If I were to write a book of short stories about the tennis industry, I would include the story of tiny Saint Vincent Island and the Gold Taxi Cabs! This is a story that was told to me by several reliable sources…so I’m considering it to be mostly true!
Saint Vincent Island
Not that long ago, the giant of the tennis industry, Wilson Racquet Sports, had some of their tennis racquet models manufactured on the tiny Caribbean Island of Saint Vincent. Among the models made here, were the game changing Profile and the original Pro Staff 6.0 85…better known as the racquet of choice of Pete Sampras, Jim Courier and other world class players.
During my years working for Wilson, I heard about some of the strange happenings at the factory on Saint Vincent. Apparently, after working on the original plans to launch the Profile racquet, which became one of the most iconic game changing racquets in tennis history, the product team from Wilson took a trip to the plant. Upon arrival at the airport, they made their way through baggage claim and customs to hail a taxi to the nearby hotel. To their amazement, they were greeted by an odd site upon reaching the taxi stand. It seems that nearly all of the taxi cabs were freshly painted gold. Now that isn’t exactly odd, except they were all painted the same gold color that was featured on the Profile racquet!
During meetings at the plant later that day, one of the product managers from Wilson inquired about the gold taxi cabs. Quickly, the owner of the plant proudly stated that the local taxi service was owned by his brother. The plant owner then went on to explain that he wasn’t sure that this crazy looking Profile racquet would sell…so in order to use up the gold paint, he offered that his brother could use it to paint his taxi cabs!
Well, as it turns out, the plant manager was somewhat right in his fears. The Profile became so popular, as did some of the other Wilson racquets, that they moved all production out of Saint Vincent to Taiwan.
Pete Sampras and his Saint Vincent Pro Staff
As a side note to this story, the moving of production from Saint Vincent to Taiwan became a bit of a big headache for Wilson and their rising star players Pete Sampras and Jim Courier. Apparently, the new models produced in Taiwan didn’t feel the same! So, quickly the players and Wilson grabbed every Saint Vincent Pro Staff they could get their hands on and set them aside for Pete and Jim. While Courier eventually was able to switch to a slightly different painted model, Sampras played his entire career with the Saint Vincent racquets. This may explain why you never saw Pete smash any racquets!!