NEW YORK -- Since 2004, Nate Ferguson's Priority One racket service has been stringing rackets on the road for Roger Federer. Ferguson, along with Ron Yu, travel to the biggest tournaments in the world, making Federer's rackets from scratch the same day he takes the court.
On Tuesday, we met up with Ferguson and Yu in a Manhattan hotel room to watch the process and then met Ferguson on site at the US Open where he gave the rackets to Federer and his coaches before his first-round match against Frances Tiafoe.
The following is an in-depth look of the quirky, all-day process of getting a racket from the stringing machine to Fed's hands.
There are many quirks to stringing Roger Federer's rackets, including using a door hinge on the Manhattan hotel where the stringers from Priority 1 are staying.
At 9 a.m., roughly 12 hours before Roger Federer will take the court for his first round U.S. Open match, Ron Yu and Nate Ferguson begin the process of stringing 10 rackets for Federer. It will take four hours.
Ron Yu estimates he has strung 70,000 rackets in his life, 10 percent of which have been for Roger Federer, a client since 2004. Federer pays tens of thousands of dollars for the gold package, which includes roadside stringing service for the four majors and the eight most important tournaments under that. Here, Yu talks about the tension conversation with Federer.
Even though the average Federer racket is used for about 10 games, he insists that his stringers put string savers on his rackets.
Once Federer's racket is strung and stenciled, it goes into a bag, which features Federer's logo on it.
At 4:15 p.m. ET, about five hours before Federer is set to take the court, stringer Nate Ferguson arrives with Federer's 10 rackets.