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In celebration of finally getting the Web Site up and running and in pursuit of total "currentness, cutting edgeness and coolness", I decided to strut off to the World Sport Expo in Munich, Germany that ran over four days last July (2001). I soon realised strutting was very uncool so I decided on renting a roller scooter for the day instead.

The ISPO is an "industry only" show, so therefore I was obliged to show my sports business card and pay the 30 DM ($15 USD) entry. It was my third show and by far the most interesting and innovative of all of them. With so much to see from Kite Surfing, motorised scooters to fashion shows, it was hard to know what was lying or flying around the next corner.

I finally made it through to the tennis hall, very BIG. There was all sorts of tennis equipment available. In fact, "every-tennis-stuff-for-the-tennis- buff". It was truly an enthusiast's wonderland. It was then I realised tennis had a very distinct language of its own.

I'm not talking about any fifteen love or deuce kind of language. I'm talking full-blown Cantonese, Korean, Taiwan kind of language. All you have to do to fit in was to keep smiling, nodding and say lots of graphite's and titanium's. Business people with their holsters packed with zeros were the norm and huge deals were being negotiated over coffee tables.

After having met some of these so-called "experts", I thought it was quite strange that not one of them had actually played the game at a Pro level. It makes you wonder who's designing our rackets?

I asked a few "experts" what new gimmicks; paint jobs and catchy names like titanium and Viper were going to hit the market next year? It was going to be hard to beat the Viper though. Just when you thought they had run out of animals that typify the characteristics of a tennis racket, somebody comes out with a type of snake. I thought how clever that was and waited in hope that this year the Southern Typan racket, "the deadliest racket on earth" would surface.

I was disappointed to hear we had gone Hi-Tech and not Ty-pan. Words like intelfiber, "piezoelectric effect" and Tungsten were being bounced off the walls like pressure less balls at altitude. I thought the racket "Head Intelligence" was provocative. I found the pretence that since I didn't use the Head Intelligence I was therefore playing with a "stupid racket", quite hurtful really.

A couple of horror stats came my way after exercising my journalistic talents at extracting information. The prise of producing a racket is about $25 USD and the majority of rackets (different brands) are made in the same factory. One company makes about 60% of all Over Rap Grips. A vibro stop costs about 10 cents to make. The cost of any sporting item must be sold at a retail price at least 5 times its cost to make it worthwhile producing.

It was great to see all the latest ideas and innovations covering all facets of tennis. I got a few ideas out of it as well, like combining tennis and darts for example, more challenging! I challenged Munich to stimulate my interest and inventiveness and it certainly didn't let me down. I'm still trying to get over the Typan thing though, but I just can't!