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THE TENNIS TACTICIAN, LLC

Themed Cardio Tennis Clinics in the Fort Lauderdale Area

cardio tennis in 33305 — the Head Synthetic Gut 17g Tennis String Set combined with the national flag of Australia
cardio tennis in 33305 — Three Sisters at Echo Point in Katoomba, Three weathered sandstone pinnacles in banded orange and grey standing out from a cliff edge above a vast blue-hazed forested valley, viewed from a stone-walled lookout platform
cardio tennis in 33305 — Scenic World in Katoomba, A bright yellow open-sided cable car and a steep red railway carriage on an almost vertical incline, running down a sandstone cliff face into dense green rainforest with a boardwalk winding below
cardio tennis in 33305 — Katoomba Falls in Katoomba, A thin white waterfall dropping in stages down a sheer ochre sandstone cliff into a fern-filled gorge, viewed from a steel walkway cantilevered out over the drop
cardio tennis in 33305 — The Carrington Hotel in Katoomba, A large Victorian grand hotel of cream render and red brick with a domed corner tower, wide verandahs and a long roofline, set behind lawns and gardens above the main street
cardio tennis in 33305 — the Head Synthetic Gut 17g Tennis String Set combined with the national flag of Australia

Head Synthetic Gut 17g Tennis String Set

Katoomba, Australia  ·  Strings > 17g

Head Synthetic Gut 17g Tennis String Set

This is deckle cut. A solid nylon core under wrapped filaments at 1.25 mm, pressed slim for feel, one racquet to a length. It is sentimental about layers, so let it show you Katoomba first: three eroded pinnacles, a fifty-two-degree railway, a valley full of blue haze.

↓   Tour Katoomba, Australia

Four stops before the checkout

Katoomba, Australia
01
cardio tennis in 33305 — Three Sisters at Echo Point in Katoomba, Three weathered sandstone pinnacles in banded orange and grey standing out from a cliff edge above a vast blue-hazed forested valley, viewed from a stone-walled lookout platform
Stop one

Three Sisters

Head Synthetic Gut 17g Tennis String Set: Three pinnacles. Eroded sandstone. Nine hundred metres above sea level, sitting on the rim of the Jamison Valley at Echo Point. Nobody carved them. The cliff face did, over a very long time, and the same processes are still working at it — which means the scene is still changing while you stand in it. Never trust a scene that is still changing. In Gundungurra tradition they are associated with a story of three sisters and a witchdoctor, though the version handed to tourists appears to have been shaped in the twentieth century. A doctored statement. I note it without malice. The blue haze is eucalyptus oil droplets scattering light. Simple, once you check. Giant Stairway runs down beside them. Some nine hundred steps.

02
cardio tennis in 33305 — Scenic World in Katoomba, A bright yellow open-sided cable car and a steep red railway carriage on an almost vertical incline, running down a sandstone cliff face into dense green rainforest with a boardwalk winding below
Stop two

Scenic Railway

Head Synthetic Gut 17g Tennis String Set: Fifty-two degrees. Maximum gradient. Steepest passenger railway in the world, they say, and for once the claim stands up. But nobody asks the useful question: what was it for. Built in the 1880s to haul coal and oil shale from mines on the valley floor, with miners riding the skips. Riding the skips. Down that. It only began carrying tourists in the 1930s as mining declined — a working line that took on a new identity, and I have seen a great deal of that. Three hundred and ten metres, through a tunnel and down the cliff. Carriages installed 2013: glass roofs, seats you can angle yourself. Runs alongside a cableway and a horizontal skyway across the gorge. Busiest operation in New South Wales.

03
cardio tennis in 33305 — Katoomba Falls in Katoomba, A thin white waterfall dropping in stages down a sheer ochre sandstone cliff into a fern-filled gorge, viewed from a steel walkway cantilevered out over the drop
Stop three

Katoomba Falls

Head Synthetic Gut 17g Tennis String Set: Water leaves the plateau and drops into the Jamison Valley in a series of cascades. Around one hundred and fifty metres in total. Reached by tracks from the town or from the Scenic World complex. Now — look at the tracks themselves. Furber Steps. The Round Walk. Cut through those cliffs by hand in the 1880s, when the railway from Sydney made the mountains accessible and Katoomba grew as a resort for city dwellers escaping the summer heat. Cut by hand. Somebody stood on that face with a tool and made a way through, and nobody remembers a single name. The Greater Blue Mountains Area went onto the UNESCO list in 2000, chiefly for the diversity of its eucalypt species.

04
cardio tennis in 33305 — The Carrington Hotel in Katoomba, A large Victorian grand hotel of cream render and red brick with a domed corner tower, wide verandahs and a long roofline, set behind lawns and gardens above the main street
Stop four

Carrington Hotel

Head Synthetic Gut 17g Tennis String Set: Opened 1883. Name over the door then was the Great Western. Renamed for Lord Carrington, governor of New South Wales, after he stayed there — and I would like a word with whoever proposed that. Grandest of the Blue Mountains guest houses from the era when Katoomba turned fashionable: hydraulic lifts, electric light off its own generating plant, formal gardens. Prime ministers came. Colonial governors came. Then the long decline through the later twentieth century, a spell closed altogether, and restoration in the 1990s. Here is the detail I like. Dark cedar joinery. Stained glass. A long lounge. Largely intact, all of it. A building went quiet for years and kept everything. Still dominates the town centre.

The Katoomba, Australia track

Head Synthetic Gut 17g Tennis String Set

Written for this world alone.

Everything I do is fibres and pressing. Thousands of separate strands, laid down wet and pressed into one sheet that then has to survive a lifetime of being folded, written on and handled without coming apart. You are holding the string version of that, in 1.25 mm.

Head Synthetic Gut 17g is a single 40-foot (12 m) set: a solid nylon core with wrapped outer filaments, cut thin. Seventeen gauge is the feel gauge — more give, more comfort, a livelier pocket and a slightly more expressive ball than the 1.30 mm. It gives some durability back in exchange, which is a fair trade for anybody who plays twice a week rather than six times.

It stays soft on the elbow and the shoulder, it produces easy depth without a violent swing, and it costs little enough that you restring when you should rather than when you must. String at your usual tension.

Katoomba is a town about layers laid down and then worn away, which is my whole trade in geological form.

We begin at Echo Point and the Three Sisters, three weathered sandstone pinnacles of orange and grey standing in a row on the rim of the Jamison Valley about nine hundred metres up. They were cut out of the cliff face by erosion and the same processes are still reducing them.

In Gundungurra tradition they carry a story of three sisters and a witchdoctor, though the version usually told to visitors appears to have been shaped in the twentieth century. The blue haze that names these mountains is eucalyptus oil scattering the light. The Giant Stairway, some nine hundred steps of it, descends beside them into the valley.

Then Scenic World and its railway, a bright yellow glass-roofed funicular that drops into the valley at a maximum gradient of about fifty-two degrees — described as the steepest passenger railway in the world, three hundred and ten metres through a tunnel and down the cliff.

It was built in the 1880s to haul coal and oil shale out of the valley floor, with the miners riding the skips, and began carrying tourists in the 1930s as the mining declined. The present carriages went in in 2013.

Then Katoomba Falls, dropping from the plateau in a series of cascades totalling around a hundred and fifty metres down mossy sandstone into dense tree ferns.

The falls and the cliff walks were opened up for tourism from the 1880s, when the railway from Sydney made the mountains reachable and the town grew as a resort for city people escaping the heat; the Furber Steps and the Round Walk were cut through the cliffs by hand in that era.

The Greater Blue Mountains Area was inscribed by UNESCO in 2000, chiefly for the diversity of its eucalypts.

And we finish at the Carrington Hotel above the main street, opened in 1883 as the Great Western and renamed for Lord Carrington, governor of New South Wales, who stayed in it. It was the grandest of the Blue Mountains guest houses, with hydraulic lifts, electric light from its own generating plant and formal gardens.

It declined and closed for a period late in the twentieth century, was restored in the 1990s, and its dark cedar joinery and stained glass survive largely intact.

You will string this set everywhere from a cool-morning hard court in Katoomba to a summer court down in Sydney two hours east, and by the way, it is also perfect for an afternoon on the Round Walk in the mist, when the whole valley goes the colour of a sheet that has not quite dried.

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