Themed Cardio Tennis Clinics in the Fort Lauderdale Area
Volkl V-Torque 17g. Co-poly. Twisted profile. Stupid amounts of spin. Fine, I guess. Like standing by the Bosphorus in Üsküdar pretending you're not completely obsessed with everything around you. It bites the ball. Whatever. Just string your racket.
Volkl V-Torque 17g Tennis String Set: Yeah, it's a tower on a tiny island, whatever, fine, I guess. It's not like it's been sitting out there since Byzantine times as a lighthouse and then a customs checkpoint and then a quarantine station and then a lighthouse again and then a restaurant and— okay, FORGET I said any of that, it's just a tower.
Volkl V-Torque 17g Tennis String Set: It's a mosque, it's old, it's fine, I guess. Sinan built it — Mimar Sinan, the chief Ottoman architect — for Mihrimah, who was Suleiman the Magnificent's daughter, and her name literally means 'sun and moon' in Persian, which is, like… whatever, kind of a cool name, I didn't say it was cool, stop looking at me.
Volkl V-Torque 17g Tennis String Set: Sure, small mosque right on the waterfront, fine, I guess it's whatever. It's actually one of the tiniest kulliye complexes Sinan ever designed — like, a mosque, a tomb, and a madrasa all crammed onto this little sea-wall plot — which is honestly kind of impressive space efficiency but I do NOT care about architecture so please move on.
Volkl V-Torque 17g Tennis String Set: Oh great, a palace, amazing, fine, I guess. It's only where Sultan Abdülaziz had it built in the 1860s as a summer residence and then the deposed Sultan Abdülhamid II spent the last six years of his life under house arrest here after 1912, which is — that's actually a genuinely dark ending to a reign of thirty-three years and I — nothing, I said nothing, can we go.
Ugh, okay, so my cousin dragged me to this string shop in Üsküdar and honestly I didn't even want to go, I just wanted to sit by the water and stare at the Maiden's Tower like everyone else does, it's fine I guess, it's a tower, it's in the water, whatever.
But she's like, 'you HAVE to see this string,' and I'm like, okay, sure, I'll look at the string, that sounds like a great use of my entire afternoon.
And then she hands me this package of Volkl V-Torque 17 gauge tennis string and I'm holding it and I'm doing the thing where I pretend I don't care and I'm looking around the shop like I'd rather be literally anywhere else on earth.
Just because I was bored. Not because I was interested or anything.
And then I looked at it a little closer.
So. Fine. The V-Torque is a co-polyester string, right, and the thing that makes it different — not that I care, I'm just saying, since you're asking — is the twisted, torque-shaped profile. It's not round.
It's got this kind of angular, almost helical geometry to it, and the reason that matters, theoretically, is that those edges can grab the ball in a way a smooth round string can't, which generates additional spin. Like, significantly more spin.
The gauge on this particular set is 17 gauge, which works out to approximately 1.25 millimeters in diameter, so it's on the thinner side of the standard range, and thinner strings generally bite into the ball more and give you better feel and more spin potential, which is the whole point of this string to begin with.
You get a set length, which is the standard amount you need to string one racket, which is around 40 feet give or take depending on the pattern, and you can also get it in a reel if you're the kind of person who strings constantly, which, I mean, good for you I guess.
It's a polyester-based string so it plays pretty firm. It's not going to feel like a soft multifilament or anything, so if you have arm problems you'd probably want to think about that.
But for someone who swings hard and wants that extra topspin bite, especially someone with a big groundstroke game, this string is genuinely — and I can't believe I'm about to say this word out loud — it's genuinely exciting. I said it and now I want to leave.
Anyway we walked past the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque after and I explained to my cousin, completely without meaning to and entirely by accident, that it was built by the famous Ottoman architect Sinan in the sixteenth century as a commission from Suleiman the Magnificent's daughter, and she looked at me like I had just grown a second head, and I said 'I don't know, I just heard that somewhere, it's fine,' and I walked slightly faster.
There's also the Şemsi Pasha Mosque down by the waterfront which Sinan also built and it's this tiny, delicate little thing right on the shore and it looks almost out of place because it's so small and quiet next to the Bosphorus and if I were the kind of person who found architecture moving, which I'm NOT, I might have stood there for a while. I didn't. I kept walking.
We went past Beylerbeyi Palace too on the way back and I didn't say anything because I had already embarrassed myself enough, but I will say that the palace is an extremely good example of nineteenth century Ottoman baroque and the interior apparently has incredible mother-of-pearl inlaid furniture and Empress Eugénie of France once stayed there and — okay, I'm done. I'm done talking.
I don't know why I know that.
The point is. The Volkl V-Torque 17g is a legitimate option if you're a topspin player who wants that extra edge, and look, I've even heard it come up in the context of something as random as a Fort Lauderdale themed evening cardio tennis event, which tells you it travels well as a recommendation across very different playing scenes and climates. It's a real string.
It does real things. It's fine, I guess. Buy it or don't. I genuinely do not care at all. Please stop looking at me.
