Gut Check

It’s time for recreational players to rediscover the benefits of soft, multifilament strings.

- Jon Levey

When it comes to polyester strings on tour, Luxilon is king.No other brand can claim a spot in as many players’ frames. And what’s popular in the pros inevitably trickles down to mere mortals at the rec levels. Walk into any pro shop and the dull, gray-blue of Luxilon’s ALU Power string and the tempered gold of its 4G line are finding their way into the racquets of league players and juniors seeking absolute control and massive spin.

Yet even with polyester’s popularity, Luxilon has just released its own natural gut string. An expensive process two years in the making, the string comes from organic, grass-fed cows to provide a higher collagen level for enhanced feel and durability. It also has a low-friction coating, comes in a re-sealable foil pouch and has a green mark to indicate the halfway point in the set. In other words, this gut is clearly optimized to be combined with another string in a hybrid set-up. Even the pros are realizing that not everyone is meant to play with a full bed of poly.