Four stops before the checkout

Bethlehem, Palestine

Stop one

Church of the Nativity

Head Rip Control 17g Tennis String Set: I came over from Jerusalem fully expecting to be unimpressed, and then they made me bend double to get through the door. The Door of Humility — cut down small centuries ago so that nobody could ride a horse or drive a cart straight into the church. Up my road we have gateways you could march an army through. Here they made the entrance smaller than a man, and it works better. Inside, beneath the altar in the grotto, there is a silver star, and that star was stolen in 1847, and the row over who held rights to the holy places fed directly into the run-up to the Crimean War. So: my city argues at enormous volume and settles nothing. This one loses a small piece of metal and the great powers go to war over it. Fine. You win that exchange.

Stop two

Cremisan Monastery and Cellars

Head Rip Control 17g Tennis String Set: Terraces, olives, vines, and cellars underneath. The Salesians set up on this hillside at Beit Jala in the 1880s and began pressing the local grapes, and they are still at it, working varieties that have been grown in these hills for a very long time. Now, I have tasted a great many things in a great many places and I arrived fully prepared to be sniffy about this one. I stood in the vaulted cellar instead. It is cool, it is quiet, it smells exactly right, and the view down the valley through the olive groves is better than anything I can offer from my side of the ridge. That is two concessions before lunch. Do not get comfortable. We are going to a reservoir next, and I know reservoirs.

Stop three

Solomon's Pools

Head Rip Control 17g Tennis String Set: Right, here is where I get some of it back, because these three enormous stone-lined tanks, stepped down the valley at al-Khader, were built to feed an aqueduct that ran all the way to Jerusalem. Your valley. My taps. Roman-era at the latest and possibly older, and the whole system worked on gravity alone — no pumps, no power, just a fall calculated finely enough to move water for kilometres, for centuries. So Bethlehem spent a very long stretch of history in the plumbing trade on my behalf, and I intend to raise that at every opportunity. Although. Somebody stood in this valley with a level and got that gradient right first time. I could not have done it. Nobody I know could have done it.

Stop four

Shepherds' Field, Beit Sahour

Head Rip Control 17g Tennis String Set: Over the ridge to Beit Sahour, and yes, the terraces are handsome, I am not made of stone. Look down at the ground: this is limestone, riddled with caves, and shepherds genuinely used them for shelter and to keep flocks overnight — not a picturesque detail, an actual job description, carried out on these hillsides for thousands of years. The round chapel here was designed by Antonio Barluzzi, who built a great many of the churches in this landscape, and he built better here than he did on my side of the hill. There. It is said, it is on the record, and I would like the group to note that I said it without being asked. Sunset over these terraces is unarguable. I have tried to argue with it.

The Bethlehem, Palestine track

Head Rip Control 17g Tennis String Set

Written for this world alone.

Same four notes, every street, all summer — and people come out. Head RIP Control 17g gets the same reaction from anyone whose elbow has been on the wrong end of a stiff polyester.

It combines multifilament nylon with polyolefine ribbons, which adds control and a little durability while keeping the comfort, and the wraps are textured with those ribbons so the string grips the ball and helps you generate spin. This is 17 gauge, 1.25 mm, the balanced version, in a 12-metre set for one racquet.

Bethlehem, and I am parking on Manger Square. THE DOOR! Look at the DOOR on the Church of the Nativity — you have to bend double to get through the Door of Humility, made small centuries ago so nobody could ride a horse or a cart straight in. Inside, under the altar, there is a silver star.

That star was stolen in 1847, and the row over who held rights to the holy places fed straight into the run-up to the Crimean War. A WAR. Over a STAR.

West of town on the terraces at Beit Jala, the Salesians have been pressing local grapes at Cremisan Monastery since the 1880s, in old vaulted cellars among the olive groves, from varieties grown in these hills for a very long time.

South at al-Khader, Solomon's Pools are three enormous stone-lined reservoirs stepped down a valley, feeding an aqueduct that ran all the way to Jerusalem on gravity alone — no pumps, no power, just downhill, for centuries.

And east over the ridge at Beit Sahour, Shepherds' Field runs in limestone terraces riddled with caves that shepherds genuinely used for shelter and for keeping flocks overnight, with a round chapel by Antonio Barluzzi standing on the slope above them.

You will string this set everywhere from a hard court up in the hills to a covered hall on a wet Judean January, and it is also perfect for a Bethlehem evening when the sun drops behind those terraces and everybody comes outside at once. Follow the tune.

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Head Rip Control 17g Tennis String Set

Head Rip Control 17g Tennis String Set