On Super Bowl Sunday afternoon in 2022, while the vast majority of Gotham’s residents were huddled in their homes awaiting the start of the big game, I was making the short drive from Manhattan to a tennis club across the East River in Queens. The reason: Roman Prokes, racquet stringer and all-around equipment guru to the pros, was giving my son a custom “racquet consultation”. In other words, my son was getting the same advice and attention to his equipment that Prokes has given countless professionals.
Prokes carefully examined my son’s racquet – getting an exact weight of the stick (“even though racquets have a listed weight, the same exact racquet will often vary by several grams”, he told me at the time). He then arranged a hitting session with a club professional for an hour and had my son try out 10 different racquets with various string configurations before deciding on which he thought was best suited to his game. My son walked away with a new racquet and the results – whether coincidental or not – were impressive: he went on to win his next two tournaments.
