Smithtown Man Pulling Strings At the U.S. Open

A Smithtown man followed his passion for tennis to the U.S. Open, where he's stringing together tennis rackets for professional players. 

Adam Hunter, 31, is one of 16 members of an elite stringing team at the U.S. Open at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Hunter works carefully stringing tennis rackets for some of the world's best tennis players, Newsday reports.

It's a demanding and hard task. Hunter carefully glides natural gut, made from cow's intestine, into the small holes on a tennis racket while adjusting the tensions. He knots it, snips it and repeats until the racket is finished - an art he's perfected over the years while working for Grand Slam Tennis in Commack. 

Hunter played tennis for Smithtown middle school and high school teams. He then moved on to play tennis at Methodist University in Fayetteville, N.C., where he studied business and professional tennis management. 

"He eats, sleeps and breathes tennis," said his father, David Hunter, to Newsday. "He knows more about rackets and stringing than [all but] maybe 10 other people on the planet." 

Read more on Newsday [subscription required] about Adam Hunter and his work at the U.S. Open.