Wall Street Journal: The King of String

As the U.S. Open kicks off Monday, racket technician Roman Prokes will be spending 18 hours a day at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Queens, N.Y., tuning frames and stretching strings for star clients like Maria Sharapova and Andy Roddick.

Mr. Prokes is part of a small clique of top-end racket technicians who also do business outside the professional ranks. For $50 to $200, they will consult with recreational players and make specific modifications to their rackets to help them improve. (Most amateurs, of course, choose a racket by swinging it for five minutes at The Sports Authority.)

What’s unusual about this is that top athletes in most sports tend to lock up their coaches and equipment tuners to prevent them from working for competitors, and thus the general public as well. The tradition in tennis is that so long as their racket needs are met, elite players are content to share.

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