01
Stop one
Triveni Ghat at dusk, when the lamps go down the Ganges
Wilson Pro Staff 97L Classic: okay so I showed up to Triveni Ghat at exactly the wrong time which was also exactly the right time, because the evening Ganga Aarti was starting and priests were releasing these little clay lamps onto the river and I was holding a tennis racquet like a complete maniac but nobody cared, and here is the thing I keep thinking about — the ghat is called Triveni because three rivers are supposed to meet here, two of them invisible, and honestly that tracks, because I can feel rivers I cannot see all the time at 3 a.m.
02
Stop two
Ram Jhula, a suspension footbridge strung across the river in 1986
Wilson Pro Staff 97L Classic: Ram Jhula was completed in 1986 and I have now crossed it four times tonight because I keep forgetting which side the chai stall is on, and the bridge sways, not dangerously, just enough to remind you that everything is moving all the time, which is either terrifying or comforting depending on how much sleep you have had, and the answer for me right now is zero.
04
Stop four
Bharat Mandir, the oldest temple in the town
Wilson Pro Staff 97L Classic: Bharat Mandir is the oldest temple in Rishikesh, founded in the 12th century by Adi Shankaracharya, which means it has been standing here for roughly 800 years and has seen literally everything, and yet I walked in with a tennis racquet at an inadvisable hour and the priest just nodded like yes, fine, another one, and I respect that energy so much.
Three in the morning and I am still turning this one over, so you may as well have it. The 97L Classic is the Pro Staff you can actually swing at the end of a long week.
Ninety-seven square inches, same head as the heavy one, but 10.7 ounces strung — 305 grams, 290 unstrung — and only three points head light, so the mass sits closer to the middle and the frame comes through the ball without you having to be fresh to make it happen.
The things that make it a Pro Staff are all still in there. Braid 45, the double braid at forty-five degrees, so the hoop breathes at contact and the ball stays on the string bed that fraction longer. String Mapping, tightening the crossings through the hitting area so the response does not wander.
Paradigm Bending, flexing the lower half for direction.
The differences are honest ones: a 23.5-millimetre beam instead of 21.5, flex 68, swingweight 312, and a 16 by 19 pattern strung at 50 to 60 pounds. That extra beam depth is where the free power comes from, and it is why this is the intermediate's Pro Staff rather than a downgraded version of somebody else's.
Anyway — lost the thread — Rishikesh. This is a town that is awake at both ends of the day and quiet in the middle of it, and a light frame is what you want for a hit at either edge of that. The lamps go down the Ganges at Triveni Ghat at dusk and it is very hard to go to bed afterwards.
Which is the point, actually.
“The same 97 square inches, 25 grams lighter. That is not a lesser racquet. That is a later hour.”
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