Unzipping players’ tennis bags with Seb Proisy – French Insider excerpt
Rackets? Clothes? Shoes? What exactly do tennis players carry around in those huge bags they take on to court with them? Tennis Majors’ equipment expert has all the answers.
In the latest episode of The French Insider, equipment expert Seb Proisy unzips those massive kit bags that tennis players take on to court – and tells host Jenny Drummond all about their design and use.
“Some of them are meant to carry up to 15 rackets,” he said. “It’s rare to have that many rackets in their bag. Top players have between four and eight rackets in their bag – that leaves a lot of space.”
‘Habit’
So what do players fill that with? Proisy talked about some of the superstitions and personalisations he has seen players put into practice on their bags
And he said you can expect to find a professional player carrying around a change of clothes or two, spare shoes, spare racket strings, bottles of water plus energy drinks along with their rackets.
“You see more and more players have two bags,” he said. “They [might] want to separate their clothes, they might have sponsorship. Everything could fit in one of those really big bags, but it’s one of those things that players have a habit of doing.”
The size of some of the bags could be a problem for some, not just aesthetically but in terms of carrying around so much bulk. Proisy added that brands offer bags of different sizes – and there is a common new design feature that is also helpful for anyone who is not keen on lugging around too much weight.
“Now we have backpack straps, they’re becoming more common – it’s really good for your back, so that’s a step in the right direction,” he said.
