Behind CLOSED DOORS at the US Open with Andy Roddick

[Music] racket wrong hey what's up man how you doing how's it going see you good to see you what's going on all up here it looks very important so this is not just for show this is actual tournament player rackets being strung we string for every player that's here at the tournament every single player every single player and they trust you if they're not a Wilson player to string against a Wilson player correct feels like a trust fall I don't know it feels a little little little little dicey well walk me through show me doing so let's go on up here this is one of our locations where we're stringing rackets for the players wait what do you mean one how many locations do you have on the grounds we have two okay this is sort of the Overflow because we have so many stringers that we can't all fit in one space so we take the opportunity here to highlight to the fans our expertise in this and we're streaming player gra yeah yeah and it's and it really is kind of a cool thing for a tennis fan to see who are we stringing right now Jacqueline chrisan okay so uh how long does it take you on like an average racket to get through uh on average about between 15 and 20 minutes 15 and 20 minutes yeah that would used to take me about 45 back in the day and I that was with like triple pulling Mains well good thank you very much what we do is we take when players come for stringing we assign them to a Stringer so we're giving them Ultra consistent same Stringer same machine oh that's smart yeah so they can have a dialogue they can talk about temperature changes oh that's responsible they can make some recommendations if the player wants of what sure what we can do so that conversation lasts can happen hopefully a couple of weeks yes exactly a lot of time probably not a couple of weeks but this is a small part of the overall operation yes when you see this and you think the US Open with all of the players and all of the draws obviously this isn't it throughout the day we are constantly moving rackets back and forth just a little heads up it's a lot of work going on it's pretty tight I'm sure they're going to love all of the camera crew in with us into their Works Space it's going to be fine let take a peek all right let's check this out let's go check it out this is the main stringing Center here it's a hub of activity this is organized chaos it's still at 42 as you can see we have our desk right there in the player warmup area got it so we're taking orders here taking orders got it and you can see the players warming up across there this is chaos this is so cool so it's like going do uh your favorite restaurant I'll have three cheeseburgers except it's like I'll have three rackets strung at uh 57 and and this is such a critical part because you know when you're playing a grand slam it has to be right and we have to get all of their information it's a custom stream process for each individual there are a lot of things that may or may not be that important that we obsess about as uh as players for tennis nerds this is a this is a big deal so players deliver their strings the beginning of tournaments correct right we take their strings we hold on to them okay so they don't have to Lug it back and forth every time they come once the rackets come in we can match that up with the string and then give that to the Stringer how many rackets strung during the US Open just over 7,000 7,000 rackets the part of this that is really challenging is that each day it's a different volume so obviously Sunday Monday Tuesday are the busiest day and on one of those days we're going to string almost 700 rackets in a day I mean this is this is this is just fun I mean it's amazing that the entire heartbeat of the US Open in equipment happens in a room you know that's like your garage exactly crazy Wilson the official Stringer yes responsible for everything I haven't seen a lot of people complaining about tensions on TV job well done job well done now there is one more thing though tell me the last time we were together you know we we selected that racket for you yes so we got some strung up for you oh this is this is just I feel like spoiled right now like I don't this doesn't happen every day but got my new shifts I'm uh I'm ready to play uh tennis that was that is uh less than what it used to be but uh but listen the shift has been a great great move for me I'm excited got my rackets I just got to find a game that's right appreciate you thanks for coming by thank you thanks for showing us around yeah cheers this is the new Darth Federer the rf1 did this just come out just just launched are we allowed to touch it or is it is it is it is it classified still Declassified it's out in the world you can touch it it's real Hey listen it's this is uh this this looks cool I'm glad something good finally happened for Roger