The only sure things in the life of your tennis racquet are death and the taxes you paid when you bought it. All of today’s premium racquets are built to stay as tough as an F-150 pick-up, but the graphite, titanium and/or carbon fibers in the frame weaken after thousands of whacks. How do you know when it’s time to bury Ol’ Faithful? We asked Bruce Levine, chief racquet advisor for TENNIS.com and TENNIS magazine, for some tips to stave off the Grim Racquet Reaper:

Q. When will I know that my racquet is dead?
Bruce: The big uh-oh moment comes when you hit right after a new string job and you can’t tell the difference. It plays soft or mushy like a wet noodle, and you’re not getting any sense of where the balls are landing on the stringbed.

Q. When can I expect it to go belly-up?
Bruce: Depends on how often you play, how hard you hit and the climate where you play. It could be as little as two years for an aggressive five-times-a-week player who strings at the top of the tension range and refuses to come in from the 35-degree cold of winter; to six years if you only play once a week, hit soft bullets, string loose, and live in cold-and-humidity-free Tucson, Arizona. Of course, the quickest way to kill a racquet is the Dr. Kevorkian assisted-suicide method of smashing it on the net post after you blow an easy overhead.  

Q. Are there other factors?
Bruce: Restringing takes a toll on the frame, particularly on the grommets, so if you have it done often that will also shorten the racquet’s life expectancy. The string machine stretches the hoop and the materials in the frame stretch with it. Insist that your stringer pre-stretch the string by hand before putting it on the machine. Also make sure your stringer uses a “six point” machine, which holds the frame securely in place and minimizes distortion of the head of the racquet. 
 
Q. Are you saying it’s better to restring only when the string breaks?
Bruce: No, you should restring often because the synthetic or polyester—and especially gut—will go dead long before the racquet’s demise.
   
Q. Is there anything I can do to extend the racquet’s lifespan?
Bruce: Have the grommet strip replaced when you restring—not just the top edge that a lot of people call the bumper guard, but the whole strip. It should only cost you between $5 and $8 extra. You should also keep your frame in a racquet bag with a thermal lining to protect it from heat, humidity and the cold. Never, never keep it in the trunk or the garage. And if you have to be like Marat Safin, then beat the racquet against the soft back curtain of the court, if it has one, instead of the ground. Or, even better, learn to curse in French.

Q. What about taking it with me on a plane?
Bruce: It’s always better to carry on your racquet, but some airlines have deemed them potential weapons. They can be safe from the baggage (mis)handlers in a well padded suitcase.

Look at Ivo Karlovic. (Actually, he’s really hard to miss at 6-10 and with hands so big he could wrap them around the trunk of a birch tree and probably uproot it with a single tug if he wanted.) The Croatian ace king insists that his grip be a jolly-giant size 5 3/8 inches around, which probably makes it the thickest handle in tennis since the late Jack Kramer swung a 5¼-incher back in the 1940s, and it’s well over the current ATP tour average of 4 3/8 to 4½.

Then there’s Robin Soderling, who long ago nixed using the conventional eight-sided plastic buttcap, opting instead to wrap 13 layers of tape on his handle to form a knob at its end like on a baseball bat.

And then there’s Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Gael Monfils and Fernando Gonzalez. They’re so persnickety about everything from the shape, weight and the feel of their racquet handles to the amount of lead tape in the hoop that they pay as much as $50,000 a year to take Nate Ferguson and his customization crew on the road with them to all Grand Slam and Masters Series tournaments and Davis Cup matches.

Ferguson, 46, is the founder of the Priority One racquet customization shop based in Tampa and he’s pulled a lot of strings and raised a lot of racquets over the years to get where he is today. And today he happens to be making a brief pit stop at his shop to send out invoices to his who’s-who list of pro tennis clients before jumping the next series of planes that will take him to the Shanghai tournament on October 12 and then all the European indoor season stops.

“When one of our clients plays in a major tournament, at least one of us is there, sometimes two,” says Ferguson about a schedule that keeps himself and the three other members of the Priority One team—Ron Yu, Glynn Roberts and Michael Ludwig—on the road about 30 weeks a year. Ferguson also makes house calls. Last week he was in California to present the Bryan brothers with 16 new fully customized racquets to try out. Which makes those of us who live and breathe tennis gear ask: How does one get a gig like that?

You can become a certified racquet technician or even get your Bachelor of Science degree from Michigan’s Ferris State University in Professional Tennis Management, but that will probably only land you a job at a club or a parks and recreation facility. Earning the privilege of servicing the stars’ gear is as tough as graduating from the Challenger circuit to the pro tour. Client expectations are as high as Ivo’s eye, with players demand that their gear be as fine-tuned as Perlman’s fiddle. “It drives players crazy when they get a batch of racquets that play a little different, or have string tensions that vary a pound from the day before,” Ferguson explains. Catering to this clientele requires an artisan’s creativity—and good problem-solving abilities.

Take, for instance, the time when Ferguson got a call from Karlovic, who was looking to build his now-legendary monster grip. The easy part was getting it up to size. Ferguson injected 1.2 ounces of polyurethane foam into a standard handle to balloon it to 5 3/8 inches, and then strategically put lead tape from the 10 o’clock to 2 o’clock position on the hoop to maintain the racquet’s headlight balance and swing weight.

It’s that kind of creativity that turns top racquet customizers into industry legends like Warren Bosworth, who started with Ken Rosewall in 1972; Jay Schweid, who was discovered by Martina Navratilova; and Roman Prokes, who has worked with Andy Roddick and Maria Sharapova.

Ferguson is the newest member of the elite racquet-geek fraternity. He paid his dues as a stringer at Bosworth’s shop in 1986, and got his big break four years later when Bosworth client Pete Sampras came around looking for a private customizer because he felt slight inconsistencies in the frames of the half-dozen Wilson Pro Staff 6.0 racquets he carried on court. For Sampras, that was like starting a term paper on a Mac and finishing it on a PC.

“He had two specific needs,” Ferguson recalls. “He wanted to make sure his racquets were always strung tight on the road and he wanted the same person to custom build his racquets for across-the-board consistency.”

Ferguson got the job and became—literally—Pistol Pete’s right-hand man. A few years later Sampras referred Ferguson to a good friend, Tim Henman, and then Ferguson became chummy with Lleyton Hewitt’s agent. Then came Michael Chang.

By 2001, there were too many clients and not enough Ferguson go around, so he hired Yu, who had been Andre Agassi’s private stringer. As old clients retired, he picked up a whole new batch.   

Today, Priority One ranks up there with Bosworth. Ferguson and his staff travel with 10 players and customize racquets for dozens of others including Soderling, Sam Querrey, John Isner and Andy Murray’s brother, Jamie. Occasionally, Priority One also works with recreational players, but Ferguson says, “I’d much rather expand our presence with the pros because that’s what we’re set up to do.”
 
And even though business is booming, he’s not claiming his services can take any pro to the Wimbledon final. “I like to think I’m an important guy, but I can’t make vast improvements in a pro player’s game by tweaking their racquets and strings,” he says. “I can build Karlovic a grip that fits his hand like a glove to help him on his serve, but I can’t do anything to help him with the rest of his game. He just doesn’t move that fast.”

The racquet customization business may have its legends, but there are no miracle workers.

Most of us have the luxury of experimenting with the full gamut of racquets and strings, ranging from extra-long wide bodies strung with gut at the low end of the recommended tension range for more power to standard-length sticks with narrow beams and polyester strings weaved tightly for more control.

But if you’re recovering from a hitting-arm injury (as many of you apparently are, based on the feedback we’re getting), comfort is the all-encompassing concern. As TENNIS.com racquet advisor Bruce Levine puts it: “If you’ve got arm issues and you’re not playing with gear that softens the blow when the racquet collides with the ball, you won’t be playing for long.”

Maria Sharapova knows that – she’s recovering from rotator cuff surgery. So does Katy Koch, a 4.5 recreational player in rural Ontario – she’s getting over a bout with tennis elbow.

They may be worlds apart in ability, but neither wants a return engagement of their respective hitting-arm-invading injuries.

“After Maria’s injury, we took at look at everything – her technique, her racquet and especially her strings,” says Michael Joyce, Sharapova’s coach. The three-time major champion worked with Joyce on technique modifications, most noticeably her new and celebrated “abbreviated” serve.

But she also tried various racquet and string combinations in conjunction with Joyce, personal stringer Roman Prokes and the technical folks at her racquet sponsor, Prince. She ultimately switched to a different racquet within the Prince 03 Speedport family, exchanging the “White” model she’d been using for a slightly more flexible and forgiving version of the “Black” Speedport that also has Prince’s new string-hole grommet inserts for added cushioning. Sharapova’s new racquet is also a half-inch shorter than the 27½-inch-long Speedport White, which lightens the swingweight load and should help her prevent late hits that cause additional stress on the shoulder and arm. The stationary weight is also about 2/5 of an ounce lower.

Sharapova also softened her main strings a little as a concession to her shoulder without compromising or throwing off her highly fine-tuned game. She went from Babolat Hurricane, a harsh polyester, to Luxilon M2, a slightly softer co-polyester blend in the main strings, while maintaining easiest-on-the-arm natural gut in the cross strings.

The majority of tour pros opt for polyester or co-polyester string either as a full set or mixed with gut because polyester has a dead-like-a-board feel that lets them swing their hardest and impart incredible spins and still keep ball in the court. They also generally string their racquets tight at the very top of the recommended range, which usually runs from the mid 50s to the mid 60s (in pounds) for optimum control. Sharapova strings hers at 63 pounds.

Recreational players recovering from arm injuries can take a racquet cue from Sharapova by considering a more flexible racquet. Katy Koch, for example, currently uses a 27½-inch long and head-heavy Wilson Hyper Hammer 5.3, named by TENNIS as the playtesters’ choice for power when it was introduced in 1999. Koch also uses a nylon monofilament string at the top of the tension range.

Katy wants to remain within the Wilson family, so Levine suggests she playtest the brands’ K Factor K Surge and K Factor K Pro Team. Both have narrower and more flexible beams along with the creature-comfort qualities of lower swingweights, a result of their head-light balances and shorter (27-inch) lengths.   

But Levine points out that she needs to have her racquet strung at the lower part of the tension range and switch to a natural gut (best) or at least a multifilament nylon synthetic that create more stringbed deflection and a softer landing area. (The new string combination will also increase the power, but the more flexible, head-light frame should largely offset it.)

Gut offers the best protection for the arm, but it’s expensive and breaks easily. Multifilament synthetics (such as Babolat XL Premium, Wilson NXT, Prince Premier, Head FXP and Gamma Livewire) are more cost effective and generally last longer. Gauge thicknesses range from a scale of 15 to 18; the higher the gauge number, the thinner, more comfortable (and more breakable) the string. 

And unless recreational players have the almost impeccable stroke mechanics of a Maria Sharapova, they should run – not walk – from polyester, especially if they’re recovering from a hitting-arm injury.  

When Melanie Oudin continues her Cinderella run tonight at the U.S. Open, her slipper company will be along for the ride. All the way to the bank.

Oudin's pink and yellow Adidas Barricade V's that she and her boyfriend designed this summer on www.miadidas.com may look more like neon bowling rental shoes than tennis footwear, but they've become the big fashion buzz of the Open. As the 17-year-old Georgian has spun her way through four rounds of against-the-odds Russian Roulette -- first Pavlyuchenkova, then Dementieva, Sharapova, and Petrova -- traffic and sales on the Adidas website has increased five-fold, according to a company spokeswoman.

Oudin's performance has been a match made in marketing heaven. Adidas couldn't have paid for better on-court exposure in front of the packed Flushing Meadows crowds and the global TV cameras. All eyes are naturally drawn to Oudin's hip-hoppity Barricade V-clad feet, reminiscent of Jennifer Beals in "Flashdance" ("she's a maniac on the floor"), the 1983 movie musical that, not unlike the Melanie Oudin story, also tugged at the heartstrings and made you believe in the power of dreams. And the shoes' wild colors pop even more with the contrast to her muted dark purple tank and skirt.

Be-Like-Melanie fans can click and buy her shoes or they can substitute their own color picks from a huge palette for the midsoles, midfoot, laces, outsole and uppers on a computer model for $140. The "MI Adidas" ("MI" stands for 'My Individual') build-a-pair webstore was launched this year by the company for some of its tennis, soccer, basketball, running and training shoe products. (Nike also has a color customization shoe program at its www.nikeid.com site, but it doesn't include tennis.)

Of course, the biggest draw of the MI Adidas program is the option of inscribing a personal message on the side of the shoes. As everybody around the world knows by now, Oudin elected the word, "Believe" on hers.

Adidas spotted Oudin's potential three years ago at the Racquet Club of the South in Atlanta when she was 14 and her star power was just a twinkle in her coach Brian de Villiers' eye. The company enlisted her to join its National Junior Team, a group of about 25 boys and girls in the United States who are supplied apparel and footwear. Adidas became Oudin's official sponsor when she turned pro last year, but the company declines to discuss the money relationship.

Ironically, her opponent in the quarterfinals tonight is Adidas' most prominent women's tennis endorsee, Caroline Wozniacki, who presumably signed a megabucks deal this summer as Adidas' spokesplayer for its tennis line designed by Beatle daughter and celebrated designer Stella McCartney.

So tonight's fashion match-up at Arthur Ashe Stadium under the bright lights pits Wozniacki in her pale purple-colored ensemble with ruffles from the "Adidas by Stella McCartney Collection" against the kid from Georgia in the "Adidas by Oudin" shoes.