Racket stringers have lots of tension, little thanks

NEW YORK » Jarrad Magee was about halfway through his 18- hour shift stringing rackets to the exacting specs of the U. S. Open’s top players this week when he looked up at the TV and saw temperamental star Nick Kyrgios smashing his handiwork into the court.

“Yeah, it was one I had just done. ... He does that a lot,” Magee, from Sydney, Australia, says with a shrug. “What are you going to do?”

Being part of the elite team of 16 stringers who toil under the stands of Arthur Ashe Stadium is a job that comes with frustration, deadline pressure and little thanks. But their reward is being considered one of the best at what they do, and taking pride in seeing their work play out on the game’s biggest stage.

Over the three- and- ahalf weeks from qualifying through the finals, their glass- enclosed shop near the players’ lounge becomes a factory floor. Rows of stringers who work from 7 a. m. until the last ball is struck rarely look up from their machines amid the constant pop- pop- pops of old strings being cut out and the zzzripps of new strings being threaded in.

String jobs that would take the average stringer an hour are cranked out in 20 to 25 minutes, with rush jobs turned around in as little as 12. In the early rounds, when the draws are still flush with players, the shop can routinely string 500 rackets a day ( 514 is the record) and more than 5,000 for the full run of the tournament.