Spaghetti Strings:
The Original Spin Strings and the Delayed Transformation of Tennis

Joshua Speckman

What exactly was the spaghetti revolution and why was it so brief?

In Part I of this series, we showed how copoly strings really work and the role they've played in transforming the way pro tennis is played. (Click Here.) But forty years ago, a radical stringing invention used the same sliding/snapback mechanism to nearly turn the game upside down.

It may seem hard to believe, but for a short time in the 1970s, the infamous "spaghetti strings" generated more spin in pro tennis than even the best modern copoly. But unlike copoly, which has gone unregulated, "spaghetti strings" were banned by tennis authorities shortly after they hit the pro tour.

It's a story that had been largely forgotten until the dominance of copoly called attention to the history of heavy spin technology. Now in this article we revisit what actually happened in the (brief) spaghetti era and in the aftermath, and include portions of a rare new interview with the obscure German inventor who created spaghetti strings.

Spaghetti string inventor and Bavarian horticulturist Werner Fischer.

Spaghetti Strings?

In 1971, a Bavarian horticulturist and tennis enthusiast named Werner Fischer noted how the addition of a sponge rubber sheet to the table tennis paddle had transformed that sport with spin in the 1950s. In his first interview in many years, and his first ever for an English-language publication, Fischer told me the story of how he applied this insight to tennis.

In the "hardbat" era, table tennis paddles were either bare wood or covered with thin pimpled rubber. Just as in the old days of tennis, without spin to bend shots down onto the table, the size of the playing surface limited pace of shot.

But the introduction of the sponge rubber paddle in 1952 changed everything. Access to extreme spin transformed table tennis into the sport of dipping, lightning-quick parabolas often hit from far behind the table, a style that has recently drawn comparisons to tennis in the copoly era.

"If you throw a ball onto a court it will bounce off the court with topspin," explains physicist Rod Cross. "If you put a sheet of rubber on the court and throw the ball onto it, it will spin twice as fast, because the rubber deforms in the tangential direction, parallel to the court, and then the rubber goes back to where it was, giving the ball an extra kick."

Werner Fischer sought to replicate this ping-pong effect in tennis with an intricate and ingenious stringing invention. "The way spin is produced in table tennis seemed very clear to me," Fischer says. "I thought of how one could transfer the deformation mechanism [of rubber] using a timed, snapping movement of the strings."

Fischer did for tennis what sponge paddles did for ping pong.

To do this, Fischer used only half the number of cross strings, but strung two main strings through each hole. A crucial point is that the strings were not interlaced (woven) with the crosses in the conventional way. Instead, the double mains straddled the crosses and were lashed together at multiple points.

Where the mains would have touched the crosses, Fischer covered them with slippery plastic tubing, which looked like spaghetti. Unwoven, and unhindered by friction, the main strings were able to stretch and snapback freely in the tangential (sideways) direction.

His invention was phenomenally effective. Testing by the International Tennis Federation showed that spaghetti strings generate about twice as much spin as the average nylon string.

Introduced in competition in 1971, spaghetti strings quickly became a cult phenomenon that turned the German club tennis scene upside down, including making champions out of Fischer's own team. But the odd-looking innovation was not initially taken seriously by pro players.

Half the cross strings, but twice the mains, with no interlacing, lashed together at multiple points, and covered with tubing at the intersections.

Because of the extreme snapback action of the main strings, the ball bounced off at a high angle, requiring swing adjustments to keep the ball in the court. The strings were also hard to come by. Fischer strung many of them himself, but not being a businessman, it took years to get distribution sorted out.

Still, by the mid 1970s, journeymen pro players with little to lose adapted to the new technology. The effect was startling. "Spaghetti rackets" allowed players to generate massive amounts of spin, bouncing the ball much higher off the court.

A string of high profile and controversial upsets followed. Seeing the writing on the wall, even Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe were among the players contemplating placing an order with Fischer.

The controversy reached its climax at 1977 Aix-en-Provence tournament. In the famous final match, Ilie Nastase used spaghetti strings for almost the first time in an effort to snap Guillermo Vilas' 53-match clay-court winning streak.

Ion Tiriac, Vilas's manager (and his own doubles partner!), told Nastase that Vilas would beat him even if he used a spaghetti racket. Stung by the taunts, Nastase took the court with one. While adjusting to its high launch angle, he lost the first set 6-1. But soon he was running Vilas ragged with deep, heavy loops, taking the 2nd and 3rd sets.

Nastase used the spaghetti racket in 1977 to snap Vilas's 53 match winning streak.

In fatigue and protest, Vilas stormed off the court before the 4th set, snapping his own streak. "[Nastase] never used that racket. He only used it to beat me. I lost my winning streak to a spaghetti racket," said Vilas years later. After Aix-en-Provence, he went on to win another 29 consecutive matches. Ironically, his 53-match record would still stand for 29 years until Rafael Nadal broke it in 2006 using polyester strings.

The reaction of the authorities to the Vilas/Nastase match was immediate. A temporary ban was issued the next day. And the ITF, arguing that spaghetti strings violated the "character of the game", effectively outlawed them for good the next year with a rule requiring strings to be "alternately interlaced or bonded where they cross." Remarkably, this was the first rule regulating rackets or strings in tennis history, and put down the spaghetti string revolution.

Guillermo Vilas: "I lost my winning streak to a spaghetti racket."

"But now what's happening is that they are making strings that are really slippery, so it doesn't matter so much that they are woven, they still move sideways," observes Cross.

The fact is, even though the rules stipulate that copoly strings must be interlaced or woven, they recreate the snapback effect that was at the heart of the way spaghetti strings worked.

Werner Fischer, although financially ruined by the ban, which he says was commercially motivated, still follows and plays the game. "I've known about the effects of polyester strings on topspin for a long time," he says. He also knew, long before high-speed video showed it to the rest of us, that copoly strings increase spin via the same sliding/snapback mechanism as spaghetti strings.

But Fischer says that copoly does have limitations compared to his invention. Despite being harder and stiffer than nylon, copoly does notch and scuff with play. This wear increases string-on-string friction the longer they are played, which reduces "snapback" and spin.

"Additionally, the duration the ball is in contact with the strings is not well timed with the deflection and snapback movement of the main strings," Fischer says. Because strings must now be woven, the timing and facility of snapback is impeded by the cross strings.

Because of this limitation, Stuart Miller, the head of science and technical at the ITF, doubts that further significant improvements in copoly strings can be made. But is he correct? And why were copoly strings not also banned when their spin generating properties were recognized?

About six years ago, the ITF did consider regulating copoly strings. In the previous article, we saw that video studies in 2005 revealed that nylon strings generate more spin if they are coated with lubricant. The same year, a Japanese company applied for ITF approval of a silicone-based string lubrication product. Approval was granted, but in the approval letter, Miller warned the company:

"Whilst there is currently no rule preventing the lubrication of strings, you should be aware that the ITF is currently engaged in a project to establish the spin-generating properties of string, which may lead to an amendment to the Rules of Tennis."

The ITF identified the "spin-generating property of strings" in 2006. But to date, this has not lead to an amendment to the rules. Miller told me that copoly strings were not regulated because they have not gotten close enough to the precedent set by spaghetti strings. While copoly strings have furthered the evolution of the game, he says, spaghetti strings might revolutionize it, even if re-introduced today.

Stuart Miller at ITF: copoly strings currently cannot match the spin of spaghetti strings.

But is the advancement of copoly string technology complete? As we saw in the first article, string manufacturers are now working to close the performance gap between spaghetti and copoly strings, and according to lab tests, they are appear to be about halfway there.

"[Manufacturers] have been working on this for quite a few years," says Barry Phillips-Moore, a former pro who played with spaghetti strings on tour and was later involved in the development of Luxilon strings in the 90s during his time as a pro coach. "Because when they saw the spaghetti strings back in the 70s, everyone was trying to find out why that worked."

Miller says the ITF now tries to test the spin-potential of each new copoly string, after it hits the market, "looking for anything that would, in our opinion, fundamentally change the nature of the game", or introduce a "step-change" in spin generation. But he says the ITF isn't worried: "Spaghetti strings remain the undisputed king of spin generation as far as we're concerned, and everything else is lagging behind. So there are no alarm bells ringing in that respect."

Will spaghetti remain the king of spin?

But not everyone agrees with that assessment. J. Nadine Gelberg, founder of GetCharged, a non-profit group that consults with manufacturers and institutions on the interaction of sports and equipment, says that, given the massive changes in tennis since the 70s, the alarms should have been ringing long ago.

The ITF effectively banned spaghetti strings by creating a rule against a design- - unwoven strings. But that hasn't prevented string companies from recreating the same snap back mechanism with a different design - stiff and slippery copoly strings.

"The ITF set limits," says Phillips-Moore, "but [manufacturers] still found ways around the limits. The federations didn't want the game to change too much, but I think it's been changed anyway."

According to some notable observers, larger-headed graphite rackets and copoly strings -- the two technologies that have evaded regulation - have already changed the game at a fundamental level.

"Tennis is about dimensions and angles," said Andre Agassi in a recent interview with The Sunday Telegraph. "And when you add spin to the equation, that kind of spin, you're talking about changing the dimensions of the game. You're not talking about tennis anymore. You're talking about a different sport."

Agassi believes copoly has created a new sport, different than tennis.

Whether the new tennis is better or worse than the old is, of course, debatable. But if the sport is to avoid again being blindsided by game-changing technology in the future, it's important to understand why the ITF immediately moved to ban spaghetti strings, but not modern rackets or copoly strings.

The problem, says Gelberg, is that "the ITF has a history of being very reactive," rather than proactive. She points out that large-headed rackets were initially slow to catch on with professionals, but were accepted much more quickly by the general public.

By the time the power of a new generation of graphite-wielding pros started worrying tennis fans and authorities in the 80s, the racquets were in the hands of millions of recreational players.

"When [tennis rules makers] decided they may want to consider banning the large-head racket it was too late," Gelberg says. Banning a product once it's on the market is extremely difficult in any sport, she adds, because manufacturers are likely to line up and sue the rules-makers on lost revenue and anti-trust grounds.

Similarly, when proof was finally found that copoly strings generated the extreme spin that led to the transformation Agassi talks about, the strings had already been on the market for over a decade.

The only reason the ITF was successful in banning spaghetti strings, Gelberg says, is that the invention was not yet being sold to millions of players.

Should oversize graphite rackets and copoly strings have set off immediate alarm bells?

To guard against future technologies that could result in more unanticipated changes to the game, Gelberg argues that the ITF should look at the way golf balls are regulated. This is by the creation of a "performance standard" - a rule that would block a new product before it ever reached the market. If a new string exceeded a pre-defined maximum amount of spin in the lab, it would be banned, regardless of what design was used to achieve that performance.

"That's what the ITF is responsible for: protecting the nature, the competition, the style of tennis. It's protecting tennis and it's defining what tennis is," Gelberg says. "It's not easy, but there is a process to go through to accomplish it. You start with defining what is important, and what the critical skills of tennis are that you don't want technology to usurp."

"What those skills are is an ongoing question," says Miller at ITF, who acknowledges that net rushing and volleying have largely disappeared from today's game. "And I don't have a complete answer, other than to say that we are constantly reviewing the game to establish what is sufficiently fundamental to the game to require protection.

Copoly is here to stay, but what is the next evolution?

"It sounds like an easy question," he adds, "but it's probably one of the most difficult to answer because, while the game is eminently quantifiable from a technical point of view…that's only one part of the story.

"The other part is the views of the spectator, the views of the sponsors, the views of the governing bodies. And there's more to the state of the game than just the quantification of it. There are so many things about the game that people hold dear and make tennis what it is.

"What we can do is say: "As part of the ongoing discussion of the state of the game, this is what the quantifiable aspects of the game that are due directly or indirectly to equipment and the changes in that equipment are bringing to tennis." And is it something that people will take into account if and when the rules makers come together and look at this as a big-picture thing? Yes, I think it will be."

It appears that copoly strings, at least the ones on the market today, are here to stay. But the rulebook currently does not prevent racket and string innovations that could inject even more spin into the game.

Crawford Lindsey's most recent research on string patterns and lubrication helps us see the similarity between copoly and spaghetti strings. One implication of this work is that it may well be possible to use existing technology and a few tricks to recreate the super spin of spaghetti strings within the bounds of the current rules.

Many observers believed that Mark Woodforde's open string pattern gave him a string advantage.

Another major factor in the spin equation--independent of poly strings themselves--is the stringing pattern. This is the number of main and cross strings and the size of the spaces between them. "Open" string patterns - such as 16 mains and 18 crosses (16x18) are generally regarded as being more spin-friendly than denser or "closed" string patterns (such as 18x20).

However, as with copoly strings, until recently there was no hard evidence that open patterns really do give more spin, and there wasn't a particularly convincing argument for why they should. But Lindsey wondered if open string patterns reduce string-on-string friction and thereby improved sliding, snapback and spin.

To test this hypothesis, he built a custom string rig that allowed him to increase and decrease the number of main and cross strings at will. This allowed him to alter not only the number of strings but the spaces between them as well.

Starting with only one main string, he sequentially increased the number of mains and/or crosses while filming the bounces and measuring the resulting spin.

Racket frames such as the Vortex have been designed to radically increase spin.

He found that, at very low impact speeds, "when the strings moved, there was spin; when they didn't, there wasn't any spin." The fewer the cross strings, the less inter-string friction. The more the main strings moved, the more the ball spun.

Lindsey then scaled-up the experiment at realistic impact speeds. He did this by comparing conventional 16x19 rackets to identical frames in which every other cross-string had been removed, ending up with 16 mains and 10 crosses.

With so few crosses to get in the way of the main strings, the spin generated by the snapback mechanism was dramatic. In one experiment, stringing the 16x10 racket with copoly generated 66% more spin than nylon strung in the 16x19 pattern. This is almost double the spin-boost possible with the best copoly strung in a conventional pattern.

But Lindsey is not the first to discover the tremendous spin of extremely open string patterns. Aussie hall of famer Mark Woodforde played with a specially made 12x16 pattern designed by his coach, none other than Barry Phillips-Moore, who was trying to recreate, to some degree, the spaghetti racket. Various players grumbled publicly about Woodforde's crazy spin. But the authorities never moved to ban the racket, and Wilson continued to make it for him until he retired.

Phillips-Moore also designed the "Hi-Ten" open-patterned racket that was the ancestor of the Vortex Extreme Spin rackets on the market today.

Although Woodforde had great success with an extremely spin-friendly racket and string combination, other pros didn't follow in his footsteps, probably because of the adjustments required to play with it.

But what if they had? Imagine Rafael Nadal, but with even more spin, hitting heavy looping drives that might bounce clear over his opponent's head. Would this turn tennis into a contest played from 15 feet behind the baseline, similar to modern ping-pong?

Interestingly, Werner Fischer, the man who started the spin revolution, has a different view. Had spaghetti strings remained legal, he believes the drive volley may have taken over the sport.

"Professionals would avoid [hitting] high topspin balls as they are good to counter by moving forward and taking them in mid-air, as the ball's spin, in addition to its dropping rate, will automatically transform into topspin," he says. "The rate at which the ball drops [partially] determines the amount of spin. The faster it drops, the more spin will result, without requiring the player to learn or use topspin technique." (Incidentally, on serve we get more topspin with a high toss for the same reason.)

Would this work against Rafa today? Hugging the baseline, could a player like Federer move in and drive a looping Nadal forehand out of the air with spaghetti strings?

Consider this anecdote: For fun, Nate Ferguson once brought a spaghetti racket to practice sessions of the Swiss Davis Cup team, and actually got Roger Federer to try it. Because of the high launch angle, Federer was initially "hitting off the back fence, he couldn't get it to come down," Ferguson says. "So the first few balls went over the baseline, and then Roger said he was able to get it in a little more and said it was unbelievable, unbelievable. He said it was a joke; it was way too much spin."

But spaghetti strings have been banned for decades, so we'll never know if Fischer was right, or what spaghetti strings would do to today's game. Or will we? What if a player combined all available spin-generating technologies still within the rules in one setup?

The capacity may exist to recreate the spaghetti racket effect - legally.

In his most recent study, Lindsey looked at string lubrication. As we saw in the first article, when nylon strings are lubricated they behave like copoly - sliding, snapping back, and generating more spin.

Lindsey found that a common hardware store lubricant, WD-40, significantly increased the spin potential of all the string types he tested - nylon, gut and copoly - by between about 20 to 60 percent.

Taken together, Lindsey's work suggests that if a player were to string very tightly (for stiffness) with copoly (which is slippery), but skip every other cross (which reduces friction), and then apply a lubricant to the strings (which makes them even slipperier), the resulting spin potential would be very close to, or perhaps even exceed, that of spaghetti strings.

There is no rule in the book today that prohibits a player from using this setup for tournament play. Theoretically, the controversy the ITF believed it put to bed 40 years ago could be resurrected in a way that would pose fundamental new questions about how equipment in tennis is regulated. For all we know, there are players, coaches, entrepreneurs, or even Tennisplayer subscribers, experimenting with these combinations even now.

Next: Since it looks like copoly strings, at least in their current incarnation, are here to stay, the question is: should you try them and in what combination? In the next article in this series we combine the latest science with the advice of experts like Nate Ferguson to help players and coaches choose the best strings for various levels and styles of play. Stay tuned!