A Jorge Rodriguez Perezpeople usually know him by Jorge Lillo. He comes from his grandfather, Dr. Pérez Lillo, and being from Ponferrada all his life, he has had to inherit it. For tennis fans in the Bierzo region, Lillo is a proper name for your work as a stringer, which he has practiced since the mid-1990s. But not only in Bierzo is his expertise recognized in this task, essential for playing tennis; in fact, this week he is in Madrid, working at the Mutua Open for the tenth time, stringing the rackets of the best players in the world.
Through Jorge’s hands, throughout his professional career in tournaments such as the one in Madrid but also the GodóMallorca, Spanish championships and many others, rackets like those of Serena Williams o Novak Djokovic, the russian Medviedev (current number two in the world) or Mike Bryanone of the best doubles players in history.
Jorge explains his work as that of a Formula 1 mechanic although, he explains, the mode of operation on the tennis circuit it is different from car racing. There, each team has its mechanics; in a tournament like Mutua, the company in charge of stringing the rackets, this time at the Masters 1000 in Madrid, will be Babolathires a series of people (around a dozen), including Jorge, who take care of having the rackets of all the participants ready.
The work in the Master of Madrid will not be little because, after the Grand Slam, the Masters 1000 are the most important and crowded tournaments but, in addition, the one in Madrid is celebrated in both the male and female categories, which doubles, compared to other tournaments of the same category, the volume of work of the stringers. “In Madrid, you see things that you don’t see in other tournaments,” Jorge Lillo tells us.
Stringing the best
The stringing of rackets in a tournament like the Mutua Madrid Open works as follows, explains this man from Ponferrada: the player brings his rackets and specifies the characteristics and delivery time at the reception, which is handled by two people. It is they, the tennis players, who provide the strings they want, in a reel. All this is left at the reception and taken to the room where the stringers, a dozen, and their machines are. Once there, it is handed over to the professional who has been assigned to take care of the material of that player or player and it is roped.
Each entry in the table will have the same stringer and the same machine throughout the competitionso that the conditions in which you find the racket are exactly what you are looking for, without noticeable differences from one to another, from one day to the next or even from one tournament to another.
Later, someone else paints the logo and it is stored, until it is delivered or they come to pick it up, which is dealt with again by the reception and delivery staff. At the end of the tournament, or each player’s journey, the players will go to the Cashier, where they will be paid their prize (according to the round they have reached), discounting the services provided, both for stringing (about 25 euros per racket) and others such as laundry, meals, physical therapist assistance, etc.
Reception and delivery, stringers and those in charge of painting the logos are a team and although they vary and there are new people compared to the previous year, they more or less know each other. Lillo says that one of his teammates in Madrid has done three Roland Garros and two Wimbledons, which shows the level then, explains Jorge, “Going to Wimbledon is very complicated.”
The repeated hits and the friction with the tennis ball end up breaking the string of a tennis racket. This starts to happen, generally, from an intermediate level of the game, when you have learned to print effects, especially the topspin. At the professional level, Lillo tells us, the stringer must be able to repeat the conditions that the competitor is looking for and in a tournament like the Mutua Open, where the players “play a lot of money from the first game”he explains, the rackets are carefully prepared for one training session and will surely be strung again for the next one, let alone for the game.
In general, players string 2, 4 or 8 rackets a day, although in a tournament of the size of the Master 1000 in Madrid, some great figure may order 8 in the morning and another 8 in the afternoon. On average, a racket is usually strung at 25 kilos (the weight -although today the machines are electronic- that is put on the arm with which the string is tightened). In his career, Lillo has come across truly extravagant hobbies and peculiarities, such as stringing a well-known player to 11 kilos and that his opponent was playing with 34, “crazy for both of them,” he tells us.
Jorge Lillo, a sports figure in Ponferrada
Since he went to his first Spanish Championship in 2002 (to work as a stringer) until this, his tenth participation in the Mutua Madrid Open, 20 years and many rackets have passed through the hands of Jorge Lillo. But to get to take care of those of the professionals, he had already spent about 10 years before in the store of Ovi Sportwhich later became Intersport, on Ave María de Ponferrada street.
In this business, where he learned how to string from a representative of a brand of rackets, he gradually discovered and developed his expertise, although curiously, he tells us, his brother had already dedicated himself to stringing, this in Guiana Sportanother of the sports stores that are already part of the history of the city of Ponferrada.
At that time, “they put 5 guts a month,” Jorge tells us. Gut is the highest quality type of string, with the greatest feel, also the one that breaks the fastest. A string like this, Lillo points out, can cost from 60 euros (plus labor).
Without internet commerce or large surfaces specialized in sports (Lillo remembers that at the end of the ’90s he went to Asturias to discover one of these, after its opening), Ovi Sport became the store for tennis fans. “It sold a lot and worked very well”, recalls Jorge, for whom from that time “there was no other store in Ponferrada with so much material [de tenis]”, although from memory he can cite that there was a stringing machine, in addition to his own, both in Delta like in Marquis.
After that came that opportunity from the hand of Babolat for the Spain Championshipin Majadahonda in 2002, his first foray into elite tennis as a stringer. Later, he would chain two years at the Mutua Madrid Open and one at the Godo, working for Technifibre; and from that moment, she worked six years to Wilsonin which, among others, he was in charge of the Estoril Tournament.
Thanks to the good work of his hands, this man from Berciano has spent two decades in the kitchens of the world tennis elites, as a precise and efficient mechanic that makes possible the spectacular display of players on the court, which the public enjoys so much. During these 20 years, he has been able to get to know the vicissitudes of the circuit from within, he has dealt with players, coaches and other professionals who move to the first level, like him, in the world of tennis.
Stringing from El Bierzo for everyone
Jorge Lillo has been and is a privileged witness to two glorious decades of Spanish tennis. For example: he remembers, in a Espinar tournament, “a kid that everyone was talking about, that you had to go see him” because of how he ran, because of how he hit the ball. Three or four years later, while stringing up in the Godó, it was found that this kid had physically transformed and was now a giant we all know as Rafael Nadal.
But despite moving behind the scenes of world tennis, Jorge Lillo, who has been from Ponferrada all his life, is a humble and discreet guy. Those who know him know that he is a responsible, professional and rigorous person. The previous week he may have had in his hands the racket of a top tenbut if he is commissioned to string a guaje from the municipal school who has broken strings for the first time, he will receive the new string with the same care that would have been dedicated to a sports star.
Because this stringer, from Ponferrada all his life, is, as they say, very much his own. In fact, in addition to mentioning top-level competitions and world-famous big names, he stands out among the moments of his career as a stringer, a very special one. It is the Mutual of 2018, when, in the cadet category, the berciana participated Raquel Villán.
“In a professional tournament, you string so many rackets of people you don’t know, and it turns out that one day you can string Raquel’s!” Jorge Lillo recalls excitedly. “It was very cool that Raquel was in Madrid,” he recalls; “And she was treated like Roger Federer was coming.” Like a number one, like many Bercian fans, thanks to Jorge Lillo, he “carried his rackets in perfect condition”.
