My first job in the tennis industry was with the legendary Belgian tennis brand, DONNAY. The same brand made famous by supplying racquets to Bjorn Borg, and later Andre Agassi, to name a few. I was the sales rep for Southern California, Arizona and Las Vegas. Don’t laugh…Las Vegas was a booming tennis market back in those days of large tennis retailers Nevada Bob’s and Las Vegas Discount Golf & Tennis!
Sometime during one of my first years with the company, I was asked to take care of a “special” project. During the end of one of my tours of Arizona, which was a descent hike from my home in So Cal, I called into DONNAY headquarters. It was a Friday around noon and I was making my final call into the office before they closed for the weekend(they were located on the east coast). This was back in the day before cell phones, so I often found a quiet payphone to call in periodically. They were super excited to hear from me…Oh great, it’s Chris calling! Dave (Director of Marketing) wants to talk with you!
Hey Chris, I need you to drop everything and head back to LA to pick up an engineer from Belgium. He’s flying into LAX tomorrow night. But Dave, I still have a couple of appointments here before heading home. Dave says, here’s the deal…we have a playtest scheduled with John McEnroe in Malibu at noon on Sunday. We need you to track down the same string Mac uses and get to the airport to pick up the engineer. He is coming with about 12 racquets. You will need to string them and have them ready in time for the playtest. But Dave, I don’t have a stringing machine. Well you are going to need to figure something out! No problem Dave, just give me the details.
So I hit the road and make it home just before midnight. On the way, I stop and call my good buddy who often let me use his stringing machine. Sure, I can use the machine, but we won’t be home. We will leave a key under the mat, but you will need to find a way to get into the building…how hard could that be? I make another couple of calls trying to locate at least 12 sets of uncoated US natural gut string…Mac’s string of choice! It turns out, I will need to drive all over Los Angeles on Saturday to get enough string for the job.
Saturday night, I’m off to LAX to pickup the DONNAY engineer whose flight is due in around 10pm. Sure enough, he shows up with a bag of 12 racquets…each one a slight variation of the same model. I drop the engineer at his hotel and am off with stringing instructions and a promise that I will pick him up around 10 am Sunday morning for our drive out to Malibu. All along I’m doing the math and know that it will be an all-nighter of stringing and hopefully I can get them all done for the big playtest.
During this time in John’s career, he was finding that the guys with the new graphite racquets were hitting the ball with much more power than he could generate with his trusty old DUNLOP wood racquet. He needed to make a change, and do it quick. Turns out he calls his buddy Bjorn Borg, who had retired early from the game and asked him for advice. Borg tells him to contact DONNAY! So, Mac’s agent gets on the phone and a playtest is scheduled.
I finally get settled into my buddy’s apartment shortly after midnight. Twelve hours til playtest!! Stringing with uncoated natural gut is no picnic and always takes some extra time to make sure everything goes well. As the night wears on, I keep looking at the nearby sofa, but know that there simply isn’t enough time for a nap.
With not a minute to spare, all 12 racquets are strung and I’m out the door. A quick stop at the hotel for the engineer and we are off to Malibu to visit John at his house.
I remember walking up to John’s house on the beach in Malibu. Mac and his wife, Tatum O’Neal had purchased the house from Johnny Carson. I had no sleep and very little food, but suddenly I’m standing in front of an open door with a bikini-clad Tatum welcoming me into their home. John and Tatum’s young children are running around the beachfront home…it was madness! John and his agent Sergio are happy to greet us, as we provide an opportunity to escape the madness.
John tells us that we will go hit on the courts in Malibu Canyon. Apparently only the locals know about the courts, so we are to follow them in our car. I’m sure I broke several laws just trying to stay with John as he is flying down Pacific Coast Highway in his Mercedes couple…with New York plates.
At the courts, we take a few minutes to tell John about the racquets. He is very excited and notes his admiration for the brand, solely because of his respect for Borg and all the matches he lost to him while Borg was wielding his DONNAY Borg Pro.
Sergio and I on one side of the net, while John takes the other. The engineer feeds John a racquet and several shots are hit back and forth. Some racquets get only a few shots before being tossed aside, while others get more play…some even get John excited, as he tests the limits of the racquets power and feel.
After an hour or so, we’ve gone through all 12 test racquets. John is encouraged by the results and mentions that he really likes a few of them. It’s decided that the engineer will make some revisions based upon his feedback and get the next round of racquets back to me, so I can coordinate another playtest.
Before we leave the court, I ask John what he thought of the stringing of the test racquets…just so we can get them right for the next round of testing. John mentions that they were strung perfectly. Whoever we had string them, did a fantastic job! Apparently John must not have noticed the dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep, but I was most relieved to have past the test. I must admit that I was a little bummed that some racquets hardly got any play…all of that work to get them strung!!
A few weeks later, word comes from Belgium that the racquets are ready and that I am to deliver them to John at the upcoming Davis Cup match in San Diego. With luck, I find a retailer in San Diego who has John’s favorite string and is willing to string them for me. I make arrangements with Sergio and schedule a time to drop off the racquets at John’s hotel once the racquets are strung. This time it’s a quick visit with John and Sergio as I explain the revisions to the racquets. John will test the racquets after the Davis Cup tie. He thanks me and I’m out the door.
A few months pass before I hear anything more about John and the test racquets. Apparently, while really liking the racquets, his current brand DUNLOP has produced a new graphite model that he likes a little better. That racquet, the 300G turns into one of DUNLOP’s best selling racquet models of all time. As for the DONNAY models that came out of the playtest, they too were pretty sweet! So I guess all was not lost.
While the experience of getting everything sorted out for the playtest was a bit crazy, to say the least, it was a great opportunity for me to be a part of it all. I mostly enjoyed the conversations with John about the racquets and to feel the admiration and respect he held for his old rival, Bjorn Borg…who happened to be my favorite player when I was growing up. And little did I know then, but my work on this project would lead me to run an even larger project…the Andre Agassi project! But that’s another story for another time...
John and his DUNLOP 300G