[ad_1]
By Lana Maciel / Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Wilson celebrates 100 years of playing a key role in
influencing the game of tennis. The “100 Years Young” booth
at the 2014 Australian Open illustrates how far the racquet
business has come.
Photo credit: Mark Peterson/Corleve
Being a part of 500 Grand
Slams is not an accomplishment very many can claim. But since
1914, Wilson has been at each of them, sharing more winning
moments in the world of sports than perhaps any other
company.
In honor of Wilson’s 100th anniversary, the racquet company is
on site at the 2014 Australian Open with a special booth to
commemorate its rich history, complete with a display of the
most notable and influential innovations that have helped shape
the game of tennis over the past century.
In addition to a timeline depicting key moments in Wilson’s
product creations, several vintage racquets – all in near mint
condition, of course – sit proudly in display cases, evoking a
nostalgia of an era that seems like another lifetime.
There’s the 1949 Jack Kramer model, which was on the market for
35 years and is the most popular racquet in Wilson’s history,
and next to it sits the Tony Trabert and Chris Evert Autograph
models. But these rare pieces appear to be an anomaly next to
the rest of the collection on display.
Moving along the “timeline” of racquets, it is clear that
Wilson was the catalyst that changed the game of tennis. And
the biggest change came right around the time when the Open Era
began.
After decades of creating a line of wooden racquets, Wilson
produced the first steel racquet in 1967, the Wilson T2000.
More than 2 million of these metal racquets were sold, and the
model was used by players such as Billie Jean
King and Jimmy Connors, who used the
racquet’s extra power to defeat Ken Rosewall
(who wielded a wooden frame) in the 1974 Wimbledon final.
And from the T2000, racquets morphed into models such as the
Pro Staff, a frame made popular by tennis greats Pete
Sampras and Stefan Edberg in 1983.
Then came the Wilson Profile, the world’s first wide-body
frame, followed by the Sledge Hammer 3.4 Outer Limits, which
boasted a 135-square-inch face and 29-inch length – the largest
legal size for a racquet.
It’s a long road of history that leads to Wilson’s latest
technology development, the Spin Effect. Considering the
importance of extra spin in today’s power baseline game, the
Spin Effect line of racquets features fewer cross strings,
allowing players the ability to generate more than 200 RPMs of
rotation on every shot for greater net clearance and more
margin for error.
Clearly, today’s game is a stark contrast to the game of the
early 1900s when Thomas E. Wilson first established his
sporting goods company. And Wilson’s 100-year commemorative
booth at the Australian Open illustrates not only the evolution
of Wilson products, but more importantly, its pioneering role
in the evolution of the game of tennis.
Where once players used wooden frames that were roughly 60
square inches, we now see graphite and metal sticks with about
30 more square inches on the racquet face. It’s an eye-opening
indication of how new technology and a larger frame have
elevated the game to another level. And Wilson has helped shape
that evolution every step of the way.
[ad_2]
Source link