May 2006 Monthly Archive

Tennis Loses the 'Conscience of the Sport': Eugene L. Scott, 1937-2006

The death of Tennis Week founder and publisher Eugene L. Scott of heart disease on March 20 prompted an outpouring of love, support, condolences, and tributes from Scott's friends, colleagues, and readers. Here is just a fraction of the many tributes that were posted on EugeneLScott.com. (Click here to read more...)

Payback Time: Affordable Ways to Reward Your Customers

Anyone trying to make a dime certainly treasures their customers. Even when the customer isn't right, "the customer is always right." Right? Making your customers happy — and keeping them that way — is the secret to sustained business.... (Click here to read more...)

High-Tech Tennis Toys for Fun and Profit

As a sports psychology consultant and father of a 13-year-old son, it's hard to escape the fact that for better or worse, technology and electronics are a major part of our lives. Whether you own a store, manage a... (Click here to read more...)

The Soft Sell

"Transition balls" are gaining in popularity and exposure, and can help your business make gains, too. (Click here to read more...)

Extracurricular Aces

By "adopting" local schools, pros and facilities can attract children to after-school programs that will help grow the game and their businesses. (Click here to read more...)

On Guard!

Theft — whether from employees or customers — can destroy your business. Here's what you can do to prevent it. (Click here to read more...)

Become a Tennis Advocate

We all want people on our side. As teaching pros or coaches, you want your students to think positively about you, to talk you up to others who may not know you or your talents. As retailers, you want... (Click here to read more...)

Options for Hiring On-Court Summer Help

Worried about finding the right people to help you on court with your summer programs or holiday camps? There are three often-overlooked categories that you should look into to ease your hiring anxieties. Consider any one of these resources,... (Click here to read more...)

Industry News

Information to help you run your business. (Click here to read more...)

Private Retreats

For these residential award-winners, location is king. (Click here to read more...)

Made to Order

Building up and promoting a racquet customizing business will reap rewards for you, and give your players unparalleled service. (Click here to read more...)

Clay Courts Indoors?

Efforts are under way to increase knowledge and improve playing conditions on a surface typically reserved for outdoor play. (Click here to read more...)

New Promotions, Workshops Add to Cardio Tennis' Appeal

Tennis facilities are always looking for ways to increase revenues. And the new Cardio Tennis program may be just the thing to help your bottom line. For the 250 facilities that took part in a survey last fall to... (Click here to read more...)

How to Shop for your Customers

Confused about what apparel lines to carry? Making sure you bring in lines that will easily find their way back out the door is one of the toughest tasks you'll face. You need to pick what appeals to your... (Click here to read more...)

Soft weave

Q: I've been stringing for a lot of years, but never ran across the term "soft weave." I can find references to it but not how you do it.... (Click here to read more...)

Using Racquet Selector

Q: I had a customer bring me a Profile-type frame from Germany, and he asked for a similar frame available today. I clicked Wilson for the manufacturer and Profile 2.7 110 for the frame. I picked swingweight as priority one.... (Click here to read more...)

Gut alternatives

Q: What string other than natural gut or a hybrid with gut would be best for the arm? I've heard that a thin-gauge string is better than a thicker gauge, but wouldn't a thicker gauge absorb more shock at impact... (Click here to read more...)

Vibration dampeners

Q: Could you please give me a ruling on placement of anti-vibrators? My understanding is that a player may place an anti-vibrating device under the lowest horizontal, over the highest horizontal, left of the farthest left vertical, and right of... (Click here to read more...)

Matching older frames

Q: A lot of the guys I play with at my local public courts use ancient racquets. They obviously love these racquets, but they wouldn't be opposed to buying new racquets if they could find something that matched — without... (Click here to read more...)

Multipurpose Stickers

We have press-on stickers featuring our store logo, which we can apply to anything from racquet bags to shoe boxes. One of their many uses is on racquet butt caps after customizing a racquet. Under normal conditions, when customizing or... (Click here to read more...)

Hybrid Clamping

Hybrid jobs are nice because you have two shorter pieces of string to work with, instead of one long piece. However, you also have two different strings, which means you might have two different gauges. You might even have different... (Click here to read more...)

Catching Box Pattern Misweaves

When stringing a racquet using a box pattern, you weave at least one of the bottom crosses before you weave the first cross at the top. If you're not paying attention, it's easy to weave that top cross incorrectly compared... (Click here to read more...)

Blocked hole stand-off

When you are stringing the mains, and realize that you are going to block a hole, instead of looping a string around the string that blocks, try this: Take a piece of string and make a loop. Place this loop... (Click here to read more...)

Use the Dark Side

Thank you, Prince, for marking both sides of your newer frames with dots that show which grommets and grommet holes get main strings, but on the two-tone racquets, the dark dots on the side with the light background are not... (Click here to read more...)