Yonex Polytour Rev 16L Tennis String Set

Musoma, Tanzania  ·  Strings > 16L

Yonex Polytour Rev 16L Tennis String Set

This is the shaped spin string cut a little finer, so the eight edges dig in harder. It takes as long as it takes. In the meantime, four stops around Musoma, and we start on the working waterfront where the perch come in.

↓   Tour Musoma, Tanzania

Four stops before the checkout

Musoma, Tanzania
01
cardio tennis classes in 33004 — The German Boma, Musoma in Musoma, A squat square whitewashed masonry tower with a flat crenellated top, rising from one end of a low single-storey administrative range with a verandah and green-painted shutters. It stands on rising ground near the lake shore in central Musoma and is now part of the Musoma District Commissioner's offices, with flagpoles and a gravel forecourt in front
Stop one

The German Boma, Musoma

Yonex Polytour Rev 16L Tennis String Set: Start where the trail starts. The German colonial administration moved its station from Shirati to this sheltered bay on the Musoma peninsula in 1912 and put up the boma as its district headquarters. Then 1916, First World War, British forces take control of the district — and they build nothing. They walk into the same building and go on administering from it. That is not laziness. That is a building nobody could improve on. This tower is the oldest structure in the town, and it is the reason a settlement grew on this particular bay and not the next one along. Everything after it is a consequence. Note the shutters. Somebody still paints them.

02
cardio tennis classes in 33004 — Matvilla Beach, Musoma Peninsula in Musoma, A shore of huge rounded pinkish-grey granite boulders heaped at the water's edge at the very tip of the peninsula, with strips of pale sand between them and the open water of Lake Victoria on three sides. The boulders are smooth and stacked in piles; low thorn scrub and a few bars stand behind the beach
Stop two

Matvilla Beach, Musoma Peninsula

Yonex Polytour Rev 16L Tennis String Set: Now we go back further than any witness. These boulders are outcrops of the ancient Tanzania Craton, some of the oldest rock in Africa, and the same stone forms the headlands along this entire eastern shore of Lake Victoria. Which makes the geology the motive. The peninsula is the reason Musoma exists: it produced the sheltered bay where the colonial station was sited in 1912, and long before that the natural harbour for the lake fishery. Everybody credits the administrators. The administrators arrived after the rock had already decided. Open water on three sides. Nobody sneaks up on a place like this.

03
cardio tennis classes in 33004 — Mwigobero Market and landing in Musoma, An open-sided market of timber stalls under corrugated iron roofs standing directly above a shingle landing on the eastern shore of the peninsula. Long narrow wooden lake boats are drawn up on the beach or moored close in, nets are spread on frames to dry, and fish are laid out on racks in the sun
Stop three

Mwigobero Market and landing

Yonex Polytour Rev 16L Tennis String Set: Follow the trade and you generally end up somewhere that smells like this. Musoma began as a fishing settlement on this bay long before the colonial station was built, and Mwigobero has remained its working waterfront — no interruption, no gap in the record. Boats load and unload here for the offshore islands and the lakeshore villages. Nile perch on the racks. Small dried dagaa in heaps. That has been the town's living since the lake fishery was commercialised in the twentieth century. Nets spread on frames. Every detail here is evidence of the same steady trade. Nothing suspicious whatsoever. Frankly disappointing.

04
cardio tennis classes in 33004 — Mukendo Hill in Musoma, A bare granite hill on the landward side of Musoma, its summit a jumble of enormous rounded boulders with thin thorn scrub between them and long views over the whole peninsula, the town and the open lake. Caves and rock shelters open at its base where the boulders overhang
Stop four

Mukendo Hill

Yonex Polytour Rev 16L Tennis String Set: Last thing I do on any case is get above it. Climb this and the shape of the peninsula that determined where Musoma was built lays itself out in a single sweep — bay, town, open lake, all of it. Everything I have told you today, visible at once, which is when a case usually cracks. Then look down at the foot of the hill: caves and rock shelters where the boulders overhang. In the traditions of the surrounding communities those are associated with the rulers of the district before the colonial period. Older authority than the boma. The hill remains a place of local significance in Mara Region. Case closed. Mostly.

The Musoma, Tanzania track

Yonex Polytour Rev 16L Tennis String Set

Written for this world alone.

Low heat, long time, and the difference between excellent and inedible is about twenty minutes. I have a fine appreciation for narrow margins, which is what a shaped string is. Poly Tour Rev is a co-polyester monofilament with an octagonal profile — eight edges that bite into the ball at contact and produce spin a round string cannot.

Static stiffness measures around 0.85 kg/mm, sitting between the firmer Poly Tour Pro and the softer Poly Tour Fire. In 16L, 1.25 mm, it is a shade thinner than the 16, so the edges dig in harder and the spin comes easier, with slightly less life.

One 12 m set, which is one frame, and it will carry everywhere from a flat drive down the line to a heavy kicking second serve without you changing a thing about how you swing.

Musoma sits on a peninsula on Lake Victoria, and the peninsula is the whole reason for the town. Mwigobero is its working waterfront — a fishing settlement here long before any colonial station, where boats still load and unload for the offshore islands and lakeshore villages, and where the Nile perch and the small dried dagaa are traded. That is my raw material, right there.

This string is also perfect for the hard, dusty courts of the Mara Region dry season, when a round string skids off the ball and an octagon does not.

The German colonial administration moved its station from Shirati to this sheltered bay in 1912 and built the boma as its district headquarters; British forces took over in 1916 and kept working out of the same tower. At Matvilla Beach, at the tip of the peninsula, the granite tors are outcrops of the ancient Tanzania Craton, some of the oldest rock in Africa.

And Mukendo Hill is the town's viewpoint — from the top you see the whole shape of the peninsula in one sweep, with caves at its foot associated in local tradition with the rulers of the district.

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