When recreational players customize a new racquet, it’s usually a quick, simple and cheap job. They often just add a few pieces of lead tape to the sides of the head to stabilize the frame. But when ATP tour pros beef up their racquets, they do it from the bottom up. The bulk of their added weight is applied to the handle with strategically placed lead rods.
“Handle weight is the main stabilizing component of a racquet that has to stand up to the collision of 100-mile-an-hour ground strokes,” says racquet customizer Nate Ferguson, who adds more than an ounce to many of his pro clients’ racquets at his Priority One shop in Tampa, Fla.
His “gold” clients are a who’s who of men’s tennis: Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Mardy Fish, Fernando Gonzalez, Stanislas Wawrinka, Marcos Baghdatis, Gael Monfils and Lleyton Hewitt. They pay Ferguson and his three-man team $40,000 a year to customize all of their frames to the same specifications and to string for them at the Grand Slams and Masters Series tournaments. Each player also pays several thousand dollars more for additional events, keeping the Priority One team on the road 35 weeks a year. For some 20 other clients, including Bob and Mike Bryan, Ferguson charges $5,500 to customize 30 frames.
“It’s a relief to have all the racquets with the same weight, balance and grip, especially when you need to change them during important moments of the match,” says Gonzalez, whose personal Babolat Pure Storm racquets are 1.2 ounces heavier and have a 10 percent higher swingweight than the store-bought version. “I feel safe and calm knowing that I can do it at any time. [This] is why I have been working with Nate for many years. Nate and his team are very professional and perfectionists.”
Ferguson starts with the bare-bones frame, just the graphite end of the shaft, and applies a custom-molded handle created specifically for the player, often with subtle grooves to accommodate the player’s hand. For example, Ferguson built a crease into Robin Soderling’s handle for his ring finger because he dangles his pinkie off the butt cap. The Swede’s hand seeks it out every time he switches from a backhand to a forehand.
Djokovic’s handle went through three incarnations last year before he felt it was right. He promptly went out and won his next tournament in Basel.
Of all the issues with his clients’ racquets, Ferguson’s biggest challenge was getting a grip big enough for Ivo Karlovic’s massive hands. The 6-foot-10 Croat went to him in 2006 with a problem: The largest factory-installed grip out there, 4 5/8 inches, was too small for him and twisted when he served. He needed one that was 5 3/16 inches—something along the lines of a small tree trunk. Ferguson used a special polyurethane foam that added size without adding weight so it wouldn’t throw off the racquet’s balance point.
Sometimes Ferguson’s clients know exactly what they need. Doubles specialist Leander Paes wanted a rounded handle. Others just give Ferguson clues. The only direction he got from Pete Sampras was that the handle he was using was “too square.” That one kept Ferguson up at night, until he devised an easy solution: “I used a small roller and rolled down the eight long edges of the handle, making the leather grip more round.”
It’s not often that simple to get a grip on the pro game.
Originally published in the April 2010 issue of TENNIS.