01
Stop one
Finlayson Factory Area
Tecnifibre Fire 285 Tennis Racquet: Now we are talking. James Finlayson, a Scottish engineer, opened a workshop beside the Tammerkoski rapids in 1820, and under later owners it grew into a cotton mill that was one of the largest industrial enterprises in the Nordic countries: a city inside a city, with its own church, school, hospital and even its own police. Sit with that last one a moment. In 1882 the electric light came on in the weaving hall, remembered as the first permanent electric light in the Nordic region. Generations of Tampere workers went through those gates, and it was they who built the labour movement and the character of the Manchester of Finland. Textiles ended in the 1990s; the red-brick quarter is now museums, offices, cinemas and restaurants.
02
Stop two
Tampere Cathedral
Tecnifibre Fire 285 Tennis Racquet: Lars Sonck designed it, built between 1902 and 1907, granite so rugged it reads as a medieval fortress, and it is the masterpiece of Finnish National Romantic church architecture. Somebody quarried, hauled and dressed every one of those stones, which is the line the guidebooks leave out. Inside, Hugo Simberg painted a procession of twelve boys carrying the garland of life, his Wounded Angel borne on a stretcher, and the Garden of Death where skeletal figures tend flowers, while Magnus Enckell painted the great altar fresco of the resurrection. Critics were scandalised by the sombre symbolism, and by the winged serpent on the ceiling. Now it is treasured as a high point of Finnish art. Painters are workers too, and these were not paid in praise.
03
Stop three
Pyynikki Ridge and Observation Tower
Tecnifibre Fire 285 Tennis Racquet: The ridge is a gravel esker, often described as the highest in the world, dumped here by the melting ice sheet at the end of the last Ice Age, and it is the only construction job on this tour that nobody had to be paid for. It became the city's park in the nineteenth century, laced with paths beneath old pines. The red granite observation tower on the crest was completed in 1929, replacing an earlier wooden one, and masons and hoist crews put it there. These slopes saw fighting in the Battle of Tampere during the Civil War of 1918, one of that war's decisive engagements, and many of the dead were working people of this city. The terrace cafe is famous across Finland for doughnuts, fried fresh, by somebody, all day long.
04
Stop four
Näsinneula Observation Tower
Tecnifibre Fire 285 Tennis Racquet: One hundred and sixty-eight metres, completed in 1971 on the lakeshore at Särkänniemi, the tallest free-standing structure in Finland and for decades the tallest observation tower in the Nordic countries. Somebody poured that concrete through a Finnish winter, and somebody rode it up as it went. It was built as the centrepiece of the Särkänniemi leisure district, with the amusement park, aquarium and planetarium growing up at its foot, in the full space-age manner of the era. A high-speed lift carries you to the observation deck and the revolving restaurant, which turns a full circle in about three quarters of an hour, and turns because a motor and a maintenance crew make it turn. Emblem of modern Tampere, standing in the skyline beside the old factory chimneys at the rapids.
In. Sit. Towel down. Now we talk, but not too much — steam does the talking here. This is the Tecnifibre Fire 285. Good frame. Honest frame. I explain once. Head: 100 square inches — room to breathe, like a proper sauna bench. Weight: 285 grams unstrung, 299 strung. Swingweight 308 — moves easy, no wasted effort. Nobody flails in my sauna; nobody should flail on court either.
Beam: 24.5 to 25 millimeters, firm — stiffness rating 71 — so the ball leaves fast, with pace and spin from the 16×19 pattern. And the important part, the LÖYLY of the racquet: X-Damp. Steel mass in the handle, elastomer supports, and the harsh vibrations leave your arm like bad thoughts leave your head when the steam hits the stones. Whssssh. Gone. Two points head light strung.
Balanced. Calm. You play, you sweat, you feel better. This is the whole philosophy. Also of tennis.
Where are we? Tampere, Finland. Sauna capital of the WORLD — this is not my opinion, this is fact, the city says it itself, public saunas everywhere, oldest ones still steaming.
But Tampere is not only steam: the Finlayson works by the rapids, begun by a Scot in 1820, grew into one of the great mills of the North — first electric lights in the Nordic countries switched on there, 1882. Industry and steam, together. Correct.
You use this racquet everywhere from morning hit by the Tammerkoski to evening session before sauna — always before sauna, this is the order — and by the way, after: a doughnut at the Pyynikki tower café. Everyone agrees. Even quiet men agree loudly about this. Now. Tour. Four places. Then steam.
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