kilograms. Professional players tend to have it strung higher than that because the higher strung the racquets is, the more responsive and accurate are the shots of a player. The problem, however, is not that strings would brake, but that they would relax during the match and seriously affect players performance. If a player brakes a string, he or she knows it right away, so the player simply changes racquets and continues playing. But knowing how stung or unstrung a racquet is, can be very difficult, especially during a match. Ashway, thus, set out to create strings that would have a long-lasting life when it comes to their original tension. In 1992, Ashway introduced a long line of tension-lasting strings which were made out of a very rough synthetic gut that provided great control as well. These strings were an instant success all over the world, and Ashway rose as one of the main string makers on the market today. Babolat, however, immediately started experimenting with technologies which would make their strings even better. In 1996 they revealed a whole new technology which quickly caught up with the players and is currently the best-selling string on the market. Fiber Ace is one of Babolat's new French-made Fibergut strings using their exclusive Air Jet technology. “It's a multifilament string with 1120 high resilience fibers and co-polymer matrix. Its main benefits, according to Babolat, are excellent playability and control, combined with unmatched tension maintenance for a multifiber synthetic string,” (Larin 2). Major tennis companies such as Wilson, Prince, Head, Yonex and others, introduced their own lines of these strings, but the popularity as well as leading gross sales of strings remain with the companies like Babolat, Gamma, and Ashway. Grips have been an interesting part of tennis apparel, because although they have changed significantly in the past 50 years, majority of the today’s players still use...
