HOW FIBER OPTIC CABLES WORK

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN - THE BLASPHEMIST

WIMBLEDON, England — The pastor of a Baptist church near this tabernacle of tennis has posted what could be the perfect topic for his Sunday sermon on the eve of the 125th Wimbledon Tennis Championships at the All England Club.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Cat Gut ...... Not!

A firm in Norfolk collects cow intestines by the bucketful from local abattoirs and turns them into the kind of natural gut strings favoured by many of the world's top tennis players.

"It takes about four cow's guts to string the average racquet," production manager Rosina explains.

To produce the strings, the cow guts are cleaned and cut into 40ft strands before being chemically treated to preserve them.

Each string is made up of 15 individual strands which are spun very tightly together to coalesce them, before being dried out in a humid room to prevent cracking.

It is a painstaking process that takes six weeks from start to finish, but according to Rosina, it is worth the wait.

"With synthetic string, once it's in the racquet and is hit by a ball, it will stretch and stay stretched, but because gut has a natural memory, it always tries to return to its original form, therefore absorbing the shock a lot more and reducing the risk of tennis elbow."

The company, which has been plying its unusual trade for more than 100 years, also uses the same techniques to produce gut strings for harps and other early instruments.

BBC

Nestor-Mirnyi win Paris

Canadian Daniel Nestor retained his Roland Garros doubles crown as he and Belarusian partner Max Mirnyi won their first Grand Slam title together by defeating South Americans Juan Sebastian Cabal and Eduardo Schwank 7-6(3), 3-6, 6-4 in Saturday’s final in Paris.

"It's unbelievable. I never get too old," declared Nestor. "[The] biggest goal in my career is winning Grand Slams. They're all special for different reasons. Every time you win with a new partner, that first one is an amazing feeling. Today is no exception."

Added Mirnyi, "I think any Grand Slam is a special win, but particularly for a new team it's a very important hump to get over. We knew on paper we're capable of playing well together. [But] up until you produce a result, you never know. Now having won a Grand Slam we know what we need to work on. We hope to maintain the level and hopefully get many more important wins."

World No. 3 Nestor lifted the winners’ trophy last year with Serbia’s Nenad Zimonjic, and had also triumphed in 2007 with former long-time partner Mark Knowles of the Bahamas. The 33-year-old Mirnyi also won the title for the third time, having won back-to-back trophies with Jonas Bjorkman in 2005-2006.

Tour-level debutant Cabal and partner Schwank had been the surprise of the tournament on their way through to the final, including taking out World No. 1 pairing Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan in the semi-finals. The Colombian-Argentine duo carried their good form into the final as they pushed second seeds Mirnyi and Nestor to a first-set tie-break before surrendering the opener.

ATP