Willis' tale of 'stringing' success stories

For three days across three Indian cities, Tim Willis interacted with over 400 enthusiasts eager to learn about his craft. The masterclass was from an expert who, for more than three decades, has dealt with racquets waiting for him to find their perfect match in a string.    

“It’s not the racquet you hit the shuttlecock with, it’s the string,” reminded the 59-year-old Englishman, a renowned stringer, supervisor and a founding member of the Yonex stringing team who made his final stop in Bengaluru after conducting one-day workshops in Delhi and Mumbai this month. 

A badminton player himself during his childhood, Willis grew up repairing and re-stringing his own racquets before doing it full time for friends at tournaments. The Hampshire-born man was then invited to the 1998 All England Championships to be the official stringer and ever since has gone on to work at all the major badminton events across the world including the Olympics, World Championships, top-tier Badminton World Federation (BWF) tournaments. 

Willis’ gamut of knowledge about guts – the different filaments used, their varied thickness, the adequate tension required and how all such factors affect the quality of shot-making – has earned him the respect of top players. 

“Viktor (Axelson) and Carolina (Marin) are good friends. In fact, I was the one who got Carolina to change from Nano G95 to Aerobite (hybrid string to maximise spin and control) in 2016-17. There are no good stringers in Spain so Carolina did her own stringing and used Nano G95 because they are durable. 

“But the tension was not as high, because they weren’t getting strung often. Being a left-hander, with hit and slice, we changed her to Aerobite with the proper tension that naturally suited her game,” Willis told DH. 

Tension is the amount of pulling force applied to the strings which go through and tightened behind grommets (tiny plastic tubes in the holes) placed around the head of a racquet. 

High tension aides control, precision and has a smaller sweet spot, whereas lower tension enables power as it is more flexible giving it a trampoline effect. Willis explained that the extent of tension (measured in kgs/lbs) required is a personal preference and not a one-size fits all gamble. 

“Akane Yamaguchi (world No. 3 female singles player from Japan), is on the lower end at about 25-26 pounds. But Viktor, Ayush (Shetty) and some of the Japanese have 33, 34, 35 pounds. For an average player, around 26lbs is good enough. Some would say doubles tend to have higher tension.

“Ayush and Lakshya (Sen) are fussy. They need a new re-string before every match while Chou Chin-chen (men’s World No. 6 from Taiwan) is rarely seen at our service centres because he gets 20 racquets strung before he gets on tour for 3-4 months. French players are the most prepared and Malaysians are the least. And about our (stringers) interactions with the players, Chirag (Shetty) and Satwik (Rankireddy) are the funniest guys and (PV) Sindhu is great to have a conversation with. Some of the younger ones (from different nationalities) need to be taught how to be polite. So we’ve discovered that we’ve to educate them all.”

According to Willis, on an average, it takes a stringer 20-30 minutes to get one badminton racquet ready which includes checking/ replacing grommets and stenciling. What is the veteran’s record then? 

“At home, before I went to an event I strung 55 racquets in 24 hours. Another time, 9 minutes 30 seconds is my fastest time to string one racquet. But I’ve never done it again because it compromises on the quality,” stressed Willis.