I was reading the comments about pros and stringing over on the equipment forum and thought about the stringers that I know, and realised not a single one I know I would consider an elite player. Okay this could hurt some feelings here, and I'm not attacking any of your badminton skills since I haven't seen any of you play, but from my experience, most of the younger people [1] that string, whilst some of them are quite good, not even one of them plays at the top standard. So why is that? Is it because elite players spend too much time playing to worry about stringing (which admittedly takes a lot of time). Or because elite players can play well with any racquet and strings that are remotely good so don't care? (I've noticed a lot of the people that string their own are quite meticulous and pedantic types that need their equipment to be just right so that they are happy to play with it (this one has quite a few exceptions that I can think of admittedly)) [1] I can think of one or two who may have been elite back in their time, however it's hard to judge now. Also they may have taken up stringing after their peak, I don't konw.
There were only 2 persons that I know who used to strung their own racquets and also elite players. Both of them were my coaches; 1 played for provincial team (and did not want to play for the national team - was said that he was even better than the then Chinese singles champion) and another a top Chinese national player. Both of them are very specific the way they strung their racquets: tension measured by 'hands and ears' to their requirement and also racquet (for national team player) made specifically by a factory according to his specifications - weight, head heavy, racquet head shape, etc. At that time they had their (monthly??) strings supply and used to re-string their racquets almost every week themselves manually. BTW strings used were 'gut' strings, China made. I wouldn't they did not care about their equipment, they were quite demanding but also they knew what they wanted. And of course, they also knew how to adapt to different racquets, but that do not mean they did not have preferred equipment.
