Stringer Things

Born in Baton Rouge, La., Pham moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth area as a teenager. He and his high school tennis teammates taught themselves how to string racquets through trial and error. 

“There was one day where my racquet had broken a string like the day before. So me and three friends, we kind of stood around the stringing machine and basically tried to figure it out from start to finish,” he said. “The feeling of accomplishment, of playing with something that you did yourself, was kind of overwhelming.”

As a student at TCU, Pham took a step toward professional stringing when he was hired to work with the TCU varsity tennis teams. 

“I got a lot better because of [TCU men’s head coach David] Roditi [...] I give all credit to him that they trusted me… I struggled a little bit at first with the volume, and then the hours,” he said. “I think because of all those experiences and meeting other colleagues over the years, I just got better at it and at some point I became a pretty good college stringer.”

Nguyen was born in Vietnam and emigrated to the Houston area when he was 8 years old. He also started stringing in 2005. He eventually took over stringing for his entire tennis team, and after graduation, worked at a number of clubs and companies in Houston including Tennis Express. 

In 2020, Nguyen had just accepted a position as stringer for Rice University when the tennis season shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so he returned to his own stringing business. 

“Basically I had to drive all over Houston picking up racquets,” he said. “I built my own machine where it was mobile [so] I could string in people’s front yards… [or] go to the courts and then just string them outside.” 

But the global pandemic opened up opportunities for stateside stringers. Since international travel was restricted, large professional tournaments which may have relied on international stringers in the past looked to new American talent to help keep their players’ racquets strung.

As a result, both Nguyen and Pham got the opportunity to string on a much larger stage and one of the biggest events in tennis: the 2021 Miami Open. 

The connections Pham made during previous NCAA tournaments recommended him for the event, and with it, and opportunity to serve on a team of elite stringers. 

“As a rookie stringer at that level, it was eye opening. And it was five lovely nights of stringing. I was in the room with 12 other like-minded people. It was great fun,” he said. 

Pham said stringing for a pro tournament is very similar to playing on a team. Reliability, communication, and getting along with the other stringers is vital. 

“It’s not necessarily about being the fastest or, you know, doing the most stringing each day, but about knowing you’re all in the same boat—and you’re all suffering together,” he joked.

Pressure is a staple of pro tennis, and it extends to the stringing room. 

Knowing that the results of his work could affect the livelihoods of professional players is something Pham had to adjust to during his first pro tournaments. 

“You don’t want anything to be ‘off.’ You want to make sure you’re doing things correctly,” he said. “Things that I thought were second nature to me all of a sudden I’m thinking twice about like, ‘Did I tie it off correctly?’ or ‘Did I count the strings right?’” 

And professional tournaments involve lots… and lots… and lots of stringing. 

Generally, a tournament would have a supervisor (or multiple supervisors) overseeing a squad of stringers. They assign each player to a stringer, with higher-seeded players getting the more experienced technicians. Those higher-seeded or higher-profile players are often more successful, which means they have more money to spend on stringing, especially for high-stakes matches and tournaments.

Some pro players, like Rafael Nadal or Danil Medvedev, may string 4 to 6 racquets for each match.

“My highest seed at the Australian Open was actually Borna Coric,” Pham said. “In that match alone, we strung eight racquets for him. He was the 21st seed at AO and he strung eight racquets to lose the first round match.” 

Players also come with unusual requests, such as mounting their racquets on the stringing machine in a certain way or with certain string patterns or tension changes.

“[Adrian] Mannarino is known to [string his racquets] very loose [...] around 11 kilos, that’s 24 pounds,” Nguyen said.

Stringers are required to be on-hand until the final matches are over. On the day of the Murray-Kokkinakis match, Nguyen was on-site from 7 a.m. until 4:30 a.m. the next day and was back at work only a few hours later. 

High-level stringing also includes lots of travel. For example, this year Nguyen traveled from the Australian Open to Delray Beach, to the Texas Tennis Classic Challenger in Waco, then to a challenger in Phoenix, to the Miami Open, then finally returned to his hometown of Houston for the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships. 

“I just finished those tournaments, and I’m still working with Rice University because they’re starting conference play next week. So, yeah, it’s been a good journey,” he said.

With the recent boom in Texas-based professional tennis events, more opportunities are close to home. One of Pham’s favorite events to work was hosted in his own backyard in Fort Worth: the 2022 WTA Finals. 

“We had the Top 8 singles players and Top 8 doubles teams in the world. They’re there for like, basically, two weeks. So, you know, I got to string for every single one.”

Despite the prevalence of stringing at tournaments, many players do not know how it works. Learning about the stringing process and how to string tennis racquets is one way players can better appreciate the technical and practical aspects of the game. During a recent tournament, Pham showed a player from Ukraine how to string her own racquets:

“After she finished [stringing], I could just tell she had a sense of appreciation and gratitude for what we do on a daily basis,” he said. 

Nguyen hopes that a better understanding of stringing will lead to more players recognizing stringers for the role they play in their results. 

“You hear the players when they win a tournament. They thank the ball boys... the umpire... the judges... the fans. But we, as the stringer, we’re here before anybody else and we stay until the last ball is played,” he said.

Despite the challenges, stringing has presented incredible opportunities to Pham—from being a part of two national championships with TCU to stringing for the world’s best players. 

“People used to think I’m crazy for wanting to do something like this for a living. I would agree sometimes [asking myself,] ‘Did I really choose the right path to go down, you know, just stringing racquets for a living?’ But I can see the opportunities it’s giving me.”

Nguyen echoed his appreciation:

“I’ve gotten to work with some of the best stringers in the world [...] from Japan, Italy, France, Spain, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea. It has been a huge experience for me.” 

For both Pham and Nguyen, something invisible to most—like tennis stringing—has brought tremendous personal and professional achievement. Over time, even something like a broken racquet string can turn into a life’s work. 

“If you’re going to do something, you might as well make sure that you try and do the best at it,” Pham said.“You never know where it’s gonna take you.”