At a tennis tournament, Barry had broken all of his strings and asked Lew Hoad (who he greatly admired) if he could borrow one of his racquets. For some reason, even though they both played with identical models (Dunlop Maxply) Lew’s racquet seemed to play better and get more spin.

Later on he found out, that Lew Hoad’s racquets were made on a certain machine, that was so old that it had started drilling the grommets wider, making for a slightly more open string pattern  that allowed for more grip on the ball and hence more topspin.

Barry would constantly tinker with different string patterns and systems throughout his career. And invented variations of the famous Spaghetti string system that was by a German fellow. A farmer who was a tennis fanatic and somewhat of a genius. He explained to Barry the theory behind his string system despite the language barrier and it ended up taking the world by storm. Every player who played with it couldn’t lose! Balls were flying off the racquet so fast that players at the net could barely see the ball, this was getting dangerous!

A friend of Barry’s, the original Bad Boy of Tennis Illie Nastasie asked Barry to let him have a few of these amazing and strange racquets. Illie couldn’t lose! He was so confident he taunted his opponents and laughed at them singing ‘You can’t win because you don’t this string system’. There was an uproar of course, and the tennis string system ended up being banned.

Which is sad in a way, because it had made tennis so much faster and exhilarating for the public to watch. In the modern age, the aggressive serve style of play has been phased out due to grass courts being replaced by slower hard and clay courts.

Barry couldn’t be stopped however, and he invented a new string system. Twelve main strings and thirteen cross strings. He had an agreement with another German tennis racquet manufacturer ‘Snauwaert’. They made a new line of extreme spin and power racquets called the ‘Hi-Ten’s’ due to the fact that the strings had to be strung at extreme high tensions to make up for the open string pattern. Luxilon made the custom strings, thick 1.6mm. Players loved the power, however there was a quiet uproar once again. This time from the tennis string manufacturers and tennis clubs. This new system could put them all out of business because they lasted too long!

A few hundred thousand were originally made, and due to the demand the second round of manufacturing was going to go full steam ahead with a much larger quantity to satisfy the market demand. The day before manufacturing was about to begin, Disaster, he died of a heart attack. The bank seized control of Snauwaert until his children were old enough to take over.

Barry’s top pupil Mark Woodforde however continued with the Hi-Ten and raced up the rankings, his attacking slice backhand and heavy topspin forehand followed by a lethal net game took advantage of the wider string bed which favoured the more aggressive playing style.

Barry retired to his hometown of Adelaide with Anne by his side, they were married for a total of 66 years and could never be separated. Before he passed away he wrote a memoire of his tennis life. A beautiful read, taking the reader to an age long gone now and a unique historical perspective of life on the tour. It is called “A life with two lovers” a professional tennis players life story about his love for his wife and the game of tennis. We hope it will be published very soon.

In Barry’s final days he was feverishly working on two projects, creating a new string system that would change the game of tennis. He was worried that it was getting too boring and defensive, rallies lasting forever. With the added power and spin of his racquets he could make tennis fast and furious once again, giving serve-volleyers a chance to dominate once again. The other was for a “Green’ racquet, that wouldn’t break and that was made from recyclable materials. He felt it was important to give an opportunity to children in less fortunate parts of the world a chance to play also without worrying about the cost of constant string breakages.

I hope you have enjoyed this little about section. As a former student of Barry’s I hope to carry on his legacy and bring his dream into fruition. While we are small, and have only just begun production with a few ‘Prototype Test’ Racquets. We will be soon offering a wide range of Phillips-Moore Tennis Racquets to suit every player, no matter your style or level.

Wishing you a more thrilling game of tennis,

Sincerely,

Jean-Robin Levent Ladin
In loving memory of Barry Phillips-Moore my Mentor.