Mannarino: “My lowest string tension has been 8 kilos”
Adrian Mannarino has rediscovered a good winning rhythm during the grass season. Qualified for the second round of Wimbledon against Valentin Royer, the French left-hander spoke to Tennis Majors about one of the most unique aspects of his playing style: his extremely low string tension, around 10 kilos.
Adrian Mannarino, UTS 2025 | © Tennis Majors / Julien Nouet
Adrian Mannarino has rediscovered a good winning rhythm during the grass season. Qualified for the second round of Wimbledon against Valentin Royer, the French left-hander spoke to Tennis Majors about one of the most unique aspects of his playing style: his extremely low string tension, around 10 kilos.
Tennis Majors: Adrian, a few weeks ago we filmed a video for UTS and you brought your racket close to the camera mic so we could hear the sound of your hand hitting the strings. You said, “that’s the sound of a fishing net…”
Adrian Mannarino: Yes, meaning the sound of a racket that’s really not very tightly strung. I think I’m one of the players with the loosest strings on tour. That one, for instance, is strung at 9.5 kilos. I fluctuate between 9 and 11 kilos. It depends a bit on the stringers and the playing conditions at the tournaments.
Tennis Majors: How do you end up deciding to go that low?
Adrian Mannarino: I started like everyone else, above 20 kilos. And over the years, I went lower and lower. It just suits my game, plain and simple. Unfortunately, when I try to raise the tension a bit, I start hitting the bottom of the net if I lack confidence or feel. People often tell me it’s incredible to play with such low tension. But for me, it’s just what suits me best. It’s not something I’m proud of or anything like that—it’s just that when I step on the court, I want to win, and what helps me the most to win a match is playing with that tension.
Most players adjust one kilo at a time. I adjust by 200 to 400 grams.
Tennis Majors: What makes it 9.5 and not, say, 11?
Adrian Mannarino: Every stringing machine is a little different. They’re calibrated differently. At some tournaments, they “string tight.” Generally, players hand over two or three rackets when they arrive to get a feel for how the stringer works at that event. Sometimes it’s hard to find your ideal tension. Most players adjust one kilo at a time. I adjust by 200 to 400 grams. It’s true, I’m a bit meticulous about that… The lowest I’ve gone is 8 kilos. And the highest in the past two years has probably been 11.5 kilos. So I vary within a range of 2 to 3 kilos max. But it’s true that the little details make a big difference. We’re all pretty particular about it.
Tennis Majors: Playing with a fishing net—what does that give you, in terms of feel and ability on court, that a 23-kilo racket wouldn’t?
Adrian Mannarino: The looser the strings, the more trampoline effect you get. The ball sinks into the strings and comes off a little faster. But the trampoline effect has to be controlled, because the ball comes off quickly. So if you can’t really manage it with your hand, the ball gets away from you pretty easily. I think I’m a player who relies more on feel than most, so I can manage it. On the other hand, I lack power. It’s a mix that works for me. Other players need to hit the ball really hard to feel in control. I’m thinking of players like Rafa (Nadal), or Casper (Ruud) probably, who like standing far behind the baseline and really pounding the ball. They need much tighter strings. To get some return and have the ball come off fast, you have to stay very loose, and this tension allows me to do that.
Tennis Majors: When did you start going lower and reach these really unconventional tensions? How did you break away from what’s “normal” on the tour? Were there people telling you “you’re crazy”? I imagine you had to figure this out mostly on your own.
Adrian Mannarino: Yeah, it’s true that I had coaches who would tell me, when I was playing badly, “Look, your racket isn’t tight enough, you need to add some tension.” But that went against what I was feeling. I remember a Challenger tournament where the stringer was quite strong. At that time, I was stringing around 21, 22, even 23 kilos. And I remember saying to my coach back then, “No way I’m going below 20 kilos, that’s impossible. I mean, nobody does that.” And with time, I ended up at 10 kilos. But yeah, it happened gradually. If someone had told me that back then, I wouldn’t have believed them.
Tennis Majors: But what allowed you to silence that little voice saying it’s not reasonable to go under 20 kilos?
Adrian Mannarino: It’s true that if you listen to others… It’s like anything in life. Sometimes you just have to trust yourself. Go with your convictions. Early in my career, I would go two or three weeks without breaking a string. Over time, the tension would drop, and I found I liked the feel. I thought: “Why not just keep it low from the start?” What’s certain is that I’ve played my best tennis these past two or three years with that tension. It proved me right. When you’re a professional athlete, you just have to listen to yourself and tune out the rest. As soon as you start comparing yourself to others, it gets complicated. You just have to follow your instinct.
There are a few of us—more than you might think. I did it for five or six years before anyone really noticed.
Tennis Majors: Are there other “Mannarinos” on tour, players we don’t know about who also string really low?
Adrian Mannarino: I know a few. There was the Italian Filippo Volandri who used to string around 12-13 kilos. These are slightly less well-known players, but there’s Mikhail Kukushkin, former world No. 39, who was between 12 and 14 kilos. Jack Sock was in that range. Thiago Seyboth Wild, when he played France in Davis Cup, was stringing at 11 kilos. There are a few of us—more than you might think. I did it for five or six years before anyone really noticed.
Tennis Majors: Does low tension make the strings more fragile, or does it actually make them more elastic and durable?
Adrian Mannarino: I don’t have detailed info to be sure. What I do know is that I don’t put much spin on the ball. So I almost never break my strings. The rare times I do, it’s in winter during pre-season. After a week or a week and a half. But generally, I break them myself just to get the racket restrung. We all go into matches with three to six fresh rackets to make sure we don’t have any surprises and don’t snap a string on an important point that could cost us the game.
Tennis Majors: And here at Wimbledon, with it being very hot this year, how do you adjust your tension?
Adrian Mannarino: It doesn’t have much impact, especially since the real issue for me—and for a lot of players—is that we’re picky, and there aren’t many stringers who can handle us. When you string that low, if the knot at the end isn’t tied properly, it can change everything. And there’s one more thing—I ask for the last string to be tensioned at 20 kilos. Otherwise, I end up losing my vibration dampener every three games. No one wants to keep picking it up, or worse, lose it between points.
