HAMILTON, Ohio — The sound is simple: a string pulled tight, a cutter snipping away excess, a racket being prepared for the next match.
For most people, stringing a tennis racket looks like a puzzle with no instructions.
For Drew Violette, it has become second nature.
"I usually watch TV while I'm doing it, so I don't have to watch what I'm doing," Violette said. "When I weave here, I don't really have to know what I'm doing because I know that I got it right."
WATCH: How a Hamilton racket stringer went from local courts to the Cincinnati Open
That level of precision has taken Violette from local tennis clubs in the Cincinnati area to some of the sport's biggest stages.
The owner of Next Level Stringing inside Riverside Athletic Club in Hamilton has worked the Cincinnati Open three times and traveled to Spain for the Madrid Open, stringing rackets for some of the best players in the world.
His list of clients includes former world No. 1 Iga Świątek, Grand Slam champion Madison Keys, Tommy Paul, Jessica Pegula, Maria Sakkari and dozens of other ATP and WTA professionals.
But the journey started long before the professional tournaments.
It started when Violette was 14 years old.
While walking past tennis courts at his junior high school, a coach noticed him and invited him to try the sport. Not long after falling in love with tennis, Violette learned another skill that would eventually shape his career: racket stringing.
His coach had a machine at home and showed him how to string.
"He literally showed me one racket one time and said, 'Just let me know when you're coming over,'" Violette said. "And I just took off from there."
By high school, Violette was stringing rackets for his teammates.
The process was much slower back then.
He remembers spending hours preparing rackets for tournaments, including one night when he strung eight rackets for his team.
Now, a professional racket can be finished in about 12 minutes.
The speed, however, does not come from cutting corners. It comes from years of perfecting every detail.
"I don't know how to string any other way," Violette said. "I can string for a lady here that's just starting tennis, and I'll literally string her racket the exact same way [as the pros]."
That consistency is what helped him reach the professional level.
Violette credits much of his growth to his mentor, Jeff Turner, who spent years teaching him the craft.
"He deserves most of the credit, if not all the credit for me," Violette said. "He taught me his 40 years of knowledge in about 10 years."
As a teenager, Violette found inspiration in an unlikely place: a book about tennis legend Andre Agassi.
"I was probably 16, 17 years old. I read the Andre Agassi book, and he had a stringer, like a traveling stringer with him," Violette said.
"That kind of was my spark on like, wow, I could really, I could string for the pros."
Years later, that dream became reality.
Violette now finds himself inside the same tournaments he once attended as a fan. Growing up, he regularly traveled to Cincinnati to watch players like Agassi and Roger Federer compete.
Now, instead of sitting in the stands, he is behind the scenes helping prepare the equipment those players depend on.
At a professional tournament, every detail matters.
"The player is important," Violette said. "But what touches the ball? The strings touch the ball."
"So I find that the strings, if those are not accurate, that's the number one and most important thing to get the strings right."
For fans watching professional tennis, the racket is only one part of the story.
Before the world's best players step onto the court, there are people behind the scenes making sure every detail is ready.
For Violette, that journey has been built one racket at a time.
What started as a teenager learning a skill in high school has grown into a business stringing more than 4,000 rackets a year, and a career helping some of tennis' biggest names trust the equipment in their hands.
