Victoria Azarenka continued her 2012 domination of Agnieszka Radwanska, beating the Pole for the sixth time this year and the fourth time in straight sets, 6-2 6-4.

Azarenka, who lost last year in the final to Petra Kvitova, had her difficulties earlier on in the week and it looked early in the match as if she might be vulnerable to Radwanska today, double-faulting twice to hand back her initial break. Meanwhile, Radwanska initially brought more aggression than we’re used to seeing from her, holding to love for 1-2 with a succession of clean winners. But any suggestion that the match might develop substantially differently was quickly nipped in the bud. Radwanska, serving at 50% in the first set, kept offering up short, soft, predictable second serves that were grist to the mill for Azarenka’s deep returning and was broken to love for 3-2. Her worst game of the match already behind her, Azarenka settled to the task at hand and forged ahead to dominate the first set 6-2, finishing with her 14th winner.

Azarenka’s level — and first serve percentage — dropped substantially in the second set, but by that point Radwanska already appeared resigned to a sixth straight loss. Even on the blue clay, with Azarenka markedly less willing to run for hours than usual, she struggled to make even would-be decisive advantages of position tell, exemplified by a point with Azarenka serving at 0-1 where she was on the service line for three shots without being able to put the ball away for a winner. Kicking at the clay and complaining aloud, she was unable to channel her frustration effectively even when Azarenka swiped at an out-of-play ball and accidentally almost hit her, broken after another poor second serve was punished with a deep return. Azarenka struggled to take the lead decisively, getting visibly upset and emotional as she was broken back twice, but Radwanska simply could not find the consistency in her serve or groundstrokes to push her wavering opponent. Serving at 4-4, break point down, another poor second serve sat up and begged and Azarenka struck a clean backhand return winner. With new consultant Mauresmo looking on, Azarenka settled herself enough to serve out the match, ending with a backhand drop-volley from right on top of the net.

Azarenka kept her streak of not losing to Radwanska, or in a semifinal, in 2012 alive, but she will need to play and in particular serve much better to keep things close in a probable final against Serena Williams. As for Radwanska, it’s clear that Azarenka’s recent victories have unsettled her deeply against the Belarusian; for such a cool-headed player, she was tactically a mess today, unable to take a set against an Azarenka who was not at her best. The pair are slated to meet again in the Rome semifinals next week; should they both get there, Radwanska will do well to try to forget their recent history and play with less emotion and more strategy.

—Hannah Wilks

Has the tennis world been complaining about the wrong thing this week in Madrid? While fans and press and (mostly male) players have been staring angrily at the blue clay, we’ve haven't been paying a whole lot of attention to the women playing alongside them. That’s not entirely, or even mostly, our fault. In the U.S., there has been no TV coverage of the WTA as of yet, even on something known as the Tennis Channel, and Internet streams were largely dry early in the week.

Worse, the fans onsite at the Caja Magica appeared to shun stars like Serena, Maria, and Vika as well. It was a surreal sight this morning to wake up and watch Williams and Sharapova, celebrities of the first magnitude, walk into center court in front of pretty much no one. It’s not as if spectators have been encouraged to visit the women, though. Night matches have gone almost exclusively to the ATP, and the press has spent almost all of its time talking to Rafa and Novak and company—Serena wasn’t even requested for a press conference before her match with Caroline Wozniacki .

I would blame this on a lingering European disinterest in women’s tennis—it’s still tangible at the French Open—except that last week Stuttgart was well attended. I would blame it on the drive toward dual-gender events, which can leave the women looking like second-class citizens when it comes to scheduling. But next week’s combined tournament in Rome does its best to feature the ladies. It must be Madrid, the site of one of the most bitter weeks of tennis that I can remember. I’ll finish it with a few quick notes on Friday’s matches.

*****

Welcome Varvara Lepchenko. The left-handed Uzbek-turned-American qualifier finally lost today to Aga Radwanska, but it was a heck of a run. She even passed Venus Williams in the rankings and possibly on the list to make the U.S. Olympic team. I confess that I had never seen Lepchencko play until today, even though she’s 25 and resides in my home state of Pennsylvania, of all places. I liked what I saw, both in her heavy-hitting game and her relaxed demeanor. She doesn’t shriek, she doesn’t keep her fist in a permanent clench, and she seems to take things as they come out there. Her ambling gait reminded me of someone’s—maybe a young Martina Navratilova’s.

Lepchencko pushed Radwanska around with her heavy strokes and controlled a lot of the rallies, eventually losing two competitive 6-4 sets. Still, she was a cut below the world No. 3, and Radwanska showed why. She kept making her shots, while Lepchenko missed a few more here and there at the end of each set. That was the difference. Such is the difference between No. 3 and No. 77.

This fact was duly noted by the TennisTV commentator, in a fairly painful-sounding way. When Radwanska went up 5-2 in the second set, he said, "She has surely broken the spine of her opponent now." Ouch.

*****

When I saw Fernando Verdasco trudge on to center court this morning, I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. He has to go out there, now, to face the bullet-hitting Tomas Berdych, a few hours after the biggest win of his career? It reminded me of watching Julien Benneteau walk off in tears after beating Roger Federer for the first and only time, at the 2009 Paris Masters, and then seeing him go out of the event one round later. The same thing happened to Verdasco today. He was done before he knew what hit him, 6-1, 6-2.

At his press conference yesterday Verdasco had told himself, “I have to calm down,” so he could get ready for his next match. Now he can calm down. And he can savor a memorable moment, even if it was frustratingly fleeting. The Grand Slams are grand, the Masters events are cruel.

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To the surprise of probably not all that many, Novak Djokovic followed his partner in disgruntlement, Rafael Nadal, out of Madrid and on to Rome today. Nole, like Rafa, was beaten by a fellow countryman, Janko Tipsarevic, whom he normally owns. Djokovic was flat from the start, but he appeared ready to give it a go until the end of the first set. Of all the players I watched this week, Djokovic had the most trouble with his footing on the surface. No one slipped, skidded, or spun out as often as he did. Novak does a lot of sliding—even on hard courts—and scrambling and defending along the baseline, so I guess this made sense. Or maybe he was just wearing the wrong shoes. After a few more skids and twirls near the end of the first, and a few bad shots in the tiebreaker, it looked like he decided to cut his losses and get out of town. His heart wasn’t in it after that.

Do I wish Djokovic had gone down swinging—and sliding—with all he had? Yes. It was a dispiriting end to a bitter tournament for the top two seeds. But I don’t blame him. Roland Garros is everything to him, and he obviously feared an injury here. Afterward he ripped former ATP chief Adam Helfant for letting the surface change in, and said he couldn’t wait to get to Rome.

Before the tournament, I paraphrased Rafael Nadal in my assessment of whether blue clay was a good idea: “We gonna see," I wrote.

Novak and Rafa have now seen. From their perspective, I think we can safely say, it blue.

*****

Have a good weekend.

Don't let the blissful smile fool you: Roger Federer has a sly side, and showed it in the second set of his quarterfinal with David Ferrer today. Driving a one-handed backhand down the line to drag Ferrer behind the baseline in full chase, Federer fluttered a drop shot, jerking the Spaniard forward. Ferrer sprinted to the ball and somehow scraped out a reply, only to see Federer float to his left and nudge a volley winner into the open court he'd created.

Some players use consistency to cause tennis torment on clay. Federer is one of the few who can conjure creative shot combinations that turn a point into a punch line, prompting even the opponent to crack a smile. Playing near-flawless tennis for much of the match, Federer gave Ferrer the runaround in a 6-4, 6-4 victory to reach the Madrid semifinals for the eighth time.

If you saw the sixth-seeded Spaniard save match points in the third-set breaker to rip Nicolas Almagro's heart out yesterday, then you know Ferrer competes with the ferocity of a man playing as if the family home is riding on the outcome of every point. The veteran grinder's sweat-soaked hair flapped against his forehead as he ran down drives today, but Ferrer's history against Federer rivals Sisyphus' record against the rock—he's winless in 13 matches—and was waging an uphill battle from the outset.

Ferrer erased a pair of break points in the opening game, but was spooked by Federer's aggressive second-serve returning and dumped successive double faults to drop serve and fall into a 1-3 hole. Federer's superior serve was the key stroke: He cracked seve aces, served 78 percent, dropped only six points on serve, and never faced a break point.

Given Ferrer's futility against the 2009 champion, you can't fault him for trying to red-line his game, hit out on his second serve, and play closer to the lines. Ultimately, Federer does everything better, and while Ferrer makes the difficult shot look demanding; the Swiss makes the demanding shot look easy. Even for a grinder as fit, fast, and feisty as Ferrer, it must be demoralizing to see Federer take all the pace off a drive and corkscrew a backhand drop shot that danced on the edge of the sideline before darting away, as he held for 3-3 in the second set. Ferrer fought off three break points before knocking a forehand into net as Federer broke for 5-4. Federer closed in style swatting successive aces to end a one hour and 21-minute match that never felt in doubt.

An aggressive Belgrade baseliner stands between Federer and his fifth trip to the Madrid final—only it's not world No. 1 Novak Djokovic. Janko Tipsarevic upset the 2011 champion and will try to beat Federer for the first time in five meetings, their most well-known clash coming at the 2008 Australian Open, when Federer fired 39 aces to win a thriller, 10-8 in the fifth set.

—Richard Pagliaro

Evening, everyone. Many of you have noticed that these Deuce Club posts, once a weekly fixture, have been missing in recent weeks. There are a number of reasons for that, one of them being that our much-loved social director, Jackie-Oh Roe, has been a little under the weather.

Jackie recently suffered a collapsed lung that required surgery; there were complications afterward, and the upshot of it all is that she'll be out of commission for a while. She may drop by to say "hi" later tonite, but she's still in resting mode and in any event wanted you to know that she misses you all. Whether or not we resume the Deuce Club remains an unanswered question, for now.

Things have certainly changed considerably from the early days of TennisWorld, as well as Tennis.com in general. We've grown enormously; Easy Ed McGrogan, once an eager-beaver contributor (remember those Monday Net Posts and McGrogan's Heroes?) is now the editor of Tennis.com. And while developing a higher metabolism has impacted the sense of family here at TennisWorld  - you know, the TWibe – I am really gratified to see so many posters who have been with me all along. As always I'm loath to name names, because I will inevitably leave someone out. But you know who you are. Right Ruth? 

Ha-ha. I did single Ruth out because one thing I know is that you won't find a more reasonable comment-poster out there (although quite a few are right up there with her). That's been especially gratifying for me to see, given how like the wild west the digital world can be. But that's a cost of doing business in an open-forum format like TW.

One sure sign of how much, and how subtly, things have been changed is evident to me in how infrequently I write in what might be called a blogger's voice these days. Those posts in which I wrote about our family vacations, my boy Cowboy Luke, Buck the wonderdog – or even ruminations on the Parisian subway system, or the nature of Wimbledon village. . . they all seem like relics of a past. Having been trained as a "classical" journalist, I've more or less reverted to that identity, albeit as an opinion journalist; more op-ed columnist than reporter, but still someone who enjoys bagging those interviews and engaging the players and other members of the pro community, face-to-face. In some ways, that's at odds with the typical blogger's MO, sensibility, and even voice.

The increased daily work load, especially with the twice-weekly ESPN post now in the mix, has also made it virtually impossible for me to spend a significant amount of time engaged with readers. The trade-off – and I think it's a better one for you than for me  - is that these days you have a lot more fresh, original content to choose from on a daily basis, what with elements like The Racquet Scientist, or Racquet Reaction posts.

Anyway, maybe long-time readers among you will read this post and take the opportunity to re-connect, or just drop in to say a quick hi, raising a virtual-world glass to clink and say, "Cheers!" Leave a message for Jackie if you're so inclined. Mingle and chat. And once the party is over, use this thread to discussion Saturday's action in Madrid! 

– Pete

Janko Tipsarevic, long a wingman for his illustrous Serbian countryman Novak Djokovic, jumped into the pilot's seat and recorded his second win over the world No. 1 in less than a year. And just like after that earlier win at the ATP World Tour Finals last fall, there was some doubt about Djokovic's fitness as a competitor after this surprising upset at the Madrid Masters.

Still. You don't beat Djokovic without playing extremely well and, more important, you don't beat someone who has that No. 1 aura without showing great grit and poise. The reckoning on that front happened after Djokovic, already down 6-7 (2), 2-5 and serving at 0-40, whacked three consecutive aces to fend off all those match points, then added a service winner and cross-court forehand winner to hold the game.

It was Djokovic's first real threat since the beginning of the first set, and earlier in Tipsarevic's steady rise to the Top 10 it might have been enough to scare him off a straight-sets win. But Tipsarevic, clearly fighting his nerves (the first serve that served him so well suddenly deserted him), managed to ward off three break points in the next game. He then converted his fourth match point (his first of that game) when Djokovic drove his next shot after the return into the net. That ended it, 7-6 (2), 6-3.

If you didn't know better watching this one, you might have thought that Djokovic was suffering from something like sympathy pangs for Rafael Nadal. Djokovic clearly looked uncomfortable as he slid around, shook his head in dismay, stretched his legs as if he might have pulled something late in the first set (we'll see if there's any truth in that). There was something, well, overly dramatic about it all—as if Djokovic was determined not to make the most of what, to him, was an unfortunate situation. As if he wanted to show all of us just how awful that court is.

Nole and Rafa have been the most outspoken critics of the blue clay, and now both of them have left the tournament. Thus, their criticism of the blue clay will be more credible in some quarters, and it has allowed the top two players in the world to stake out something like the moral high ground in this disagreement. After all, how would Djokovic's criticism look if he did nothing but complain about the surface—only to win the event?  

By the way, I'm not for a moment suggesting any conscious lack of effort on Djokovic's part. What I am saying is that he's been visibly disgrunted, prone to making gestures of disgust, and obviously something less than fully committed to the obvious mission: Mastering the blue clay and winning the tournament. This was a loss that may sound the death knell for blue clay in Madrid.

Djokovic started well enough today, leaning heavily on his pal and Davis Cup partner in the first two games Tipsarevic served, the second of which went on for over 10 minutes (Djokovic had four break points, none of them converted, in those games). When it finally ended with a backhand let-cord winner off a service return by Tipsarevic, Djokovic uncharacteristically flung his arms in the air in disgust.

However, after struggling to get his first serve into the box in the first few games, Tipsarevic settled in and found his range. It made all the difference in the world because of the speed of the blue clay, and the problems Djokovic seemed to have getting traction, a good push off, and a smooth slide. But that still leaves hanging the question: Why didn't Tipsarevic, or so many of the other competitors, have such obvious problems?

We'll leave that question for next week. The main thing here is that as Tipsarevic's service numbers improved, he found himself holding just as easily as his opponent. On the day, Tipsarevic converted 70 percent of his first serves and won a whopping 79 percent of those points. And because his attitude was that much more positive when he escaped those first two games unscathed, he was able to play a good tiebreaker.

Djokovic double-faulted away the first point of it, after which Tipsarevic hit a neat Nole-style inside-out forehand winner off a service return, and followed on with an ace to go up 3-0. A cross-court backhand that clipped the net and fell out put Djokovic behind 0-4, an enormous deficit that Tipsarevic was able to fully exploit when he held his next two serves for 6-1. After losing the next point, Tipsarevic won the 'breaker when Djokovic flubbed a forehand.

In the second set, the men cruised along much as they had after the start of the first. Djokovic gave up the decisive break serving at 2-3, 30-40, when he made a routine forehand error right down the middle after a brief rally. That was it for him, at least until that surprising resurgence from triple-match point when down 2-5.

Credit Tipservic for quelling that brief insurrection, but keep in mind that this match was as much about more than forehands and backhands.

—Pete Bodo

Madrid's Caja Magica ("Magic Box") arena is a popular tourist destination, and today Tomas Berdych gave Fernando Verdasco a guided tour of the court before making the hometown hero disappear. Sharper in every aspect of the game, Berdych blew Verdasco away, 6-1, 6-2, in a 66-minute thrashing to storm into his second straight Masters semifinal.

It was a milestone moment for the sixth-seeded Czech, who earned his 100th career Masters victory. While the world's top two players have been vocal in criticizing the slick blue clay court, Berdych has maintained his balance by blasting first strikes to rock opponents off balance. He has not surrendered serve in the tournament, permitting just 12 games in three victories. Berdych hits a flatter ball than Verdasco, maintained better depth on his drives, and defended his second serve much more vigorously: He won 80 percent of his second-serve points, while Verdasco won just 31 percent.

The euphoria of Verdasco's rousing rally from a 2-5 third-set deficit to beat Rafael Nadal for the first time had long subsided as he tried to work the width of the court using his lefty topspin forehand to drag the Czech wide. But the world No. 19 was not nearly accurate enough—he littered 24 errors compared to his opponent's 11—and the 6'5" Berdych hammered the high ball to his two-hander, effectively nullifying Verdasco's best weapon. Lashing line shot returns, Berdych rattled the server's Dunlop racquet to gain triple break point and broke at love for a 3-1 first-set lead. Rushed for response time, a jittery Verdasco double faulted to drop serve and fall into a 1-5 hole, as Berdych won 20 of the final 24 points to take the opening set in 29 minutes.

Tennis, even at the elite level, can be a humbling exercise because it forces you to face your limitations while exposing them to the rest of the world. Some of Verdasco's impediments are self imposed: He has more depth to his game than he shows, but doesn't always believe enough in his shots, particularly the serve, to use them, which is one reason why he's 16-61 lifetime against Top 10 opponents.

This is also a comfortable match-up for Berdych because he takes the ball a bit earlier than Verdasco, and can create offensive opportunities in two-shot combinations. Once he got Verdasco on the run, Berdych refused to let the Spaniard recover. Berdych won seven straight games to blow open the match. The crowd, which embraced Verdasco in appreciative applause as he bathed in the blue clay yesterday, tried to rouse him with rhythmic clapping, but Berdych pressed the mute button, winning 16 of 20 points played on his serve in the second set.

A battle of the big men is on tap for Saturday as Berdych takes on 10th-seeded Juan Martin del Potro. The 6'6" Argentine has won three of their four meetings, including a routine win in Madrid three years ago, their lone clay-court clash.

—Richard Pagliaro

Mornin', everyone. Well, it certainly seems that the blue clay agrees with at least one player – Serena Williams. She looked simply terrific today against Maria Sharapova, who's been playing some of the best tennis of her career in recent months.

I don't know about you, but I've been fascinated as I've followed the controversy over the blue surface, and plan on posting more thoughts on it in the coming days. Right now, though, the focus is on that blue court in quite a different way, as this little matter of deciding winners and losers is not yet determined.

Those of you who enjoyed the Deuce Club in past times might want to drop around this evening, as there will be one posted by around 6 PM. Feel free to used that one at the start of the action in Madrid tomorrow as well.

This will be your match-calling thread for today, enjoy the tennis!

– Pete

With a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Alexandr Dolgopolov, Juan Martin del Potro is the first man into the semifinals of Madrid.

I thought Dolopolov might pull off the upset today, as his game seems ideally poised to take advantage of the quick, slippery blue clay. He has a super-aggressive style and a general knack for the unexpected, which could have rendered another great result (he beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga yesterday) on courts where we have seen so many players struggle to change direction. But the match played out like the previous meetings between the two: Dolgopolov could not find the balance between patience and attack, and although only two months separate them in age, del Potro looked like a veteran who knew exactly what he was trying to accomplish—and knew, moreover, that it was well within his powers.

This was del Potro’s 10th consecutive victory on clay after claiming the Estoril title, and he was confident from the start, breaking Dolgopolov for a 3-1 lead after a sweet backhand approach and testing volley. Part of del Potro’s greatness lies in his ability to go corner to corner without needing to push too close to the lines, relying on consistent depth to work his opponent off-balance, and although he occasionally got that calculation wrong today—he was broken back for 3-4 in the first set, largely due to playing it too safe when handed a short mid-court ball—it proved a more winning formula than Dolgopolov’s insistence on going after the first-strike ball. While Dolgopolov charged inside the court looking for a clean winner on second serves, del Potro was content to hang back behind the baseline, giving himself time to make the deep return that more often than not drew an error. It didn’t help Dolgopolov’s cause that, serving at 31 percent for the match, he gave del Potro plenty of opportunities to perfect that tactic.

The second set mirrored the first, with Dolgopolov serving at 2-2 when a double fault and wild forehand gave up 0-30. Del Potro struck, hitting two exceptional cross-court returns to break to love. From there, it was a simple matter of continuing to hold serve—it helped that del Potro was serving at a respectable 61 percent and threw in 10 aces for the match—and in less than an hour and a half, del Potro had booked a return to the Madrid semis, where he lost to Roger Federer in 2009.

If I could, I’d place a moratorium on conversations about del Potro that include the word ‘back’, as in ‘back to his best’, or ‘back to 2009 form’. It would be impossible for a changed player to recapture the form of one season, and even if he did, it would be a regression in the midst of a tour that’s moved on. I’m more interested in finding out exactly what the 2012 del Potro can do. Right now, the question is whether he can reach his first Madrid final. He’ll face Tomas Berdych or Fernando Verdasco tomorrow in his quest to do just that.

—Hannah Wilks

You never have to worry about where Serena Williams’s focus is going to be when she plays Maria Sharapova. It will be on the ball. More specifically, it will be on hitting the ball past her opponent as early and often as possible. Maria won their early battle in the 2004 Wimbledon final, but Serena has used that loss as inspiration to wage a long and very successful war against the Russian. After breezing past her again 6-1, 6-3 today in Madrid, Williams has now won their last seven matches.

Williams was sharp from the start, and appeared to be determined not just to win every rally, but to win them in under three shots. Her serve was clicking—do I really need to tell you that? She finished with 11 aces. Her return was just as good. She broke Sharapova at 1-2 in the first after hammering a return winner that the TennisTV commentator described as a “Mike Tyson forehand,” and she took many of Sharapova’s serves from inside the baseline. It wasn’t surprising that Maria’s serve broke down under the pressure. She finished with eight double faults, including three when she was broken at 2-2 in the second set. Sharapova’s attempts to serve into Williams’s forehand? They didn’t work.

Serena’s ground-stroke stats were just as impressive: 28 winners to 10 errors. When she wasn’t hitting winners, she was pressing Sharapova and forcing her to rush. After the dismal, 27-minute first set, Sharapova’s coach, Thomas Hogstedt, told her to “go in,” to attack, but there weren’t many  opportunities for that. Maria’s one moment of hope came at 1-2 in the second set, when she cracked a few of her own return winners and briefly threatened to turn the rout into a match. But she stopped herself cold with her double faults in the next game. The final nail in the coffin came with Serena serving up 4-3 but facing a break point. She missed her first serve and appeared to be wobbling for the first time all day. She must have remembered who she was playing, because she went after the ball, snapped off a second serve ace, and celebrated with a fist-pump and a leg kick. Six points later, it was over.

Sharapova plays a similar hard-hitting game to Serena, just not as well or as hard-hitting. Williams seems to read everything Sharapova does, especially her serve, while Maria was caught going the wrong way by Serena a number of times today. The psychological dynamic only makes it worse for Maria. Normally, she’s the fierce one, the aggressor, and she forces the other player to react to her. That’s reversed against Serena. Today Maria hung her head early, and had a look of vague, questioning demoralization on her face all day—a star dimmed. Even her small surge in the second set had a half-hearted feel to it.

Why would Maria be any other way? She knows Serena’s best is too good, and she knows she saves it just for her.

—Steve Tignor

String Theory is a regular segment that delves into the science and/or technology of strings. Today, we open up Rod Cross and Crawford Lindsey’s book Technical Tennis and take a look at how several relatively unexpected racquet variables—from string patterns to head size and grommet systems—can affect stringbed stiffness and, by extension, performance.

*****

As we all know, string tension—or, more accurately, “stringbed stiffness”—exerts a significant influence on a racquet’s feel and performance. All other things being equal, decreasing a string’s stiffness—say, by dropping its tension—will increase ball velocity and depth, not only because looser strings return more energy to the ball upon contact, but also because they increase the ball’s vertical launch angle off the stringbed. Of course, for most players, there’s usually a price to pay for that extra power: a loss of control. Like a trampoline, lower tensions fundamentally increase “dwell time”—i.e., the length of time the ball stays on the strings upon impact. And added dwell time, in addition to increasing rebound velocity, decreases margin for error when timing the ball.

(Why? Because with longer dwell times, as Technical Tennis authors Rod Cross and Crawford Lindsey explain, “the ball will stay on the strings through a longer part of the arc of your swing both vertically and horizontally,” accentuating “the consequences of errors in the timing of your swing.”)

For the most part, then, the old saying still holds water. “String loose for power, tight for control.”

So what makes for a soft or stiff stringbed? (For longer or shorter dwell times?) The reference tension (high or low) set by the machine on which the racquet is strung, of course. The string’s gauge (thick or thin) is another factor, as is its material (polyester, synthetic, or natural gut). Tension, gauge, material: these are variables that most string-savvy tennis players are familiar with. But what about the shape and configuration of the stringbed itself? You may not realize it, but your racquet’s design also affects your stringbed’s stiffness—and, by extension, how it feels and performs. Consider these three additional string-altering variables:

—String Pattern   
Given that the tension, material, and gauge of each string is the same, “An open pattern, 14 mains and 16 crosses,” Cross and Lindsey explain, “will be less stiff than a closed pattern like 18 mains and 20 crosses. Fewer strings resisting the ball impact will naturally stretch farther and thus be softer.” The result? All other factors being the same: The looser the string pattern, the more pliable the strings, greater the dwell time, and greater the power; conversely, the tighter the string pattern, the stiffer the strings, smaller the dwell time, and greater the control.

—Head Size
As I noted in yesterday’s Midweek Mailbag, stringing a racquet with a 90 sq. in. head size at 50 lbs. is not the same as stringing, say, a 100 sq. in. head at 50 lbs.; the former’s stringbed will play stiffer—precisely because the strings are shorter and, all other factors being equal, shorter strings play stiffer than longer strings. “A 60-pound string 10 feet long is very easy to push sideways,” Cross and Lindsey write, “but if it is only one inch long, it will be very difficult to push sideways.” In principle, then, larger head sizes play looser, producing greater dwell time and greater power; smaller head sizes play tighter, producing shorter dwell time and greater control.

—Grommet Systems
But it’s not just head size that affects string length; grommet designs, too, can alter string length and, subsequently, how the stringbed behaves. It depends on the manner in which the strings are suspended by the frame. Again, Cross and Lindsey provide the way: “In a frame with traditional grommets, which stick out from the inside edge of the frame into the string area, the anchor (where the strings bend) is at the end of the grommet. Racquets without grommets or with very large grommet holes (allowing free string movement and deformation) are anchored at the outside of the frame, giving the strings an extra length over which to bend and stretch.” The inference? With more traditional grommets, the stringbed plays stiffer, with less dwell time and more control; with more experimental, “open” grommets, the opposite occurs—a softer stringbed, with greater dwell time and power.