02
Stop two
Catedral de Nuestra Señora del Carmen
Volkl Classic Synthetic Gut 17g Tennis String Reel: Twin bell towers, arcaded front, one shaded plaza, and we open the bidding on 16 July 1717, the day Spanish forces under Alonso Felipe de Andrade drove the pirates off this island and took control of it, founding the city around this church. Before that, a century of English, Dutch and French logwood cutters and buccaneers working these shores for the palo de tinte dyewood of the lagoon, dye money, pirate money, going, going, gone. And the name stays. The town takes its name and its patronal feast, on 16 July, from the Virgin of Carmen. That one is not for sale.
03
Stop three
Laguna de Términos
Volkl Classic Synthetic Gut 17g Tennis String Reel: Seven hundred and five thousand, do I hear seven hundred and five thousand and sixteen, seven hundred and five thousand and sixteen hectares of Flora and Fauna Protection Area, the largest coastal lagoon system in Mexico, mangrove and seagrass throughout. And what is mangrove worth? It is the nursery for the shrimp fishery this city lived on for generations, an economy this city put on a roundabout, the Glorieta del Camarón. No reserve on that one. The name came from the early navigators charting this coast, who took the lagoon for the end of the land. The terminus. Wrong, and it stuck.
04
Stop four
Playa Norte
Volkl Classic Synthetic Gut 17g Tennis String Reel: Sand, palms, a straight seafront boulevard, and out on that flat horizon the offshore supply vessels, which is where the money went. March 1971: one fisherman, Rudesindo Cantarell, reports oil seeping to the surface in the Bay of Campeche. One report. That report leads to the Cantarell field, one of the largest oil fields ever found anywhere. Shrimp to oil in under ten years, do I hear ten, sold to the sea. Population at the 2020 census, one hundred and ninety-one thousand two hundred and thirty-eight. Playa Norte is the ocean-facing beach and the city's main promenade, and every last one of them walks it.
A 200 m / 660 ft reel of Volkl's Classic Synthetic Gut in 17 gauge, 1.25mm — roughly eighteen racquets out of one box, which is why this string lives in stringers' shops rather than in marketing campaigns.
The construction is the traditional one and none the worse for it: a solid nylon centre core wrapped in thin outer filaments, which is what gives synthetic gut its crisp, lively response.
Volkl's own numbers put it at 7 for power, 7 for control and 6 for durability, and the stiffness is lower than the category average, which is the part that matters — this is a comfortable string bed, not a punishing one. At 17 gauge it plays livelier and more responsive than the 16; it will not last as long, and it is not trying to.
It comes in black, blue, gold, natural, neon orange, pink, red, white and optic yellow. One reel covers everywhere from a beginner's first racquet to a league player's weekly restring without anybody having to think about it again.
Ciudad del Carmen understands unglamorous work that holds everything up. The island spent about two centuries as a base for pirates and logwood cutters — men felling palo de tinte out of the swamp so European cloth could be dyed — until Alonso Felipe de Andrade threw them off on 16 July 1717 and named the place for the Virgin of Carmen.
Shrimp built the modern town in 1946 and 1947. Then in March 1971 a fisherman named Rudesindo Cantarell kept finding crude on his nets off this coast and reported it, and one of the largest oil fields anyone has ever found carries his name to this day. It is also perfect for the salt air out here on the island, which eats through cheaper string in a matter of weeks.
Who it's for: clubs, coaches, juniors, high-school teams and anyone who breaks strings often enough that price per racquet is a real number. Also a genuinely good hybrid partner under a polyester main.
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