Your opinion of the Wilson six one tour blx tennis racquet?

We’ve heard all the hype about this new racquet from Wilson but is it living up to it’s name for Roger Federer and Justine Henin. Based on the results from the Australian Open, it sure seems to be.

Wilson released a new line of tennis rackets called BLX back at the end of 2009. These new rackets have volcanic basalt in them in addition to Karophite, which was in the [K]Factor. BLX can block the frequency harmful to your body and thus relieving a lot of stress to your arms if you play often. Federer will definitely notice a difference as much as he plays. Last year Federer had an occasional sore back, so this new racket will definitely be able to prevent that in the coming year. Compared to the [K]Factor Six-one Tour, the BLX Six-one Tour is just a tiny bit lighter. Some people say BLX plays better than the [K]Factor and feels better. Some have complained [K]Factor being too stiff, so Wilson made the new rackets less stiff.

Wilson six one tour blx racquet

Of course, Roger Federer wielded his Wilson Six One Tour BLX tennis racket meticulously as he defeated Murray in straight sets to win his 4th Australian Open title and extended his record to 16 Grand Slam titles. Here’s a great video at the bottom of this post

The difference between old and newly resurfaced tennis courts

I believe the main reason tennis is slowly dying in America is the cost for a school system or city municipality to build & MAINTAIN a tennis court.  How much does a tennis court cost to build? Roughy $15,000 for a clay court and $28,000 for a hard court (in the southeast).  This is not the main problem.  The main problem is maintenance on these courts. A hard court cost about $3,500 a year to maintain BUT that’s only if you are putting away $3,500 a year when you need to resurface. Resurfacing a single court can cost up to $15,000 every 5 years.   Most budgets don’t account for this type of maintenance. Most schools that build courts will build about 5-7 of them without thinking about the cost to keep them up.  They end up looking like this:

Old Worn Tennis Courts

When kids play on these courts they have no clue to what real tennis is like.  Your tennis balls end up turning black after about 10 minutes and you slide all over the place getting the ball.  The ball also does not act as it should on a newly resurfaced court. 

Newly resurfaced tennis court

 

What do you think is causing the downfall of tennis in America?

Dubai racist against Israeli players in all sports, lately tennis

Dubai gave another Israeli, Andy Ram, a visa to play in last week’s men’s open after world tennis officials threatened to strip it of the right to hold the competition next year.

Now the emirate is counting on the March 5-7 rugby championship to put the Peer controversy behind it, said J.E. Peterson, an expert on the Arab Gulf states affiliated to the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. “They’re hoping that in the long- term, the Peer affair won’t have much impact,” he said.

It may take more than a diplomatic flip-flop and one successful sporting event to reverse the damage to Dubai’s image. The emirate seeks to portray itself as a playground for some of the world’s premier sporting events to enhance its status as a regional business hub.

“I don’t think that the full effect is known yet,” said WTA Chairman Larry Scott in a telephone interview from St. Petersburg, Florida. “The decision not to allow Peer in put a lot of terrific investments and efforts at risk.”

Scott said various businesses and cultural and scientific organizations, which he declined to identify, had expressed concern to him at Peer’s treatment.

Showcase Dubai

Asked about the fallout over the Peer decision, Salah Tahlak, director of the tennis tournament, which is staged by government-owned Dubai Duty Free, said he was confident the tournament and other events, will grow and “showcase Dubai as a first-class sports and leisure destination.”

The rugby tournament is being held in the Gulf State for the first time in its 16-year history and will be broadcast live to a global audience of 400 million in 200 countries.

The new world of online tennis stores

It seems that new tennis stores are popping up all over the internet.  You’ve got the big dogs like tennis-warehouse.com that have been around the internet since the dawn of time.  You’ve also got hot and new companies online like Tennis Plaza that seem hungry and want to revolutionize the world of tennis (beein in sizzling Miami, FL since 1990, online only a few years). You’ve got companies like Tennis Express that are using flickr in a whole new way for SEO and to conserve bandwidth to their own servers by pulling from the flickr servers.

You also have companies like Midwest Sports Outlets, Golfsmith (which knows Golf but NOT tennis), & TennisBoom (designed in 1998 and still the same website??).  Their are some companies that have no idea of what the internet is for like Players Choice Tennis.  These guys just use it as a business card for their website.  This means it is almost pointless. My Tennis Store focuses on 40+  ladies fashions in the tennis world. The Tennis Company seems like most of them.

What really makes all of these online tennis stores unique. 

#1 is their reputatation 

#2 is their price (which with minimum advertising pricing is hard to differentiate)

#3 is their product selection (none of these stores carry the same online selection, tennis-warehouse has the largest)

#4 is the involvement in the tennis world (Tennis Plaza sponsors the Sony Ericsson Open and many local tennis programs throughout the country)

#5 is their customer service (open 7 days a week?  Do they have access to your entire profile of orders across internet, phone, & web – Tennis Plaza does)

#6 is their language (need native Spainish, Tennis Plaza is the way to go)

#7 free shipping – Tennis Plaza is free even for a $1.99 item.  Nobody else does this.

You can go to website like resellerratings.com, bizrate.com, pricegrabber.com do get an idea of the reputation of an online company.  Even search blogs for company names to see what others have to say about them.  Hope this helps you find the best suited tennis store for your needs.

 

Other Resources:

Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Tennis Plaza, Tennis-Warehouse, TennisExpress, MidwestSportsOutlet.