01
Stop one
the mosque of Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi, a domed court inside four arcades
Wilson Ultra 100 V5 Tennis Racquet: The Mosque of Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi — named, as I'm sure you've already noted (and if you haven't, I gently correct that oversight now), for the thirteenth-century Moroccan-born Sufi saint Ahmad ibn Idris al-Badawi, who died in Tanta in 1276 CE — hosts what is, by most reliable accounts, one of the largest Islamic festivals (the mawlid) in the entire world, drawing figures that some sources place at approximately two million visitors annually, give or take a statistically non-trivial margin. The racquet's open 16×19 string pattern, much like those four arcaded courtyards, creates a framework that is, strictly speaking, more air than structure — a fact I find almost unbearably apt.
02
Stop two
the Tanta Museum, five floors and two thousand objects
Wilson Ultra 100 V5 Tennis Racquet: The Tanta Museum houses — and I urge precision here, because rounding is a moral failing — approximately two thousand artifacts (the figure 2,000 being, of course, a suspiciously round number that almost certainly conceals a more interesting integer) across five floors, with its collection spanning Pharaonic, Greco-Roman, Coptic, and Islamic periods, which is to say an embarrassingly large slice of human civilization. One cannot help noticing that the Wilson Ultra 100 V5, at precisely 100 square inches of head size (100.000, if we are being thorough), brings a similarly encyclopedic range of playability to both baseline grinders and net-rushing opportunists — a parenthetical I promised myself I would omit and then did not.
03
Stop three
Princess Feryal's palace, baroque and dated 1909
Wilson Ultra 100 V5 Tennis Racquet: Princess Feryal's Palace, constructed in 1909 — that is, 1909 CE, not 1909 AH, a clarification I include because ambiguity is the enemy of scholarship — exemplifies the baroque architectural enthusiasm that the Egyptian royal family imported from Europe with considerable, if occasionally chaotic, gusto during the late Khedival period. The palace is named for Princess Feryal, a member of the Egyptian royal dynasty, and its ornate façade makes the Wilson Ultra 100 V5's clean, aerodynamic frame look almost austere by comparison, which is itself a kind of architectural argument I hadn't planned to make but find I cannot retract.
04
Stop four
St George's Coptic Orthodox church of 1939, the largest in the city
Wilson Ultra 100 V5 Tennis Racquet: St George's Coptic Orthodox Church, completed in 1939 — and I wish to flag that 1939 is, globally speaking, a year with considerable competing footnotes — is, by the most commonly cited local assessments, the largest Coptic church in the city of Tanta, which is itself no insignificant distinction given that Egypt is home to one of the oldest continuous Christian communities on Earth (the Coptic Church tracing its founding, traditionally, to the Evangelist Mark, circa 42 CE, ± a decade). The Wilson Ultra 100 V5, I feel compelled to add, is also something of a large presence on the court — at 300 grams unstrung (strung weight varying, naturally, by string choice, tension, and atmospheric humidity), it is not a racquet that apologizes for being there.
Strictly, the head size is not 100. It is 100 square inches, which is 645 square centimetres, and the round figure everyone quotes is a marketing convenience — the model number, not the measurement. I raise it because this racquet's specification is unusually worth reading precisely, and rounding is where the useful detail goes to die.
So, precisely. Length 27 inches. Strung weight 11.1 ounces, which is 315 grams; unstrung, 300 grams. Swingweight 321. Flex 66. The beam is not one number, parenthetically, and quoting it as one is the most common error in racquet writing: it is 24 millimetres at the throat, 26.5 at the shoulder and 24.5 at the tip, tapering twice.
Balance four points head light.
The pattern is 16 mains by 19 crosses, and the recommended tension band is 50 to 60 pounds. Composition, carbon fibre graphite.
The technologies are SI3D, which optimises the frame's bending in three dimensions for power, spin and control, and FORTYFIVE° construction, which raises stability so that the strokes repeat — and I note, since nobody else does, that the degree symbol in FORTYFIVE° is Wilson's own styling and refers to the fibre angle. Finished in electric indigo.
Tanta suits a correction-minded traveller. The museum here holds two thousand objects across five floors, and I have never once seen that figure quoted accurately in anything written about the city.
“The round number on the frame is the model name. The measurement is 645 square centimetres.”
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