Former Lowcliffe lad Tony Ralfe has made a lifelong career out of tennis.
With a strong involvement and love of the sport over the years, he has been able to add many strings to his bow, or rackets as the case may be.
He is patron of Canterbury Tennis, a recipient of Tennis New Zealand’s Lifetime Achievement Award and restrings rackets as part of his semi retirement lifestyle.
He is an International Tennis Federation and Women’s Tennis Association approved stringer.
The 75-year-old said he started playing tennis on grass courts at Lowcliffe when he was 12.
He also played squash in Ashburton through schooling at Lowcliffe School.
He said he was later a last day pupil at Ashburton Technical College, and a first day pupil at Hakatere College; the college was renamed in 1963.
As a teen he then moved to Christchurch for work. He worked at Turner and Le Brun Sports Shop, known more then for its fishing and hunting products, he said. When the owners found out he was into tennis and squash they put him in charge of racket sports. He worked in the shop for 35 years.
Now semi retired, Tony and wife Maureen have Tony’s Racket Stringing Services. He has been restringing rackets of all shapes and sizes for more than 58 years. It takes him on average 25 minutes to restring one racket.
Multifilament and polyester strings were more popular now compared to the natural gut strings he first worked with. Polyester was considered more durable for modern play. Gut was more expensive too, but while it had a softer feel during play, it was not robust in wet conditions, he said.
During the ITF J60 Tennis Tour in Ashburton last week he restrung more than 100 tennis rackets for junior players in the weeklong tournament.
But although the work at Ashburton has finished, Tony was already scheduled to be courtside at upcoming tournaments in Christchurch and Timaru.
