by Loria Stern Stepping onto the iconic red-clay courts of the Monte Carlo Country Club, it’s hard not to be struck by the sheer beauty of the surroundings: The sparkling Mediterranean Sea glistening in the distance, and the red-clay courts fenced by stone masonry dating back to the early 1900s. The Monte Carlo Country Club has a rich history starting when the club’s founders, a group of British expatriates and tennis aficionados, sought to create a haven for tennis enthusiasts on the French Riviera. Starting in 1897 with the inaugural Monte Carlo Masters, the club has become a premier des ..read more

Earlier this year, the perpetually feisty player affectionately known on Tennis Twitter as DanYELL announced she would retire at the end of the season. In honor of her stellar run at the Miami Open, we’re republishing an excerpt of a profile from Issue No. 10, by Vanity Fair veteran and author Lili Anolik. Can a girl, one ultra-femme in look and manner, be cocksure? If she moves with a lithe feline grace, every gesture sleek, preening, self-contained, is it possible that she also swaggers and struts, chin up, shoulders back, like a gunslinger, like a gangster, like Mick Jagger? Is there a d ..read more

Is one of SoCal’s many attempts to gamify a thing that’s already a game a gateway to tennis paradise? The assumption that lies behind every iteration of Tennis Lite, or Tennis Fast, or Tennis Short, is that there’s something inherently wrong with Tennis Regular, and that it can be improved. Or, at the very least, that we the tennis literati need to offer something approachable to newcomers and people with tiny little attention spans. Cricket did it to great effect; shortening days-long test matches into digestible two- to three-hour short-form affairs wasn’t such a bad idea. And everyone, i ..read more

by Racquet This week, Diana Shnaider, the 19-year-old from Russia who has her head scarves sewn to size, descends upon Indian Wells like a Valkyrie, flaxen tresses locked down for battle. Her remarkable bandana-cum-babuskha got us to look up, briefly, from the desert Plexipave courts and consider the many sartorial choices players have made where headbands are concerned. Forthwith, we surmise some whys and several wherefores of tennis headband choices. We encourage you to use this guide as a metaphorical bingo card this week as the pros trot out their headgear. To keep your flapper bangs from ..read more

By Allen McDuffee In the mid-1980s, when Pete Sampras was barely a teenager pounding away at the Jack Kramer Club, his coach was secretly building a case to convince the Sampras family that young Pete should ditch his two-handed backhand for a one hander. It was a tough sell. Sampras hadn’t really hit his growth spurt yet, and the backhand is what had helped him beat his contemporary junior rivals such as Michael Chang. But his coach wasn’t concerned with the hard courts of Southern California; he was methodically plotting the future and how to mold Sampras into the next Rod Laver. “That mean ..read more

By Racquet As 2024 travel plans begin to coalesce—and, to be clear, this is in no way intended to make you stress out about not having 2024 travel plans yet—but maybe you should start thinking about it, you know?—we at Racquet want to make sure you include tennis in your calculations. To that end, we’ve asked contributors and some of our favorite rec players for their opinions on the best courts and how to make the most of them. Tell us about the most visually stunning tennis courts you’ve ever seen: Wendy Laird, editor and frequent Racquet contributor: This is a difficult question. My fonde ..read more

By Theresa Lin On Saturday Zheng Qinwen became only the second Chinese tennis player in history to contend for a Grand Slam singles final a decade after Li Na lifted the Australian Open trophy in Melbourne. She was overwhelmed by a dominant Aryna Sabalenka, but in talking to her a little more than a year ago, it’s hard for me not to think that Zheng’s arrival was preordained, maybe even destined. But she wouldn’t put it that way. Speaking with her in late 2022 for the cover story of Racquet Issue No. 21, I was struck by the 20-year-old’s poise as she articulated her ambitions—to become a top ..read more

Year-end events are the pot-liquor of the ever-lengthening year, served up lukewarm to those of us who watch ALL of the tennis, when the worst elements of the pro tour combine in one last wringing-out of the tennis calendar: The China swing that wasn’t supposed to happen (see: Peng Shuai. Oh wait; you can’t). The hastily-organized WTA finals. Exhibition matches. But come January, those of us who endured all that are gifted with the glory of the Summer Down Ummer (or the Sunder Down Under, if you prefer; pick one, but it has to rhyme). This is the month during which we in the northern hemispher ..read more

Decades of upgrades (and some savvy urban planning) have put the AO well ahead of the field By Allen McDuffee In 2007, when Roger Federer dubbed the Australian Open the “Happy Slam,” he crystallized a sentiment that players and fans had been feeling for years. Sure, maybe it’s the fresh outlook of a new season or the Aussie summer sun in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere’s cold winter. But it’s more than that. What transpires over the course of two weeks at Melbourne Park has a vibe the other majors just can’t beat. This fortnight is not just a competition — it’s a celebration of all thing ..read more

A throwback to the “old” Australian Open by David Rosenberg If you arrive in Melbourne in January, even if you don’t follow tennis, you’d be hard-pressed not to figure out something big was happening a short walk from the center of town. As you enter Melbourne Park, the blue courts and blue-lined public areas give one the feeling of being enveloped by a concrete ocean, filled with fans crowding matches, catching up with friends, listening to live music, and drinking a few beers. It’s not intimate, but it is relaxed. Still, it hardly compares to where the tournament was held before it moved in ..read more