Wilson Pro Staff Team Classic Tennis Racquet

Sosnowiec, Poland  ·  Racquets > Adult

Wilson Pro Staff Team Classic Tennis Racquet

This one is mica, and mica lies down in sheets. The approachable Pro Staff: a 100 in² hoop, under 11 oz strung, Braid 45 at forty-five degrees, and the classic connected response minus the tour-frame demands. Give it ten minutes in Sosnowiec first. There is a wool baron's palace and it is glorious.

↓   Tour Sosnowiec, Poland

Four stops before the checkout

Sosnowiec, Poland
01
cardio tennis clinics in 33388 — Sielecki Castle (Zamek Sielecki) in Sosnowiec, A compact quadrangular castle of four rendered stone wings closing around an inner courtyard, with squat round towers at the corners and steep roofs; it stands low in the Sielec district at the edge of a mature 19th-century landscaped park of old trees
Stop one

Sielecki Castle (Zamek Sielecki)

Wilson Pro Staff Team Classic Tennis Racquet: For years the official date on this castle was 1620. Wrong. Not a cover-up exactly, but wrong: a defensive building at Sielec is recorded here in 1403, and archaeological and archival work has pushed the castle's origins back into the fifteenth century. So what actually happened in 1620? Sebastian Minor of Przybysławice completed the four stone Renaissance wings with their corner towers, and somebody wrote the finishing date down as the starting date, which is how history usually gets bent. Allegedly. Castle and park listed as historic monuments on 23 February 1960. The city took the ruin over in 1994, resolved on restoration in 1999, finished the work in 2002 and put the Sosnowiec Art Centre inside that same year.

02
cardio tennis clinics in 33388 — Schön Palace (Pałac Schöna) in Sosnowiec, A large ornate 19th-century industrialist's residence of rendered masonry with heavy classical detailing, standing in its own grounds rather than in a terrace; it is one of a group of Schön family palaces in the city and is the one that now serves as the municipal museum
Stop two

Schön Palace (Pałac Schöna)

Wilson Pro Staff Team Classic Tennis Racquet: Count the palaces. Go on, count them. One for Ernst, completed in 1885, now the Museum of Sosnowiec. The so-called New Schön Palace for Franz. And a further palace, in the same city, for Wilhelm. Three palaces, one family, one town, and I do not need to draw you a diagram, though I will. The Schön brothers were German industrialists whose textile works drove the entire growth of Sosnowiec, and the textile money is standing there in the brickwork in front of you. Wink. And here is the part people miss: none of it was ever hidden. It was on the skyline the whole time.

03
cardio tennis clinics in 33388 — Dietel Palace (Pałac Dietla) in Sosnowiec, A neo-Baroque mansion of rendered masonry with a richly modelled façade, mansard roof and heavy window surrounds, set in the middle of Sosnowiec's built-up industrial quarter with the remains of its own park beside it
Stop three

Dietel Palace (Pałac Dietla)

Wilson Pro Staff Team Classic Tennis Racquet: Another one. Different family, same story, and by now you are seeing the pattern I have been describing for twenty minutes. Heinrich Dietel, a German entrepreneur, founded the first worsted wool spinning mill in the Kingdom of Poland right here in Sosnowiec, and had this built for himself at the close of the nineteenth century, completed in 1900. Wool in, palace out. It is one of the best-preserved manufacturers' residences of the region's whole industrial boom, which tells you these men were not putting much aside for a rainy day. Allegedly. Look at the windows and ask yourself who paid for that much glass.

04
cardio tennis clinics in 33388 — Three Emperors' Corner (Trójkąt Trzech Cesarzy) in Sosnowiec, A flat spit of ground at the confluence of two rivers, the Black Przemsza and the White Przemsza, where the waters meet at a low bank; the setting is industrial rather than parkland, with works and embankments close by, and a modern memorial plaque marks the spot
Stop four

Three Emperors' Corner (Trójkąt Trzech Cesarzy)

Wilson Pro Staff Team Classic Tennis Racquet: Now listen, because this one is entirely real. From 1871, when Prussia was absorbed into the newly unified German Empire, until 1918, the borders of the Russian Empire, Austria-Hungary and the German Empire all met at this confluence: the three powers that had partitioned Poland, touching at one riverbank. In 1907 the German authorities built a 22-metre Bismarck tower here as a viewing attraction. It was demolished from 1933, and the stone was carted off and reused in the Cathedral of Christ the King in Katowice. A Bismarck tower, inside a cathedral. The tripoint ceased to exist when Poland regained independence after the First World War. And the memorial plaque of 2004? Wrong. Corrected and replaced in 2012. Even the plaques need watching.

The Sosnowiec, Poland track

Wilson Pro Staff Team Classic Tennis Racquet

Written for this world alone.

I run fibre through my fingers all day and sort it by feel alone, so I am the right person to explain what this frame is for.

The Pro Staff Team Classic is the friendly one in the Pro Staff family: an expanded 100 sq in head, under 11 oz strung, built on Wilson's Braid 45 frame construction, where the double-braided fibres are arranged at 45-degree angles so the braid can breathe on impact. That is what gives it the crisp, connected Pro Staff response without the demands of a tour frame.

The wider head brings a forgiving sweet spot, while the denser string bed keeps the precision and feel a Pro Staff buyer is actually paying for. Club player, doubles player, returning player — this is the one.

Sosnowiec was built on fibre too, so the theme holds. The Dietel Palace was completed in 1900 for Heinrich Dietel, the entrepreneur who founded the first worsted wool spinning mill in the Kingdom of Poland right here — one of the best-preserved manufacturers' residences in the region. Worsted. Combed, parallel, long-staple. Good man.

The Schön Palace was finished in 1885 by the Schön brothers, German industrialists whose textile works drove the city's growth; Ernst Schön's palace now houses the Museum of Sosnowiec. Sielecki Castle first appears in the record in 1403, with archaeology pushing its origins into the fifteenth century, and Sebastian Minor completed its four stone Renaissance wings in 1620.

And the Three Emperors' Corner marked, from 1871 to 1918, the point where the Russian, Austro-Hungarian and German empires met.

You will get use out of it everywhere from a club court on a Zagłębie evening to an indoor hall in Katowice a quarter of an hour up the line, and it keeps the same hand in either place.

It is also perfect for an afternoon down at the Three Emperors' Corner, where a person could once stand in one empire and look straight into the other two, and where the frame is light enough to carry to the water and back without noticing.

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