Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 8, 1994 TAG: 9405080019
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A friendship over fake catgut?
Sure, says teen-age tennis player Mike Russell, who returned to racket-stringer Tim Strawn like a bee to pollen during the prestigious Easter Bowl junior tennis tournament this month in Miami.
Sure, says Strawn, a Roanoke resident who hit it off with the Bloomfield, Mich., youngster who wanted his racket strung tighter than a child's mouth at medicine time.
When Russell won the 16-and-under national championship as Strawn watched and risked missing his flight home, it added success to their odd encounter. In Russell's words penned to Strawn after the tournament, the stringer's support "helped me out drastically."
Strawn was one of the tournament's three official racket-stringers, and the only one whose equipment would allow him to string Russell's rackets to the player's frame-stressing specifications. Even Strawn balked at first.
"I'm thinking, this kid's the next [Bjorn] Borg," Strawn said of the well-known player who hit hard and needed the control tight stringing provides. "I called [Russell], just to make sure."
Then Strawn checked up on Russell to see how the racket played. That led to more re-stringing and some racket re-gripping, and soon Strawn was attending all of Russell's matches. Once, Russell said, he broke a string during a match and Strawn took the racket from him at courtside. Not the usual tennis fare.
On the tournament's last day, Strawn should have headed to the airport for his 12:30 p.m. flight. Instead, he parked his bags at the Doral Resort's front desk and parked himself in the stands for the 16-and-under boys' final.
Russell won the first set 6-2, and Strawn had a ride to the airport waiting.
"I said, `There ain't no way I can leave,' " said Strawn, watching the match with Mike's mother, Carol. "I said, `I'll pay cab fare.' I stayed. He lost the second set 6-2. The third set started at 11 [a.m.]. By then, I was starting to get a little nervous."
Happy ending: Russell won, and Strawn saw it and caught his plane with five minutes to spare.
"It was worth it," Strawn said. "It added a little bit of excitement to what was going on."
Russell has returned to Michigan, where he's playing high school tennis for Detroit Country Day School (alma mater of NBA player Chris Webber, whose brother is in Russell's math class). As to whether Russell and Strawn will stay in touch . . .
"We said we'd write," Russell said. "I hope so."
by CNB