Other myths of the
Gut-Challenged:
•
Myth: Water ruins it.
Truth: Today’s natural gut strings have a
protective coating. And a little wax applied to the strings helps prolong life
for clay court players and in humid conditions.
•
Myth: Real gut breaks too easily.
Truth: you hit like Taylor Dent, maybe. But for most
players, it’s comparable to the gut wannabes. And because it’s more supple than
the fake stuff, and maintains tension better, it can actually last longer if
left to sit in your bag for long periods.
•
Myth: Space age string technology makes natural gut an
anachronism.
Truth:
Check out the wide selection of natural gut strings at
Tennis Warehouse. At:
http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/catthumbs.html?CREF=55
