Four stops before the checkout

Sapporo, Japan

Stop one

Sapporo Clock Tower

Babolat RPM Team 16g Tennis String Reel: I was here for the raising, 1878 — smelled of fresh pine and nobody had planted anything yet. It went up as the drill hall of the Sapporo Agricultural College, the school training settlers to develop Hokkaido, which is why it looks like a barn from Massachusetts: the advisers were American. Bill Wheeler among them. Good man, bad at cards. The clock came later, 1881, weight-driven, ordered from the E. Howard Watch and Clock Company of Boston, and it has been keeping time and ringing ever since — the oldest working clock tower in Japan. Important Cultural Property now, and a museum. Taller than everything, once. You'll have to trust me.

Stop two

Former Hokkaido Government Office Building

Babolat RPM Team 16g Tennis String Reel: Finished 1888, and I remember the brick dust. Roughly 2.5 million of them, fired in Shiraishi and Toyohira, both still villages then — you could walk it. This was the headquarters of the government developing Hokkaido, one of the grandest buildings in Meiji Japan, and it ran the island for about eighty years. The octagonal dome was modelled on the Massachusetts State House, which caused an argument I won't relitigate. Everyone called it the Red Brick Office. Important Cultural Property in 1969; they kept it when the government moved into the tower next door. Archives and exhibits inside now. It looked better with horses out front.

Stop three

Hokkaido Shrine

Babolat RPM Team 16g Tennis String Reel: Founded 1869, right at the start of the colonisation, when the Meiji government enshrined three pioneer deities to watch over the settlement of the northern frontier. Maruyama was the wooded western edge of the city then — 'city' being generous, Sapporo was mostly intention. The spirit of Emperor Meiji joined the enshrined deities in 1964; I sent word. The grounds still run straight into the forest of Maruyama Park and the cedar-lined approaches remain the best walk in town. First shrine visit of the New Year, everyone out in the snow. Cherry blossoms in spring. And every June the Sapporo Festival carries the portable shrines through the streets. Same route. Fewer mud puddles.

Stop four

Sapporo Beer Museum

Babolat RPM Team 16g Tennis String Reel: 1876. The Kaitakushi — the government commission developing Hokkaido — opened a brewery here to make use of the island's cool climate and local hops, and that is where Japan's oldest beer brand begins. This red-brick plant is Meiji-period and stayed in service until 1965; the chimney still carries the pioneer commission's red star, the same star on every Sapporo Beer label today. It became a museum in 1987, the only one in Japan dedicated to beer: vintage equipment, posters, bottles, and tastings of the historic brews at the end. Next door, the Beer Garden does Genghis Khan grilled lamb. That part is unchanged. That part was always the point.

The Sapporo, Japan track

Babolat RPM Team 16g Tennis String Reel

Written for this world alone.

Most people only ever see a string reel in daylight, up on the pro shop wall. I see it after closing, sitting by the stringing machine when the building has gone quiet and the only sounds are the fridge compressor and 200 metres (660 feet) of Babolat RPM Team waiting for morning.

Here's what's on the reel: low-density co-polyester monofilament, 16 gauge, 1.30 millimetres, injected with micro air bubbles so it plays softer and more flexible than a classic poly without giving up durability. The octagonal profile is eight quiet edges that put real spin on the ball, and the control is the kind that lets you thread a passing shot under lights.

Two hundred metres restrings a whole club's worth of racquets — sixteen sets, give or take — which is why a reel like this is the last thing to leave the back room and the first thing the machine reaches for at dawn.

Its city is Sapporo, and Sapporo is a night town if you know how to look at it. The Clock Tower has been keeping the hour since 1878, when it went up as the drill hall of the Sapporo Agricultural College, the school founded to train the settlers developing Hokkaido; the weight-driven mechanism came from the E.

Howard company of Boston in 1881 and it is the oldest working clock tower in Japan. White clapboard, red turret, surrounded now by office blocks, and it looks best at two in the morning with the traffic gone.

Three streets away the Former Hokkaido Government Office Building sits behind its pond with the lights left burning: red brick American Neo-Baroque of 1888, roughly two and a half million bricks fired at Shiraishi and Toyohira, with an octagonal dome modelled on the Massachusetts State House.

Out at the western edge of town, in the forest of Maruyama Park, Hokkaido Shrine was founded in 1869 at the very beginning of the island's colonisation, its unpainted timber halls and copper roofs reached along cedar-lined avenues through towering torii, and the first shrine visit of the New Year fills those avenues in deep snow.

And north-east of the centre the Sapporo Beer Museum keeps a Meiji brewery of red brick with a chimney carrying the red star of the government commission that opened the brewery in 1876 — the plant ran until 1965 and the star is still on the label.

Nobody in any of these places is going home yet, which suits me fine; I have never in my life met a shift that ended when it said it would.

You will use this reel everywhere from a covered court in a Sapporo February to an outdoor one in the few good weeks of summer, and by the way, it is also perfect for the walk back through Odori after the last set, when the snow is banked along the middle of the park and the whole city sounds like a fridge compressor. I'll leave the lights on for you.

Buy on Amazon

Burn, Laugh and Learn

THE TENNIS TACTICIAN, LLC

Babolat RPM Team 16g Tennis String Reel

Babolat RPM Team 16g Tennis String Reel