Preparation Before Laguna Niguel F25 Sign-In! – Shubert Blog

Written by: Staff on 22nd September 2011

Preparation Before Laguna Niguel F25 Sign-In! - Shubert Blog |

Final Day of Preparation Before Laguna Niguel F25 Sign-In!

Today was another tough day on the courts with my training buddy Aba Omodele-Lucien (Harvard) and coaches. We did our spanish drills in the morning at 8:30 for two hours, then came back around 230 for live ball training. The amount of balls I’m literally striking these days is way more than what I was doing on my own throughout this past spring/summer. My body feels this as well! Hamstrings are tight, back and hips need constant stretching. I find myself on a foam roller or using my muscle-massaging roller stick constantly before and after practices. Ice baths are necessary to help recover as well. Of course the more balls we hit and the longer we play, takes a toll on my rackets as well.

I use a 17 gauge Solinco String called Revolution and it’s a polyester that last me about a week of serious use everyday. 17 gauges usually have shorter lifespans than most strings but this poly definitely gives me the durability I need but more importantly offers me more “pop” on the ball than a 16L gauge, 16 gauge, or 15 gauge string. I remember when I first tested this string when I heard about it from my training buddy/friend at the time, Michael McClune over at Advantage Tennis Academy that Solinco was the next big string company coming with very good quality products. At the time I was using Luxilon and realized the Solinco string performed great for me, was a fraction of the cost of Luxilon, and came in a better color (It’s a bright navy blue!). I even converted my BYU team to Solinco when I entered my Junior year. It matched our school colors perfectly as well. When we started using Solinco we started winning championships. Long story short, I finally popped some strings and need restring my rackets. Luckily I’ve been stringing my own rackets since I was 12 and have my own stringer at home so I can constantly make adjustments to my frames if necessary. I also remember learning how to string in Westwood Sporting Goods just by observing the stringers there working on customers’ and pros’ rackets like Pete Sampras, Justin Gimelstob, Alex O’Brien, and Dennis Hoffman. I guess these things are coming in handy these days because I’m able to save money by not having to pay for stringing labor!

All these stringing details and racket customization have enabled me to develop my game to a higher level. I strongly recommend paying more attention to your own racket details if you want to maximize your strokes and abilities on court. For the past 4 years I used a racket that was a little too heavy for me, I couldn’t generate the pace I wanted nor was I able to swing it through the air fast enough. Upon switching to a very light Babolat racket, stock weight is 295 grams, I beefed up the head with a little bit of lead tape to make its final weight around 325grams. My old frame weighed in around 350grams. This slight difference along with a bigger head size has allowed me to maximize my strokes immensely. Now if only I can win more matches, gain more ranking spots, then I can hopefully approach Babolat and ask them to sponsor me!

Tomorrow I’m traveling to Laguna Niguel to sign-in for the $10,000 futures event going on there. I’ll have a light practice and rest up for my first match. First things first I’ll stop at Westwood Sporting Goods to restock on any items I might need for the event (this time especially I need some white stencil ink to put my Solinco stencil on, I’m thinking the Blue/White combo is going to look pretty cool! If you don’t know what the Solinco stencil looks like, check out Donald Young and his Prince frame this year at the US Open, the small “O” at the bottom of his string reveals his Solinco sponsorship). I’ll update you soon on who I see at this event, who I practice with, where I end up staying, and final results! Thanks and stay tuned!

Kicking my feet up literally because it’s draining the lactic acid out of my calves and quads,

Shubert