“Butterfly

We, like the breeze, flow straight out of our lids

Them, they got moved by these hard-rock Brooklyn kids

Us, floor rush when the DJ’s booming classics

You dig the crew on the fattest hip-hop record

He touch the kinks and sinks into the sounds…“

~ Rebirth of Slick (Cool like Dat) by Diggable Planets

It’s not about the racket

Innovation in music and sport has always fascinated me. The way music evolves over time reminds me of how sport advances from one season to the next. Virtuosos exist in both arenas, whether it is Miles Davis in jazz or Roger Federer in tennis. I have watched tennis on TV since the early 1980s and listened to jazz even longer. Over the years, one phenomenon that particularly interested me was how long it took tennis pros to adopt midsize graphite-composite rackets, despite their clear advantages over classic wood rackets. In fact, it took a full ten years, from 1974 to 1984, for pros to completely abandon wood. In those days, it was typical to see matches between classic wood-racket purists such as Vitas Gerulaitis and early adopters of oversized graphite rackets such as Gene Mayer. Gerulaitis was such a believer in the control and “feel” of wood that he went against the current by helping Snauwaert design a thinner, lighter, more manoeuvrable wood racket in the early 1980s, while junior players were already buying oversized Prince rackets in droves. Still, very few pros used oversized frames. One of these early adopters was trailblazer Zina Garrison, who used a Prince and then a Wilson Ultra, while the vast majority of pros were still stuck in wood. Yet when John McEnroe adopted the Dunlop Max 200G in 1983, even small-frame wood-racket purist Gerulaitis would hang up his smaller wood frame for good and start playing with a midsize wood-composite racket. The ever-faithful Gerulaitis would retire using a racket that at least had some wood in it.

Most tennis pros, like most people, are pragmatists. They will not adopt new technology until they see it become an accepted standard, as Geoffrey A. Moore describes in Crossing the Chasm. Seeing McEnroe — a gifted touch player, long-time wood-racket enthusiast, and world number one — playing with the Max 200G in early 1983 was the tipping point for tennis pros who still had doubts about midsize graphite-composite rackets.

Therefore, the adoption of midsize graphite-composite frames was not just about engineering newer, more advanced rackets. It was also about the players — in this case, the tennis virtuosos who would go on to play beautiful music with their new frames. Below are a few stories about their voyage from tradition into innovation, and the birth of a new kind of musical tennis.

Borg Donnay – the last of the great engineered wood rackets

The last tennis star to use the Borg Donnay — the last great classic wood racket — was not Björn Borg, but Jimmy Arias. In 1984, the year John McEnroe posted a near-perfect record, thanks in part to adopting the Dunlop Max 200G, a graphite midsize racket, other pros had already started using midsize rackets. Yet that year Jimmy Arias remained the last wood-racket holdout, still using the Borg Donnay.

It is a myth to say wood rackets were the work of craftspeople alone, and not engineers. Quite the contrary: since the 1930s, wood rackets had been made from laminated engineered wood, and the engineers who designed them understood the properties of the different woods used in a racket, such as ash and birch. In fact, the Borg Donnay had an extra ply reinforcement specifically designed to help the racket withstand higher string tensions, which made it stiffer — a requirement from the master of topspin, the great Björn Borg.

Dunlop Max 200G – an injection molded marvel

In the early 1980s, McEnroe was using the wooden Dunlop Maxply McEnroe, which was reinforced with fibreglass to give him more power — a requirement of the new style of tennis. However, he injured his shoulder shortly after he began using this new frame. It is curious how serendipitous life can be. In 1983, McEnroe was practising with his brother Patrick, who was already playing with a Dunlop Max 200G. At some point, McEnroe started hitting balls with his brother’s racket, and the rest is history. He liked the new racket so much that he decided he had to start using the 200G himself. His switch inspired other pros who had been using traditional wood rackets, as well as many club players, to make the move to midsize rackets. McEnroe would have spectacular seasons in 1983 and 1984 with the 200G.

Despite McEnroe’s initial victories with the 200G, the reality was that after 1984 he never won another Grand Slam title. Another player, however, would find great success using the 200G for more than ten years, from 1983 until 1994: Steffi Graf. Graf would win several Grand Slam titles, a calendar Slam, and an Olympic gold medal using the 200G.

When I think of Graf, I always imagine her using the 200G. That racket became an extension of her arm. On the other hand, when I think of McEnroe, I tend to remember him using a wooden Dunlop Maxply. McEnroe famously observed that he could serve faster as a 48-year-old on the senior tour using a midsize graphite-composite racket than he could as a 20-year-old using a wood racket — a testament to the advancement of sports engineering.

The 200G is a curiosity: it is the only racket that was injection moulded. This is because it is challenging to create a composite material — a new material made up of two or more different substances — using mould technology. Modern tennis rackets, by contrast, are made from carbon-fibre sheets wrapped inside a mould that is then pressurized to create the hollow frame.

Wilson Pro Staff – a graphite classic

The Wilson Pro Staff is a legendary graphite racket first produced in the 1980s and used by Pete Sampras until 2002, the end of his career. Sampras was such a believer in this racket that he would only use models produced in the St. Vincent factory. Perhaps the quality control in other plants was not the same. At any rate, only the St. Vincent models met the high standards of Sampras, the man with “the best serve of all time.” This graphite classic was also the racket of choice for the great Chris Evert when she finally made the switch to midsize. Over the years, the mystical St. Vincent models have become collector’s items.

Yamaha and Yonex – power and precision

Thanks to the monozukuri approach of Japanese companies such as Yamaha and Yonex, which involved strict oversight of each step in manufacturing, the standards of midsize rackets improved to the point that different rackets of the same model could differ by only one gram in weight. No longer did players have to find a model made at a specific factory. Improved manufacturing quality meant that tennis pros, such as Gabriela Sabatini, who played with a Yamaha racket, could now benefit from more power and precision in their games.

The Head Radical – the advent of the modern racket

Until the Head Radical was developed, graphite midsize rackets were often tested by tennis pros who played with numerous prototypes to determine whether they met their high standards. However, with the advent of modern computer-aided design (CAD) software, how a racket performed could be simulated in the software itself, without the need for expensive prototypes. CAD software allowed engineers to reduce vibration, improve aerodynamics, and control the stiffness of a racket using virtual 3D models. This functionality took racket design to a whole new level — and thus, cool was born.

Here’s to the crazy ones

Years ago, growing up in Scarborough, I would often call out enthusiastically to our mom: “Hey, Mom, it’s match point — please run downstairs or you’re going to miss it!” My brothers and I were watching the Wimbledon final on TV in our basement, while she was usually busy in her study or in the kitchen. It was my way of encouraging her, a perennial multitasker, to relax at least for a while. Often, it wasn’t match point yet; I just wanted her to sit with us and watch an entertaining match. “You tricked me — it’s not match point yet,” she would reply as she joined us in the basement. “Stay and watch, Mom. Besides, you really enjoy tennis.” “OK, I’ll stay and watch the match with you.” And what legendary matches we watched: Borg vs. McEnroe, Evert vs. Navratilova, Connors vs. Lendl, Graf vs. Seles, Becker vs. Edberg, Sabatini vs. Sánchez Vicario, Agassi vs. Sampras, Serena vs. Venus, and Federer vs. Nadal.

So let’s raise a glass to those hard-working, imaginative tennis players who took the craftwork of engineers and played beautiful music with their new rackets, entertaining our moms and our families through the years. And let’s tip our hats to those hard-working, visionary engineers who sat for long hours next to their CAD workstations, figuring out how to design a better racket for those players. Let’s celebrate the collaboration of tennis players and engineers that pushed the limits of racket design and gave us the birth of cool. Or, as Steve Jobs would say:

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”