You knew I was a winner and now ADV has confirmed it!

A contest winner that is…

A few days ago I was one of the winners of a drawing sponsored by premium bag maker ADV. Me? I seldom enter and never win contests but I did this time.

The package from ADV includes a really nice court towel made from organic cotton, some bamboo wristbands and 12 ADV over grips, six in black which is less tacky but thicker (.75mm) and six in white which is thinner (.60mm) and tackier although not as tacky as the mint green over grips from Toroline which I have decided are actually too tacky for my tastes.

ADV calls the black Felt Tac and the texture is excellent. I wish it, too, was .6mm but perhaps its thickness is a function of the material. My problem is that I use two over grips rather than a replacement grip on my racket that cries out for a black grip. I know — complicated.

The white has a very pleasing texture and I am cool with its level of tackiness. Like all thin over grips it requires care while wrapping since any wrapping sloppiness results in puckering.

Let’s face it — I am beyond picky when it comes to grips. It all started with golf and my relentless search for the perfect grip. By the way, it was Golf Pride 50th Anniversary. For some reason, GP used a proprietary and never-again-used rubber compound for that grip. In the decades before I left golf behind I hoarded dozens and dozens. Yup. Crazy. The ADV Felt Tac is the best feeling over grip I’ve used but I need to figure out a combination that allows me to get the grip size I need.

The last item is perhaps the most versatile. Ostensibly, it’s an expandable packing cube. But when I look at it I see a hold everything bag for my current tennis bag. I like to pack light when I play and that means using a 3-racket bag. The bag is Ok but is very short on what I call zippered storage. Since I use the bag to carry two rackets it leaves plenty of space for the ADV packing cube whether it’s expanded or not.

I am hoping that someday ADV will make a bag that falls between its Tennis Bag PRO V3 and its backpack-style bags. I like the idea of the backpack solution until I want to travel with my tennis gear (at least several times a year) and that’s when I need a conventional tennis bag. My wishlist includes a new bag from ADV designed for 4-6 rackets — kind of scaled-down version of the PRO V3.

But hey, I am not complaining (again). Before I close I want to thank ADV for holding the drawing and the tennis gods for making sure I finally won something other than a tennis match.

Thanks, ADV (and the tennis gods).