Broken Strings and Torn Shoes

Broken String:
So the other day -- and by that I mean yesterday of course -- I tore the string on my Apacs Nano 9600 Racket. It was about to tear for quite some time -- you can see one section of the main strings being cut through by the cross strings. So then I had to go back to my Yonex CAB30. After playing with it for a while, I've decided to return to it as my first choice racket now :). All of a sudden, my drop shots were much more improved, and I believe that is so due to the stiffness of the CAB30 racket. I guess I've improved enough over the last year to generate enough power even on that stiff racket! Once you tear a string, I've seen people cut up the rest of the strings with scissors!! The reasoning behind that is that once you tear a string, the tensions become unbalanced around the racket, and apparently, that *may* deform the racket -- but very minutely of course.

Torn Shoes as well:
Well, not only did I tear a string yesterday, but my 2 and half month old badminton shoes kinda started to come apart pretty bad -- so much that I can't use them anymore. They were from Asics (The Asics Gel Rocket IV shoe). The gum rubber sole was started to come off under my right heal, and it was starting to tear away. It really sucked!! I mean, I've only had the shoes for two and a half months. And I haven't played even played for a month around christmas time!! This wasn't really damage due to 'wear and tear' since I've never worn out a shoe that quickly. It must have been a product defect! So what I did today was I checked the Asics website to see what sort of warranty they have. Luckily, it mentioned that the shoes are warranted by the retail store that I bought it from. So I went back to the store, Sport Chalet, and guess what?? They took it back and exchanged the shoe to a brand new pair!!!! No questions asked!! Now thats a commitment to their customer. I like Sport Chalet a lot (www.sportchalet.com). And I guess after today, I'll make every effort to shop from their store whenever I can.