Babolat is a France-base tennis, badminton, and squash equipment company, best known for its racquets which are used by several top players such as Andy Roddick, Rafael Nadal, Fernando Gonzalez, Robby Ginepri, Igor Andreev, Carlos Moya and Karim Alami. The company has made strings since 1875, when Pierre Babolat created the first strings made of natural gut. Babolat continued to focus on strings until 1994, when it became a "total tennis" company. That is, Babolat began producing racquet frames and selling them in Europe. It then moved on to Japan, and later to the USA in 2000. The popularity of Babolat racquets picked up quickly in North America and Europe, trademarked by the easily identifiable double lines across the strings of the racquet face, and along the racquet frame itself.