A Matter of Accuracy & Trust

For those of us in the profession of racquet service, we are often asked about strings, a tension for that string or advice on buying a racquet. This has become an even more complex set of questions in the 21st century with the plethora of information available online because consumers like to surf the Internet and they often arrive at our doorstep with just enough information to be dangerous!  So in this post, I want to talk about sources and why it’s important to do the necessary research to insure factual information.

Anyone can throw up a website or start their own blog but how do you, the reader, insure that the information on these sites is reliable and most of all, reputable and trustworthy? Often times I see individuals simply repeating what is easily found online and when I take the time to fact check that information I find that the source has no credentials whatsoever. They repeatedly espouse a wrong approach or technique with the idea that the more they say it, the more believable it becomes. Moreover, I have had people argue incorrect points regarding racquet service because, in their opinion, they’ve been around long enough that they feel they need no clarification on their own position. I’ve seen this play itself out over the 10 years I’ve presented the GSS/IART training symposium and here’s something that may surprise you. Without hesitation, I can honestly say that each year of the symposium I’ve always had someone (often times more than one person) who had been stringing or what they considered “customizing” racquets for 25-30 years, approach me with an almost identical comment that I had received in previous years. “I have been in this business for a very long time and I was alarmed at just how many things I was actually doing wrong and I know this because your experts made this painfully obvious to me. Thank you so much for doing this”. As an example, we offered some very intense courses on racquet customization. In the beginning they were presented by John Gugel and were more geared towards data and statistics that we felt would help the attendees understand customization a little more clearly. At a point, I began getting requests for a more hands-on approach so the event progressed to having Ron Rocchi, our Wilson rep and a sponsor of the symposium from it’s inception, put together a 6 hour hands-on customization course that really challenged our group. Ron worked with John and the end result was nothing short of spectacular. You can learn more about Ron HERE and John HERE but suffice to say that this customization course was the one that received more positive feedback than any other course we had ever presented at a symposium. This is a good example of what I’m referring to when I emphasize that we strive to present factual information here at IART. Whether it’s what you read here or what you learn at one of our training events, you can rest assured that the information and the techniques we teach are the very best we can provide and our sources are as reputable as any you will find anywhere.

Here at IART we have a variety of ways to deliver accurate content that we feel is helpful to the technician in their everyday activities when conducting business. If we field questions we cannot answer we consult with reliable industry experts who can give us the answers we seek and then we report that information back to the community. There’s nothing flippant about our approach nor do we take what we do lightly. We take great measures to insure we are delivering the very best information available and to that end, we can feel comfortable that our community can rest at ease that what they read here at IART is factual. No fake news here!

If you’re considering a string/tension change or a new racquet we can always help. There are many questions that need to be answered and getting those answers from sources who sell strings and racquets is not always your best option. Just think about that for a minute. We don’t sell products online to tennis players and therefore, there is no reason for bias in providing information to help you in your decision making process. Our motives and intent are clear. We’re all about tennis and seeing that you’re taken care of properly and we take a lot of pride in that process. If you have questions you can always go to the “About” link on the website and find direct contact information for myself and John. Use it-that’s what it’s there for.