Courts à géométrie variable

Depuis 2020, avec son toit rétractable, le central de Roland-Garros a pris une nouvelle dimension. Mais si l’enceinte a grandi en prestige, le court dans ses limites définies par les lignes blanches n’a pas bougé d’un iota.

Quel que soit le continent, le pays ou le club dans lequel on joue, les dimensions du terrain restent identiques. Cela fait partie des règles intangibles qui font la beauté de nos sports de raquettes préférés.

À part au Masters, où par le passé on avait osé provisoirement escamoter les couloirs (qui, il est vrai, ne servent à rien en simple), personne ne s’est jamais permis d’en changer le dessin, la mesure, la planéité ou la géométrie. Personne, à part quelques hurluberlus, artistes ou publicitaires. Ces derniers s’en donnent régulièrement à cœur joie pour détourner, agrandir, déstructurer, massacrer ou déplacer ces lignes sacrées.

Petit tour d’horizon des publicités et des opérations marketing créatives qui tracent les perspectives imprévisibles de terrains inédits.

Pringles : « Shaped for nothing else ». Quand tu es plutôt flop spin que top spin. Hong Kong, 2009.

Pour sensibiliser à la cause des sportifs handicapés, la Nippon Paralympic Foundation a conçu des tables spéciales qui simulent les difficultés éprouvées par les athlètes dans leur pratique quotidienne. En France, on aurait pu appeler ça des inéqui-tables. Japon, 2019.

Projet graphique de Hugo Carrapatoso Silva pour Nike Tennis.
Un court peu adapté au jeu dit « à plat » ? Portugal, 2013.

La Fed Cup vue par BNP Paribas. Il est toujours important de surveiller sa ligne avant une compétition. Serbie, 2008.

Decathlon : « The biggest sports store ever ». Un terrain parfait pour Maria Sharapova ? Avec une telle superficie, personne ne l’entendra crier. France, 2006.

Skins : « More speed, more power, more drama ».Il n’est pas rare que le tennis soulève les foules, il est plus rare qu’il soulève le terrain. Australie, 2008.

 « Prenez l’avantage avec un coach de la Fédération de tennis australienne ». C’est ce qui s’appelle jouer avec un handicap. Et c’est la sensation généralement vécue down under par les adversaires de Djokovic. Australie, 2009.

Beijing Sports Radio. Si le terrain pouvait vraiment parler, il signalerait probablement une faute de pied. Chine, 2012.

Pour faire le buzz, la marque Milo a invité des joueurs à s’affronter lors d’une tournante, sur une table ronde… tournante ! Carrément injouable ? Malaisie, 2011.

HTH produits nettoyants : « N’abandonnez pas votre piscine ». Un terrain conçu pour les joueurs qui, comme Federer, ont coutume de marcher sur l’eau ? Afrique du Sud, 2010.

VitaminLife : « Gets harder when you run out of energy ». Pour les matchs qui s’étirent en longueur, tel un Mahut/Isner. Chili, 2018.

Mercedes-Benz a organisé une compétition à trois adversaires, sur un terrain « en étoile » à l’image du logo de la marque. Puisque de nouvelles règles sont à l’essai dans certains tournois, les sponsors décideront-ils un jour de la forme du terrain ? Taïwan, 2018.

Jeu vidéo Top Spin : c’est tout votre salon qui devient un terrain de jeu ! En espérant que le chien ne se mette pas à sauter sur les balles… Afrique du Sud, 2009.

Adidas Tennis illustre assez bien la sensation que doit avoir un joueur en entrant sur le terrain face à Nadal à Roland-Garros. Allemagne, 2002.

MAX Magazine : « Le sport sous tous les angles ». Le court vu par Benoît Paire un lendemain de veille ? Porto Rico, 2008.

Babolat met en scène Andy Roddick sur un terrain en forme de half-pipe, ou le tennis façon sport de glisse ! États-Unis, 2008.

Quand un promoteur immobilier est partenaire de l’Open d’Estoril, ça donne un terrain qui défie tous les plans de jeu. Portugal, 2008.

Article publié dans COURTS n° 9, automne 2020.

The Art of the Dive

Throwing caution to the wind and defying gravity – all for a perfect volley. At Wimbledon, the dives are as delicious as the strawberries and cream. 

 

Stretched out on the grass, soaking in the applause of the Wimbledon faithful. Could there be a sweeter moment for a tennis player? Life and limb have been risked, the body a projectile, a summer-white rocket launched through the air and crashing down on the grass after a picture-perfect volley.

Grigor Dimitrov experienced that perfection in 2017, closing a hard-earned victory over fellow crowd pleaser Marcos Baghdatis with a diving winner that was met with rousing applause.

“It brings back good memories,” Dimitrov told Courts, when asked how he lived the experience. “When you do it at Wimbledon – it’s such a big venue – when you do it in such a big moment, when it happens, you really feel like one with everything, with nature, with the court, with yourself, with the racquet, with the ball, with the crowd, with the grass.”

Dimitrov is a man that knows a thing or two about the time-honoured tradition of stretching out for a dive volley on Wimbledon’s grass. Heck, he even does it on the clay and hard courts, if the situation calls for it.

We were curious to know how he got so good at it. What did we find? There are those who dream, and those who do. And then there is Dimitrov, who does both:

“Honestly, it’s instinct,” he said. “You can’t really practice something like that. For me it’s pure instinct, you just don’t know when it’s going to happen, you dream about it sometimes. I’ve often had interesting dreams of me finishing matches certain ways, to be completely honest. Some have happened, the way I’ve imagined it, so I’m incredibly grateful for that.”

Not all great tennis players have the same dream. World No.1 Ash Barty is an absolute ringer on the grass. But when it comes to diving, she’s not applying for the job.

“No, I don’t think it’s in my repertoire, I don’t think I have that ability to be able to dive and actually stay in control of my body,” she said, smiling, “but it is obviously a spectacle, and it’s pretty cool when guys and girls can pull it off.”

Has Barty, a tried-and-true Aussie who adores the grass, ever tried diving? It seems she was surprised we even asked.

“I can’t say that I have ever… no I don’t think I have.”

Grace under pressure, improvisation, FLIGHT! There’s so much about diving on grass that appeals to the tennis connoisseur. For that rare, precious moment, your favourite player is Superman, lunging through the air to save a point. Pure poetry.

It may seem like it is done with the crowd in mind, but the real showstoppers have only one focus: chasing that yellow tennis ball to the ends of the earth.

“I’m trying to make the point,” says Dustin Brown, one of the most awe-inspiring dive volleyers in the sport today. “Zero-zero, it’s probably not that important but on a break point or a set point, or an important point like that, where I really want to finish it and I need the point, I will definitely dive.”

Brown executed a jaw-dropping forehand volley on set point against former champion Lleyton Hewitt at Wimbledon during a second-round win in 2013. It was a made for YouTube beauty, a pure gem, and the crowd went wild. At Wimbledon, Hewitt is revered. He’s a fabulous fighter and a sporting legend. But who do you think drove the fans out of their seats on that day?

Brown told Courts that practicing judo as a youngster has actually helped his diving technique. He says he learned how to fall doing judo and that skill is one of the most important elements of a proper dive.

“That might be a reason why I land and roll off so quickly and get back up, in judo one of the first things you learn is how to fall and how to not hurt yourself while falling,” he says.

Diving is one thing, but winning the point is another completely. You can get style points for the dive, but if the volley is botched, legendary status may not be achieved. Take it from Brown. “You just have to be crazy to dive, but to stick the landing – and the volley – you have to be exceptional,” he says. 

“Not only concentrating on the dive and not trying to kill yourself, but also trying to put the volley where it needs to be,” is the key according to the German. “If you dive and you just pop up the volley and you get hit with the next ball, that doesn’t help.”

And that brings us to another element of the Wimbledon dive that adds to the magnetic allure: danger! One must be fearless to dive, ready to accept the fact that you are going to get up close and personal with the fabled perennial ryegrass of the All England Tennis Club. That is not a sacrifice that all players are willing to make.

“No, I would break my bones,” former Wimbledon finalist Marin Cilic says.

“I’m not gonna be diving,” American giant Reilly Opelka adds. “I’m 240 pounds. Doesn’t make much sense. I think it’s different now. The grass isn’t as soft.”

Cilic and Opelka are not the only ones that shudder at the thought of taking the plunge. It may be grass, but it’s not much softer than a clay court. How do you think the tennis ball bounces so high when it comes off the surface?

“It’s still painful,” Dominic Thiem says. “Not as painful as clay or hard, but the grass is not as soft as you think it is, so it’s still painful, but at the same time, it’s one of the most fun things to do, and whenever there is a chance to dive, I’ll do it.”

Thiem is one of the brave warriors that cannot resist the allure of going for it. Framing that perfect tennis moment like a picture, taking that leap of faith, letting go of the worry. In a split second the only concern is: see ball, dive for ball.

When one thinks of diving on the Wimbledon grass, legendary names come to mind. And magical moments. There are some that get burned into our memory the moment they happen. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was a part of one a decade ago. 

Many tennis fans will remember the rambunctious points that Tsonga and Novak Djokovic played on Centre Court during their epic Wimbledon semi-final in 2011. There is a timeless photograph that captures the essence. Both Tsonga and Djokovic, exhausted, laying on the grass at the moment the point had ended. They are separated by the net, but forever linked in this photogenic nirvana.

“Today I’m not sure I will do it, that I will put myself on the floor like this,” Tsonga said, a tinge of melancholy in his tone. “But anyway, in the past it was something I did a lot, it was not about doing something special, it was during the game, the ball is far, you have no more options, the ball is too far, and you have to go because you want to win the point, and that’s it, and that’s why I used to dive.”

Thankfully, the younger generation seems intent on pushing the tradition forward. They have taken an interest in the art of the dive. Take Stefanos Tsitsipas, a young bombardier that is ready to put his life on the line at Wimbledon each year. The Greek has already developed quite a reputation of his own accord, but he respects his elders and gives props to one of the greatest to ever fly through the sky at Wimbledon.

“I’ve watched Boris Becker for sure, I mean who hasn’t, on grass?” Tsitsipas says. “It’s mandatory, if you wanted to be a tennis player.”

John Isner is another player who would not dare dive on the grass, but he expresses a keen appreciation for those who create the magic as well.

“I can see those Becker highlights right now, of him diving on the court,” he said, sounding more like a fan than a former semi-finalist and living Wimbledon legend. “Sampras has done it. Dustin Brown is incredible. I think it’s so unique. It’s really the only surface that you can pull it off on because you’re going to land on a nice, soft, plush grass court. It’s what makes that tournament so special. Every year you’re going to get a handful of special moments with players diving.”

Tsonga is also a Wimbledon legend, but he’s a big fan of the dive as well. And even though he’s not keen to dive so much anymore, he is confident that tennis’ next generation will take good care of this fine tradition.

“Gael Monfils, Boris Becker, Dustin Brown, so many guys, Andy Roddick a few times, and many others,” he said. “I’m not the first one and I will not be the last, for sure.”

Pay it forward, honour the history. Long live the Wimbledon dive. 

 

Story published in Courts no. 1, summer 2021.

Evert by Warhol

There she is: saturated in yellow and pink pastel, her signature Wilson racket cradled at her neck, like a pillow collar, or an instrument. A serious, blank look in her eyes. Lipsticked lips sealed. Farrah Fawcett hairdo neatly coiffed. 

Is a picture worth a thousand strokes? Or the tens of thousands it takes to develop a stroke to professional standards? What about the flawlessly-crafted forehand and double-fisted backhand of one Christine Marie Evert, who came to epitomize the sport of tennis for Andy Warhol’s iconic 1979 Athletes Series? 

Warhol might have believed so, though there is little evidence that the heralded pop artist knew much about sport, or tennis, or Evert. What he knew was zeitgeist. “The sport stars of today,” Warhol allegedly said, “are the movie stars of yesterday.” 

In 1977, Evert posed for Warhol. She crystallized the tennis boom underway–an economic, demographic and cultural tsunami that swept up the once-stodgy and genteel game and carried it into the future. Celebrity, sport, media, fame, fortune–we take this mix for granted. It was considerably less comingled entering the last quarter of the 20th Century. 

Warhol’s Athletes project germinated from his friendship with investment banker and art collector Richard Weisman. Weisman is credited with selecting the 10 athletes for the series, which ranged from boxer Muhammad Ali to soccer star Pelé to basketball’s Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. 

[Full list: Jack Nicklaus, Chris Evert, Tom Seaver, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Pelé, O.J. Simpson, Dorothy Hamill, Willie Shoemaker, Muhammad Ali and Rod Gilbert.] 

Warhol snapped Polaroids of the posed athletes and silk-screened his preferred prints onto 40” x 40” canvasses, adding some hand-painted touches with acrylic paint. Six copies were made; each athlete received one. 

Evert and others, such as golfer Jack Nicklaus and figure skater Dorothy Hamill, were reportedly paid $15,000 for their efforts. Much like the contemporary art market, the paintings have soared in price since the original $25,000 valuation. Some are now worth well over $1 million. 

Evert, then 22, says fellow pro and Studio 54 regular Vitas Gerulaitis provided the introduction. Four decades later, Evert says she knew little of Warhol but was “flattered” by her inclusion. “Vitas was his friend, not me” she says. “The word I got was bring your tennis clothes, a racket, and a slight smile.” 

Why Chrissie? Evert had already been pegged Sports Illustrated’s 1976 Sportswoman of the Year–a rare honor for a female athlete. For the Floridian star–the reigning world No. 1, double Wimbledon winner and defending U.S. Open champion–the 1-hour shoot was a slightly inconvenient break from her preparation for the 1977 U.S. Open. Weisman later recalled that Evert and Nicklaus “were very suspicious about it.” 

The session took place at Warhol’s studio in New York. Gerulaitis accompanied Evert. It was not a garrulous sixty minutes. “He didn’t say a word the whole shoot” says Evert of Warhol. “He was very shy. Very, very shy. He just took pictures.”

Evert says she did her own hair and makeup. “He didn’t want anything all dolled up. He wanted natural,” she says. 

While the likes of Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg and Evonne Goolagong were also making tennis headlines, Evert reasons she was selected because “I was dominating the sport like no other man or woman was.” 

But dominating it with a new self-awareness and ownership. The landmark Title IX legislation guaranteeing equal access in federal funding for any activity had been enacted four years earlier. Billie Jean King had vanquished Bobby Riggs in 1973’s mega-hyped “Battle of the Sexes.” The growing women’s movement, especially in sport, was starting to coalesce in popular consciousness. 

Whether Warhol’s Athletes Series represent great art is open to debate. Critics have questioned if they are celebrations or parodies. Certainly, they helped pave the way for what seems commonplace today: stars like Roger Federer and Serena Williams on the cover of fashion magazines and presenting at A-list events like the Oscars.

The collaboration helped solidify the notion of athlete-celebrity in the mainstream cultural vein. This connection between the maestro of Pop Art and the female darling at tennis’ modernizing moment signalled visibility, freedom, accountability.

“Gone are the days when the closest a girl could get to organized sport was the cheerleaders’ bench,” wrote Sarah Pileggi for the Sports Illustrated story that accompanied Evert’s cover selection. 

What else do we see in this portrait? The racket tucked between Evert’s chin and shoulder like a violin, her instrument of creative domination. Piercing eyes that stare dead on. Compressed lips, shapely but sly. Nothing very revealing in her countenance. Warhol’s colors are bold and sweeping, lending an almost abstract quality to the portrait. Was he pushing it forward, just as Evert was nudging the idea of women and sports into a new realm? 

To Evert, it often reminds her of a cloistered time in her life. “It’s like secretive” she says of her expression. “Holding everything in. Like I did at that age.”

But any subject of Warhol is by definition tapping into that uniquely American craving to rise from obscurity into the glitzy sphere of celebrity–whether they like it or not. Today the silkscreen portrait hangs in Evert’s dining room. “I think it’s beautiful and the most valuable piece of art in my house” she laughs. “I’m not like John McEnroe, who studies art. I’m not a big art connoisseur. But I feel very privileged about it.” Or as King, the women’s rights trailblazer and WTA founder, could have said: Privilege is a pressure. 

Le joueur et son ombre

« Mes raquettes sont toujours restées muettes, même quand je les fracassais sur le court. Elles n’émettaient aucun cri de protestation ni de douleur. J’entendais seulement le craquement sec de la fibre de carbone, du kevlar ou du graphite qui explosait. Puis le crissement du cordage qui se détendait brusquement, un bruit ténu qu’on n’entend jamais à la télévision ni depuis les gradins, un bref murmure que seuls les joueurs à l’ouïe fine ont remarqué. »

À vingt et un ans, Chris Piriac est d’abord un jeune joueur prodige, l’un des meilleurs du circuit international. Un modèle de fair-play, poli et courtois en toutes circonstances : avec les arbitres, les juges, les journalistes et surtout avec ses adversaires. Puis l’ombre surgit et enveloppe son esprit. Le malaise et le vertige s’emparent de son être et le propulsent dans une folie grandissante. La souffrance prend le pas sur la vertu. Deux personnages en quête d’identité s’affrontent désormais, prisonniers d’un même corps, au cours d’une joute littéraire noyée dans la brume de l’introspection. Les tournois défilent dans un vacarme tumultueux. La colère enfouie résonne, s’impose et domine un nouveau joueur. Mi-ange, mi-démon, sa fierté et sa rage comptent plus que le sport. Exit le gentil garçon. Peu importe de perdre ou d’être disqualifié, la vraie victoire de Chris est au fond de ses pulsions, là où tout est instinct, orgueil et vanité. Il se complaît à céder de plus en plus violemment à ses faiblesses. Voilà surgir un chevalier de discorde au tempérament de feu et de flammes, fier de ses frasques et de ses délices narcissiques. Ce Janus bifrons des temps modernes annonce le début de la guerre et la fin d’une carrière de gentleman sportif. 

Pour comprendre la dualité de ce parcours contradictoire, il faut prendre conscience et accepter. Accepter le risque de devenir un autre soi-même. Ce nouveau personnage est inquiétant. Chris le découvre brutalement, dès le début du livre, après avoir subi les coups et les gifles de son père durant presque toute son adolescence. Sa vengeance ne se consommera pas en une fois. Les faveurs et les gentillesses des bonnes fées, penchées sur son berceau dès son plus jeune âge, ne suffiront pas à l’apaiser. Sa place est désormais sur les courts, l’arme au poing, face au filet, tel un gladiateur dans l’arène, promis au combat d’une vie.

La violence de Chris profitera de circonstances favorables, et quelque peu atténuantes, pour s’exprimer pleinement et assouvir une soif irrésistible et refoulée. Une soif de vengeance absolue envers soi et les autres, mais aussi une rage de perdre ou de vaincre dans un second souffle, qui lui permettra paradoxalement de se découvrir à nouveau vivant, détaché de ses pénibles émotions, absolument indifférent.

Son salut, Chris le devra à la sortie d’une crise émotionnelle. Brice Matthieussent raconte le journal du mal-être provoqué par cette déviance émouvante, mélancolique et individuelle. L’auteur parvient à épingler finement l’essentiel, mais aussi le plus triste et le plus douloureux à endurer. 

Dans la réalité, les comportements outrageux sont devenus banalisés par le grand public du tennis et du sport en général. Il faut sans doute remonter aux années de tennis-spectacle brillamment régies par les excès de John McEnroe pour apprécier les origines du problème posé. Nick Kyrgios, et quelques autres spécialistes du genre, semblent aujourd’hui avoir pris la relève du cirque contemporain, à la grande joie des médias.

Déviance incontrôlée, « dérapage », disent volontiers les journalistes, des situations tolérées et médiatisées à outrance, léguées à notre monde comme la présence fantomatique d’un individualisme déchu. Les psychologues, eux, s’accordent pour dire qu’il n’appartient pas tant au sujet de dépasser ces moments d’égarement. Ils relèvent dans de nombreux cas de conditions objectives sur lesquelles les individus isolés n’ont que très peu de prise. L’injustice et le malheur en font souvent partie. 

« Ann est morte un an après notre rencontre. Elle avait dix-neuf ans. Retenu à Los Angeles à cause de ma hanche qui me faisait souffrir, je ne l’ai pas accompagnée. J’ai dû annuler au dernier moment ma place à côté de la sienne dans ce vol. Son avion s’est abîmé dans l’Atlantique pour une raison inconnue […] J’en voulais à ma hanche, je désirais la maltraiter, lui faire payer mon désespoir, ma solitude nouvelle. » 

Le talent libéré du joueur et le poids grandissant de son ombre nous interpellent au fil des pages de ce beau roman. Ensemble, ils permettent de lever subrepticement le voile sur des conditions qui se dérobent à la conscience individuelle.

« Les fantômes ont peu à peu cessé de me harceler, leurs apparitions se sont espacées, avant de se réduire à une ou deux visites de courtoisie annuelle, comme si nous renouvelions ainsi un traité de paix négocié dans la douleur. »

Depuis la fin des années 1970, Brice Matthieussent se consacre à la traduction française de la littérature anglo-saxonne, notamment américaine. Il a traduit plus de 200 livres. Des grands noms de la littérature contemporaine tels que Charles Bukowski, Jim Harrison et Paul Bowles. En 2001, il a été récompensé par le prix UNESCO-Françoise Gallimard pour Eureka Street de Robert McLiam Wilson. En 2013, il a reçu le prix Jules-Janin de l’Académie française pour sa traduction de l’œuvre de Jim Harrison. 

 

Article publié dans COURTS n° 6, automne 2019.

Anyone for touchtennis?

The Racquet Sport by the People, for the People

“touchtennis is one of the most exciting new sports out there. It is a combination of the physicality and speed of squash combined with the ability to play the sort of tennis you can only dream about on a normal court, and that’s what makes it so fun.” 

Bear Grylls OBE, GQ Magazine

 

When you associate the word tennis with the acronym G.O.A.T (Greatest of All Time), a few names automatically spring to mind. Names like Federer, Williams, Graf, and Sampras. But search ‘touchtennis’ online and another G.O.A.T regularly emerges: Rashid Ahmad. Such is the symbiosis between Ahmad and the acronym, that he has even designed and recently released a new and improved touchtennis racquet, quite suitably branded the ‘Goat’ racquet.

Ahmad is founder, and self-proclaimed G.O.A.T of touchtennis, the racquet sport he cobbled together in 2002, fast gaining traction worldwide including a celebrity following. At the time of this interview, touchtennis’s Instagram account stands at over 40k followers. Our interview takes place on a cold British Spring day in May, a month before the long-awaited restart of the British summer tennis season after a year’s hiatus due to the global pandemic. Remarkably, the sale of touchtennis products surged during lockdown. Ahmad explains, “touchtennis is the only adaptation of tennis that you can play in your garden with full strokes, hit the ball really hard, and get that gratification, so take up of touchtennis was crazy.” 

Adhering to UK lockdown rules, we meet virtually over Zoom. In pre-pandemic times, we would have met at touchtennis headquarters, a beautifully converted barn in Guildford. Ahmad takes me on a virtual tour of a hugely impressive set up of office space upstairs resembling a film studio with an impressive array of camera paraphernalia, thanks to Ahmad’s technology obsession. But what truly grabs my attention is a court beneath that looks like nothing I have seen before. It would not look out of place in Henry VIII’s Hampton Court Palace, with a magnificent high wooden beam roof and clay hued carpet surface. But modern and without the pomp. For today’s world, much like this relatively new racquet sport. Much like the founder himself.

Despite self-assuredly reminding me several times during our meeting that he is the G.O.A.T of this sport, reminiscing in detail about the various slams where he “cuffed” his (under the age of 10) opponents, I find Ahmad refreshingly honest, intelligent, disarmingly charming and at times hilarious. During our chat, it becomes immediately obvious that he lives by his “raison d’être” and the quote on his Goat racquet. Whilst tongue in cheek for the G.O.A.T moniker above, it is in fact something he lives by: “stay humble”.

And the beginnings of this sport are indeed humble. To understand touchtennis is to know its founder. There were no privileges. Ahmad grew up on a London council estate in the 1970s, where football and cricket were the only sports played by local children in the car park. His tennis passion came from his father, an avid tennis fan who Ahmad would watch and discuss tennis with. Occasionally, he would go to a large brick wall on the side of an abandoned factory with his friends, where he would “just hit tennis balls with any racquet that anyone had, like a £2 racquet from the newsagent. I could never afford to play tennis because membership to a club was out of the question. The nearest courts were in Regents Park, charging £3. Where were we going to find £3 to play, plus buy balls and equipment? Forget it! Touchtennis is a natural evolution from that lack of space and a sport that is accessible to everyone”. The seed was planted, with a family connection: touchtennis sprang from teaching his daughter using this adaptation and playing it with friends in his garden. His brother is credited with the name.

So, what is touchtennis? Quite simply, a scaled down adaptation of tennis. It is played on a 12 x 5 metre compact court for singles and 6 metres wide for doubles with foam balls, a foldaway net and 21” tennis racquets, designed for adults and children to play on any surface. Although played with a junior sized racquet and with a smaller net and court than in tennis, any similarities with Mini, Teddy, Short or Junior tennis end there. “It’s not an adaptation of those because none of them involves spin, kick serves, or forehand inside out winners. We are more of a compact form of tennis, or an expanded form of table tennis than we are of any of those others. Tennis that is scaled down in length, distance and timewise so that nobody requires Andy Murray-like movement to experience an amazing rally!”. He winces when I refer to him as an inventor/entrepreneur preferring the word ‘adapter’: “I only adapted what was already a glorious and beautiful game (tennis) and came up with rules and regulations that made it possible for me to be the G.O.A.T at something, it is that simple!” 

Touchtennis’s matches are shorter than tennis. The official ball is unique, with a higher bounce enabling any age to play. The dense foam has less impact on the body, works in the wind and rain, as well as on bad lawns and different surfaces. Quirky rules enable more drama and fun for both player and spectator: one serve only, ‘sudden death’ at deuce and even permission to hit a shot with a body part, only if the racquet has been thrown to make a shot at an unreachable ball. Its website describes it as “brains over brawn, touch over power, spin over strength, flair over fighting”¹. Which is why Ahmad’s brother suggested the name, “because you can never win a point without touch…it is about feel, touch and control. You need more than a booming serve or a beast of a backhand”. The spelling is significant – one-word, lower caps, “capitalising the ‘t’s looks hard and aggressive. So, we soften the way the name appears. I do not think many sports do a good job of attracting women. I’d like touchtennis to be for anybody regardless of age, ethnicity, gender.” 

Ahmad decided to start a world champion- ship with friends and family on 2^nd December 2007, (now celebrated as World touchtennis Day). By chance, he began working with a local council in Elmbridge allowing him to set up 8 touchtennis courts on a disused bowling green on the condition that he would help the community. The free weekly sessions, including racquets and balls where an overwhelming success, “I realised that it was a little bit bigger than just my back garden and me”. Touchtennis now has a world tour with slams, masters tournaments, a ranking system and cash prizes. There are currently 8 touchtennis licensed countries including Spain and its national tennis federation (the RFET) that are part of the federation. Ahmad sees that growing at a rate of 3 or 4 countries a year, eventually existing in 60 or 70 countries.

We discuss touchtennis’ positioning alongside two other modern popular racquet sports, Padel and Pickleball. “I can see touchtennis being played with a much greater participation level. Look at futsal (football scaled down), and the greats that have gone from playing futsal to winning in world cup football: Maradona, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho. They developed more feel, touch, and control from playing on a smaller pitch. And on the streets of Brazil, I can see touchtennis being integrated easily, but not Padel. The £35,000 cost of building a Padel court could feed every family in a favela for a year! Alternatively, people can play in the streets with a $2 foam ball, using home-made bamboo racquets. Which one do you think will be played by more people? I would say touchtennis. I am not criticising Padel and Pickleball, but they are only for a certain section of society. Padel’s bats are heavier, its volleys and groundstrokes different. Pickleball is only a doubles game, but if you tried to play singles it is better suited to the exceptionally athletic given a larger court coverage and very low-bouncing ball. Also, these can ruin your tennis, just like squash. Tennis players say they never play squash because it ruins their game. And squash players say they never play tennis for the same reason. Padel is squash with a net!”

“Touchtennis doesn’t require a pedigree or high cost like tennis to start playing”. Ahmad has seen fans making their own touchtennis courts using chairs, string, and chalk to mark out lines. “All I ever really wanted to be a part of was a worldwide community without the rigours, the seriousness, the formalities, or traditions of tennis”. Ahmad is confident that touchtennis can only improve one’s tennis game. “If you scale everything down, it will make your hands faster, so you need to put more spin on the ball when you play touchtennis. It is going to help you to control that ball in a small space. So as soon as you get out on a full-size court you feel like you can’t miss.” 

There is an impressive celebrity following, both from the world of professional tennis (Fernando Gonzales, Nicolás Almagro, Tracy Austin, Dan Evans, Chris Eaton, Emily Webley- Smith, 5-time touchtennis slam winner Marcus Willis), comedian Miranda Hart and world-famous adventurer, Bear Grylls. It is easy to see how touchtennis could continue to attract tennis players. Ahmad’s historical tennis knowledge is impressive as we discuss the 1990s – a period that he loves (and I do too). “I’d like to play touchtennis against Fabrice Santoro or David Ferrer. Ferrer’s intensity and inside out forehand would be a joke! It would be impossible to get the ball to his backhand on a compact court, and Fabrice Santoro because of his hands. I would also have loved to play the late Jana Novotna for her serve and volley, and Monica Seles, who I consider as the purest ball striker in the history of tennis. Have you ever seen anyone hit the ball as cleanly and flatly in the corners as she did, hitting winners up the line, returning a Steffi Graf slice?” 

I ask if he intentionally injected touchtennis with the same drama of that era, somewhat lacking in today’s tennis. “Absolutely it was intentional. When players like Marcus Willis and Chris Eaton started playing touchtennis, they won points with massive first and second power serves, which was dull. I wanted the ‘cat and mouse’ of that era and the Sampras-Agassi matches, my favourite matches ever! I love the third set of the Wimbledon match between Graf and Sanchez Vicario in 1996. In a 20-minute game, Steffi was forced to hit topspin and volley because she was not going to beat Vicario from the baseline that day.” 

Ahmad’s vision to democratise touchtennis is clear. A sport to be played anywhere, everywhere, and for everyone. Watch some touchtennis matches online, and it is difficult not to be carried away with the emotion and drama. “You see people losing and laughing, going home with a smile on their face… I just want to have a world tour of barbeques where touchtennis is also being played while these barbeques are going on”. Ahmad’s repeated use of the words ‘tribe’ and ‘community’ underpin this. Fun rather than money is the focus. Any profits are reinvested or donated to charity. 

Bear Grylls once commented on Twitter that touchtennis is “the best cardio workout but allows you to play like a hero”. I ask Ahmad what my chances are of becoming “the Serena Williams of touchtennis”. “Absolutely, 100%, I’ve no doubt you could. Because the ball is so forgiving. I’ve shown this example to so many people, many times.” 

I compare him to the inventor of lawn tennis, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield. Like Ahmad, Wingfield invented a portable tennis kit. His contained a net and posts, four racquets, a mallet and a line brush accompanied by a book of rules. He likes this comparison, particularly as neither came from a sporting background. But he is quick to point out the difference: “I’m not selling to Lords and Ladies that have got 50-acre gardens, but to people in council estates, not hunting estates, so my kits are affordable. And if lockdown has taught us anything, it is that touchtennis can be played anywhere”. Without hesitation he adds, “the major difference is that I would have beaten him”. Of course, I wouldn’t expect any less from the G.O.A.T. Will Rashid Ahmad have as much impact on the world as Major Wingfield? They do say that history repeats itself.  

 

Story published in Courts no. 1, summer 2021.

Le tennis en mouvement

Représenter le mouvement ! Voici une préoccupation constante chez l’homme… depuis qu’il dessine. L’artiste du mouvement est un magicien qui s’échine à transformer des figures fixes en modèles vivants. Il va au-delà de ses rêves pour montrer, par le trait et par l’image, ce que nos yeux ne peuvent voir, comme l’écrasement de la balle dans la raquette.

Les origines

Depuis les hommes de Lascaux peignant bêtes et chasseurs dans une dynamique qui étonne toujours 17 000 ans plus tard, les Grecs et leurs sculptures qui « viennent à nous » ont ouvert la voie aux maîtres de la Renaissance qui ont montré comment rendre vivants et mouvants des œuvres en deux dimensions. Paolo Uccello, le premier, peint les batailles de San Romano mêlant chevaux et cavaliers, en décomposant la gestuelle guerrière dans le temps et l’espace. Pour Michel-Ange, du dessin au marbre, tout est mouvement : le corps humain sort de sa gangue et s’anime. Léonard de Vinci l’affirme : « L’immobilité, qui est un grand défaut chez les vivants, est pire encore dans les figures peintes. »

Les temps modernes

Il faut attendre le XIX^e siècle et l’invention de la photographie pour enfin comprendre l’invisible, les battements d’ailes de l’oiseau ou le galop du cheval – en 1821, le grand Géricault représente les chevaux dans Le Derby d’Epsom galopant comme des chiens ! Il faudra l’Américain Eadweard Muybridge¹ et le Français Étienne-Jules Marey (curieusement nés et morts dans les mêmes années, 1830-1904) qui montrent, grâce à leurs photographies séquencées, la décomposition du mouvement chez l’homme et l’animal. C’est une révolution dont de nombreux artistes vont s’emparer au XX^e siècle. 

La photographie du mouvement par Étienne-Jules Marey

C’est un scientifique qui devient en 1880 le spécialiste de la physiologie du mouvement. Marey considère que la photographie instantanée est un moyen d’enregistrement très sûr grâce aux plaques de gélatine. Il met au point son Fusil photographique (1882) et la Chronophotographie par l’utilisation d’un fond noir avec des sujets blancs mobiles. Pour la petite histoire, Marey crée sa « Station Physiologique » à l’emplacement même du stade Roland-Garros, avec une double piste circulaire où il étudie la marche et la course de l’homme et les allures du cheval.

L’illusion du mouvement par Eadweard Muybridge

Il aurait pu être explorateur ou chercheur d’or au nouveau monde, il devient le pionnier de la représentation du mouvement grâce à ses photographies réalisées par plusieurs appareils – jusqu’à 24, en 1878, pour fixer l’image du cheval au galop – déclenchés par des cordelettes. Il réalise 787 planches éditées en 1887 montrant comment les êtres humains et les animaux parcourent l’espace dans un temps imparti.

Harold Edgerton, le scientifique qui a figé le temps 

Photographe américain spécialiste de la stroboscopie, Edgerton met au point un flash au xénon produisant des éclairs d’une très forte intensité et d’une durée extrêmement brève, de l’ordre du millionième de seconde. Ses clichés les plus célèbres sont le passage d’une balle de revolver à travers une pomme, une goutte de lait tombant dans du lait, des coups de tennis et de golf. Outre l’intérêt de son travail dans le champ industriel et scientifique, ses clichés possèdent une beauté esthétique propre qui a inspiré nombre d’artistes.

Les Technicoramas de Gil de Kermadec

Pendant quarante ans, Gil de Kermadec a fixé les coups en match des meilleurs joueuses et joueurs du monde, en montant des images fixes. Sa contribution à la compréhension des attitudes et des gestes techniques a été profitable à plusieurs générations de joueurs et de formateurs. Ses Technicoramas, découverts mois après mois dans Tennis de France, nous dévoilaient les secrets des champions. C’était magique ! 

Les artistes du mouvement 

Il est plaisant de mettre en parallèle certaines attitudes dessinées par Michel-Ange, le maître du mouvement, avec des gestes de tennis : un « armé » au service, une « préparation en coup droit » ? Non ! des esquisses du Jugement dernier avec le Christ invoquant le Ciel et Zeus fulminant… La gestuelle est la même et le désir de traduire la vitesse et la force est permanent depuis cinq siècles ! Au début du XX^e siècle, les peintres italiens Severini, Boccioni, Balla ou Ciacelli créent le futurisme – mouvement qui s’étend avant-guerre dans le monde entier. S’inspirant des travaux de Muybridge et de Marey, ils explorent l’esthétique de la vitesse et le mythe du progrès. Les sports, comme le football, le cyclisme et le tennis sont souvent leurs champs d’expression. Après eux, Delaunay, Duchamp, Kupka, Bacon ou Velickovic rendront compte, tant dans l’abstraction que dans la figuration, de la dynamique du mouvement. Il est intéressant de noter que l’œuvre d’art, par sa dimension émotionnelle, peut suggérer parfois plus intensément l’effort, l’action et la vitesse du sujet, comparativement à la photographie.

Arrêts sur images

Avec la qualité d’images de la photographie, de la vidéo et du cinéma d’aujourd’hui, la représentation artistique du mouvement a quelque peu décliné. Les deux genres ne s’opposent cependant pas : ils nous offrent deux regards différents. L’image instantanée fixe rend compte de la justesse technique du geste et de l’esprit du sujet. Mais elle est si parfaite qu’elle en est distrayante : la dynamique de l’action n’est qu’une de ses composantes. Il est paradoxal que la sensation de mouvement soit davantage ressentie lorsque, par effet spécial, l’image est séquencée telle la chronophotographie ou, dans le cas du film, extrêmement ralentie. Lorsque, de 24 images/seconde (vitesse normale), l’image est ralentie deux ou trois fois (72 images/seconde), on touche au merveilleux en pénétrant au fond du mystère du mouvement. La décomposition du geste donne le temps au cerveau de savourer sa délicatesse et son essence. La stroboscopie inventée par le Belge Joseph Plateau en 1836 a permis, grâce à des flashs séquencés, d’observer le mouvement jusqu’à 1 000 images par seconde en 1917. De nos jours, la stroboscopie électronique utilise des éclairs de flash à haute fréquence à des vitesses de 1/10 000 produisant des chronophotographies dont aurait rêvé Marey ! 

¹ Lire « Tennis in the Work of Eadweard Muybridge », Courts n^o 9.

 

Article publié dans COURTS n° 11, printemps 2021.

Ping Pong

Like You’ve Never Seen It

At the nexus of art and table tennis,
you will find Algy Batten and his passion play thriving

All the art paddles on the opening spread were part of the Art of Ping Pong for Good exhibitions and charity auction.

So eye-catching it could be displayed at a swanky Soho gallery, it radiates on your wall until you challenge your unsuspecting friend to a game. Next? Hey presto! You pull that piece of art off the wall, unfold it into all its ping pong table glory, break out the Padels and, voilà! Table tennis on the fly. 

At the nexus of art, philanthropy and ping pong sits Algy Batten, founder of The Art of Ping Pong, or AoPP for short. He is the man that changed his life so he could change the way we play, and appreciate, ping pong. London-based Batten is a graphic designer by trade, but he has recently broken free of the ties that bind and ventured into a bona fide passion play, one that allows him to merge his love for ping pong with his keen sense of style and collaborative skills.

Batten and I chat on Zoom, and he speaks of his love for tennis as a youth. After seeing Wimbledon on the telly for the first time his next move was to make a beeline for the garden, where he placed a hose over a couple of yard chairs and begged everyone in the village to play lawn tennis with him. A true fan of underdogs, he rooted for Ivan Lendl to win Wimbledon. These days there is one table on The AoPP website named after a former tennis player. Fittingly, it is called the “Lendl.”

Batten played ping pong as a youth but then nearly forgot about it entirely. Life gets in the way, as does work. He graduated in the late 90s and built out his own design agency, called Fivefootsix, which he and his partner Mark expanded from two to sixteen employees in just over a decade. But the long hours and nonstop work left him yearning for something more.

“We got to our tenth year, and we sort of thought, ‘Are we still enjoying this?’” Batten tells Courts. “Every time we’d meet up, we would just talk about work, and the things we had to do, and the issues, and the work and the finance, and then for our tenth anniversary we met up and asked ‘Are we enjoying this? Is this what we want to do with our lives?’ I think we just got to the point where it was time to do something fresh while we were still young enough to do something different, something that we could manage around our different lives better.”

Many successful adults feel what Batten feels, but how many of them have the courage to act on the impulse to carve out their dream life? Batten did. He waved goodbye to the grind, and ping pong enthusiasts everywhere are glad.

By the time Fivefootsix closed its doors, Batten had reconnected with ping pong and was certifiably hooked. He had been playing ping pong regularly for several years with colleagues at mixers that were meet-ups between his design agency and other firms, and from there his love for the sport was reignited. But he did not see it only as a game, or a theatre for competition. Batten had a more enduring vision: ping pong as a vehicle for art. Or was it art as a vehicle for ping pong? It’s hard to tell sometimes.

“The ping pong was as important as the art and the art as important as the ping pong, no one thing necessarily takes priority,” Batten says.

There is also the charity. Frequently, Batten auctions off killer ping pong swag to the highest bidder, with all the proceeds going to charity. Batten clarifies that AoPP itself is not a full-fledged charity, but when there is an opportunity to share the wealth, he is more than happy to act. 

“Art of Ping Pong itself isn’t a charity,” he says, explaining: “it’s just the freedom to express or explore art and ping pong coming together, and where there’s an opportunity, do things for charity. It’s nice to have a charitable legacy to some of the projects. It’s not a primary aspect of our ping pong, but it’s a nice thing to bring in where we can.”

After years of hosting pizza-and-beer ping pong outings in his old design studio, where client Ben & Jerry’s had kindly donated an ice cream freezer, Batten found himself without a home court when he shut down Fivefootsix, and that annoying technical difficulty turned out to be the impetus for a stunning idea: A ping pong table that doubles as art.

They are called ArtTables, and are exquisitely designed miniature ping pong tables that hang beautifully on your wall. Tables with names like “Pong”, “Tequila Sunrise”, “Revolution” and the aforementioned “Lendl” can be found on the AoPP website, and they are hard to resist once you have seen them. The tables, which can also be found at high-end sites like Mr. Porter’s and Selfridges, are custom crafted from birch plywood and weigh 13kg.

Batten tells Courts the original idea was born of necessity.

“The idea came completely from a personal need,” he says. “We used to hold the tournaments in my old studio, but when we closed the business, I had nowhere to play ping pong. So, I bought a small table for the garage, and used to hold a few mini tournaments out there. Then the garage got taken over by prams, carts, hi-chairs, bikes – that sort of thing – so there was no room for a ping pong table.”

For Batten, a fold away, full-size ping pong table was not a solution. His designer’s brain conjured a vision of something totally unique.

“Fold away ping pong tables, they are big, and they are really ugly things,” he said. “To have one in your house, you would have to have a massive house to be able to disguise it somewhat, so I thought if I could make a small table and if I could hang it on the wall and disguise it as art, Caroline [his AoPP partner and girlfriend] would let me bring a ping pong table into the house.”

Always thinking in scale, and conscious of community, Batten started to enlist local artists to design sets of tables, piles of Padels, and designer nets which were often auctioned for charity.

“We had an exhibition and a young illustrator called Mr. Doodle came down to the show and live doodled a table at the event. We sold those two tables at the auction, and it gave me a desire to actually want to develop and make it into something, so I went through lots of different designers and iterations and developments, and they’re still being developed now.”

The development has accelerated, thanks to the aforementioned relationships with renowned houses like Mr. Porter and Selfridges, pushing the fledgling company – and ping pong – into the public eye.

“We did a collaboration just over a year ago, with Selfridges, and that was like ‘Wow’ Selfridges, that’s kind of something,’” says Batten. “And then the Mr. Porter collection that we did at the end of last year. Suddenly, things got really busy for us.”

There have been other, even more notable, projects…

In 2016, AoPP collaborated with Nike to commemorate Roger Federer’s apparel launch prior to Wimbledon that year. Batten and his team produced a giant wall-sized collage of ping pong Padels, using highly regarded illustrator Toby Melville-Brown to caption them and tell the story of Roger’s career.

“We didn’t have long, we had like two weeks to get hold of the blank Padels, we had to sand the logos off them, spray them all white, so they became the canvas, and then come up with a storyboard, do a lot of research on Roger and his career, come up with a storyboard of various scenes,” he says. “So, I think we put a wall of 15 bats making one canvas, and had four of these, and then Toby hand drew every single bat in five days. 90 Padels was quite a lot.’

The show was a hit, but the highlight was getting to rally with the Wimbledon legend.

“My highlight is probably getting to hit a few balls with him over the table,” Batten says, shrugging. “That was kind of something.”

When it comes to the ArtTables, Batten wanted to ensure that they were built for competition. Playability is essential: the tables are miniature, but they are far from being a toy.

“The mini tables for me are as much a piece of art that hangs on the wall as they are a ping pong table, and I didn’t want to create a novelty product, where the game is kind of secondary and not really that competitive, because it’s too small,” he says. “It had to be big enough.”

Batten says that playing on his tables is like playing a new form of ping pong, it is a niche within a niche, perhaps in the same way that playing tennis on grass is not like playing it on clay.

“You can get some really fast competitive games and when you get used to the size, you can stand six feet away from the table,” he says, adding enthusiastically that playing on his tables is “different, and it’s energetic and you can break a sweat around a metre and a half piece of wood, you can really break a sweat.” 

The tables themselves, which were originally launched at the London Design Fair in 2019, are 1400 millimetres by 740 millimetres. The nets are modern to the core, symmetric circles in four rows, bonded with a black laminate. If you really want to impress your date – or competition – pick up a set of Padels to match.

They are made with care, and in limited runs.

“Everything we do is in quite a local capacity, we make the product in a local workshop in Hackney,” Batten says. “And they are handmade to order. The making of the tables is a proper craft in and of itself, and I’m not a carpenter myself but I love spending time in the workshop with the guys as they make the tables, so their part of the process is as much an art as anything else, because they are all handmade.”

It has been quite a ride for Batten and AoPP. He has merged art playfully into sport and the result has been devilishly delightful. When one looks at his finished product one cannot help but smile and think: let’s play some ping pong!

“Having tournaments, bringing art into it, doing a few things for good causes, became the start of Art of Ping Pong,” Batten concludes. “And since then, it has been a big sort of creative exploration.”

 

Story published in Courts no. 1, summer 2021.

He Was Mac the Mouth

but Really,

He Was Mac-Nificent

Tennis has seen some iconic figures over the years and many of them would very easily make lists of the greatest players who ever played the game, but only one player is iconic enough that even quotes he made in the heat of battle continue to identify him. No other player comes close to having that sort of legacy.

 

John Patrick McEnroe has to be the most colourful player the sport has ever seen. He was magnificent to watch when he was in full flight but on the other side of things, you just had no idea what was going to happen. He was and, to this day, remains an enigma and even though he has certainly become one of the elder statesmen of tennis, still he doesn’t mince his words. John McEnroe continues to say what he thinks. 

Who could, or would, ever forget his earlier days at Wimbledon? In 1977 he played the main draw at Wimbledon for the first time; he came through the qualifying rounds and made the semi-finals and in that semi match played Jimmy Connors who was far from being a saint. McEnroe was starting to get a bit testy in the match and during one change of ends, Connors walked past him, wagged his finger in McEnroe’s face and told him to behave because it was Wimbledon. 

Armed at the time with the Wilson Jack Kramer Pro Staff, the tennis world was getting its first look at what was to come from the brash New Yorker. In 1978 he was recruited to the Stanford University team, helping them to the NCAA championship as well as winning the NCAA singles title. 

Reaching semi-finals was now becoming a habit, where McEnroe honed his craft (and perhaps his enthusiastic use of the vernacular). His accolades included reaching the US Open semi-finals losing once more to Connors, and more importantly winning five titles which saw him rise to the No.4 ranked player that year.

His final year with his Wilson racket perhaps opened the door to the greatness and indeed flamboyant outbursts we would be accustomed to seeing over the course of his career. 

People were getting plenty of looks at his weapon of choice as it was the age when singles players also counted doubles in their schedule. In 1979 he and Peter Fleming won the Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Doubles title and backed that up with the US Open doubles silverware. More importantly though, 1979 saw him lift his first US Open singles title and with it his first Slam title, becoming the youngest male winner since Pancho Gonzales in 1948. 

He reached his first Wimbledon final in 1980, ready to face down the inscrutable Bjorn Borg who was hunting his fifth straight Wimbledon title. 

The crowd were vocal, booing McEnroe as he entered the court following (surprise, surprise) heated exchanges with officials during his semi-final win over Connors. The epic fourth-set tie-breaker will go down in history, lasting 20 minutes with McEnroe saving five match points and winning it 18-16. He would go on to lose the decider, but pushed Borg to 8-6 for the then historic fifth title. His final flourish that year was to beat Borg in another five-setter at the 1980 US Open, before making the finals of the season-ending finale, and winding up 1980 as the second-ranked player behind Borg. 

Greatness was coming. 

Say what you will about John McEnroe, but he brought a new audience to world tennis. He was a genius and any post-match media conferences he did were like sessions on a psychiatrist’s couch as he would almost interject his own answers with additional comments. 

If he was to be likened to someone in the arts, Pablo Picasso would be the one who comes to mind and that would be right up McEnroe’s alley as someone who loves edgy art and who has his own gallery in New York. “The greatest compliment I ever got was when people called me an artist,” McEnroe once said. “I understand that solo aspect of being an artist, when you’re in there by yourself, trying to do something great.” 

Tennis talks lovingly about rivalries between Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal but one of the most iconic rivalries was McEnroe’s with Bjorn Borg. McEnroe played Connors and he played Ivan Lendl many times, but it was the one with Borg which is spoken of time and again. It led to books and a motion picture, which by the way he hated because the producers never consulted him. 

Incredibly they played only 14 times and the end result was a perfect 7-7. They were a perfect match, almost akin to the goodie v the baddie in a Western movie. Their two Wimbledon finals in 1980 and 1981 were tremendous with the first one arguably the best till the Federer v Nadal final of 2008. 

But while he was tempestuous on the court, his sense of humor never ceased to amaze. He was brilliant. He played his brother Patrick in the Chicago final when a phone rang mid-match: “It’s mom, she wants to know if you’re home for dinner.” One time at the year-end Masters at Madison Square Garden, an early version of an electronic line machine kept going off when he served. Mac stopped, he had that look on his face and said: “I’m not paranoid, but that machine knows who I am”. 

When McEnroe speaks you want to know what’s being said and you are never left disappointed. 

“They are green.”

“They are yellow.”

People are as certain about the colour of tennis balls as they are about whether it is a crocodile or an alligator on the Lacoste shirt. There is a fear of ambivalence; most everyone knows the answer definitively. You, reading this, have presumably come down firmly on one side of the Great Tennis Ball Colour Divide, wondering how anyone could possibly think otherwise than you do.

Roger Federer says “yellow.” (Some of you have reacted to that information with a “But, of course.” Others with an incredulous “Whaaaa-t?”) 

The debate begins. And so does the course of pleasures that constitute the miracle of seeing.

 

One of the most significant art movements of the last century is known as “Kinetic Art.” It consisted of work falling under the general rubric of “sculpture” where the viewer perceives active movement and where motion is an essential element of what we see. The best-known practitioners include Alexander Calder and Jean Tinguely. For the first, you need the blowing of a fan or a gust of wind to initiate the movement; for the second, you press a button or turn a switch to set the machinery in motion. The viewer’s experience consists of seeing small shapes – some roughly resembling leaves, others being arm-like – that go this way and that, first one direction and then another, with a more stable and fixed immobile element going nowhere.

There are few better examples of Kinetic art than a game of tennis – whether seen from within by the players or from the side-lines by observers. The canvas, so to speak, is fixed. The background colour is either that marvellous terra cotta red of the clay court, the particular dusty dark green of a grass court, or the brighter, flatter hue of a synthetic surface. The subdivisions, with their fixed geometry, are white. Like the outline of the court overall, the elements in that perfectly charted structure of horizontals and verticals – with those long narrow alleys for doubles and the precisely delineated service courts – are of consistent width in that very particular white, pretty much always the same whether it is on tapes, rolled with lime, or painted. This is not the bright glistening hue of tooth-whitening ads but, while distinct and bespeaking clarity, is slightly matte. There is no nonsense about it, but, still, this white, on analysis, might show just a soupcon of a tint, invisible but ever-so-slightly shading it. 

But the parts of this kinetic masterpiece that move are, in their colours, something else altogether. The balls, the swinging racquets, the players: the neon dance begins. Snowy white clothes or dayglo ones, human skin and hair of every hue, racquets that in the old days were the elegant colour of varnished wood but that today are, like modern skis, an insistent amalgam of pulsating reds and yellows with the occasional glistening silver or gold: all are in a constant start-stop action. And there is one small, bright element, that moves further and more rapidly than any other, over the net and back again, always the same size and always the same bright colour: the ball. But would someone please say: is it yellow or green?

Does it matter? Isn’t verbal language secondary to the action and the experience? Why this insistence on labelling?

 

A confession here: For half a century, I have worked with the art of Josef Albers, for most of that time running a non-profit Foundation that he and his wife Anni, the brilliant textile artist and printmaker, established. Josef was a pre-eminent colour theorist, fascinated by the language as well as the function of colour. He used to say that “colour is the most relative medium in art.” In his teaching, writing, and painting, he demonstrated, with utmost passion and pleasure, the way that we see a colour not so much on its own as in relation to its neighbours. What counts about that colour of the ball is what happens to it in contrast to the court surface, how it reacts to bright sunlight or to the evening dusk, how it interacts with the tint of the court surface. It – the colour of the ball – is an absolute, but our experience of it is multi-dimensional. This is just one of the miracles that is taking place in the process of the game of tennis.

The reason that the current colour came into use for tennis balls has to do with simple issues of visibility. Tennis balls were formerly white – at least for the most part – until David Attenborough, the naturalist and television presenter, was Controller for BBC 2. In 1967, Sir David obtained permission for BBC 2 to start broadcasting in colour. The first time that Wimbledon was televised in colour rather than black and white, it was noticeable that the white tennis balls were hard to see. There was less contrast in the white ball hitting the white lines when there was a panoply of colours in the surroundings than used to be apparent when there was only black and white (a point that Josef would have found absolutely fascinating. The idea that the change in the surrounding colours to the full spectrum from the white-grey-black scale made the white balls less visible was the sort of phenomenon that delighted him.) Sir David had the idea that something else should be tried. By 1972, coloured tennis balls were approved by the International Tennis Federation.

And the name of the colour, written boldly on the tins of balls made by the company Wilson, was …

 

Optic yellow.

 

To be specific, the colour, as specified by the ITF, is, according to the Hex Colour Code, dfff4f. On the more recently developed online Colour Encyclopaedia called ColorHexa, that has become ccff00. Another colour coding system, RGB, makes it RGB 223,255,79. The hex coding system uses letters and number that indicate the proportions of red, green, and blue in a colour; the RGB code is a different way of calculating the same relative quantities in a mixture. 

So what does that tell us? Color Hexa describes ccff00 – the colour of a tennis ball – as “Fluorescent yellow or Electric lime.” In the RGB system, it is among the greens. 

“Electric lime!” Do you subscribe to the idea that limes preceded lemons, and that lemons are a hybrid of citrons and limes, even though lemons grow in milder climates than the tropical and semi-tropical ones demanded by limes? In any case, assuming that we all agree that lemons are yellow, can a single colour be the equivalent of both limes and lemons, even with one made fluorescent and the other electric? Why can’t there be a single answer to the question about tennis balls? What about the colour of those citrus fruits you see in the supermarket that are shaped like a small lemon or a large lime, and are what we call “yellow” with hints of what we call “green?” Does their taste echo the percentages of their colours, half way between both types of fruit; do they have that high note that distinguishes a gimlet accenting that rounder flavour that characterizes lemonade? 

The solution is to accept the mystery, to recognize the limitations of words. Let’s not even try to say what colour a tennis ball is; the label, after all, followed the development of that particular hue. Language only comes afterwards, of course; the sun and fields were the colours that they are long before there were names for those tones or the words to identify them existed. The visual preceded the verbal, and with both of them we have to accept the beauty of vagaries; to seek precision is to miss the boat. Josef Albers – who lived in Orange, Connecticut – revelled in the highway sign at the town border line which was painted the very particular green requisite of such signs and said, in bold white lettering, “This is Orange.” Wherein lies the truth?

Let’s take a look at the closest colour to that of tennis balls in the art of Albers:

Josef was very aware that different manufacturers used the same name for colours that look very different. A Winsor & Newton Mars Yellow, for example, seems miles apart from a Grumbacher Mars Yellow. Adding to that, the way a colour looks when reproduced is different from the way it looks in a painted canvas. 

Test your colour memory. In these Albers paintings, which of these colours do you think looks closer to a tennis ball? 

These three and a half paintings all belong to Josef’s series called Homages to the Square, of which he painted nearly three thousand between the time that he turned sixty-two years old, in 1950, until his death at age eighty-eight, in 1976. They gave Josef a chance to create a vast range of “colour climates,” and they incite a range of sensations of movement in colours that were factually inert. The same Cinnabar Green Light, made by the paint manufacturer Old Holland, looks different according to its quantity – and thus its size in relation to the colours adjacent to it – and the light intensity and hue of the colours surrounding it. If you take a piece of white paper and fold it to size so that it blocks everything between two of the central squares of the paintings, you will see that they are almost exactly the same although they look dramatically different. (The variables that exist are because we are dealing with photographic reproduction, not the actual paintings.)

Everything makes a difference with colour; there are no absolutes. And in the case of the colour of tennis balls, there is yet another element – beyond the distance from which we see the ball, the degree of sunlight or shadow, the colour of the court that is in effect its background, and the nature of our own eyesight: the extent of our capacity to distinguish colours. It is the age and condition of the ball.

The artist Eddie Martinez pointed this out in a recent New York Times article:

I have painted tennis balls for at least five years. I don’t think I ever paint the color accurately. It’s a funky color. There is a whole debate over the color of tennis balls. Are they yellow or are they green? I think that every tennis ball shifts between that range in the course of their life. They start off neon, like a toxic sludge, but once a ball starts to lose its fuzz and pick up the residue of whatever surface you’re playing on, they get dull. I would say they start off neon green and go more toward yellow over time.

Maybe colours are like the word “color,” which is spelled differently in English English than in American English; there is no single fixed law. Is the difference between lemons and limes a matter of flavour or flavor? 

Exalt in what you cannot know! Yes, once upon a time the colour of tennis balls was plain old coconut cake white (or angel food cake white, or a genoise; it depends on the state of the ball.) Then, thanks to David Attenborough, it was made easier for the eye to perceive. But let the “green or yellow?” debate go to the side; throw it out of the court. You never know for sure who will win the match, and in this case the winner is the colour itself, not its name.

And then look at the print below by Josef Albers. He made it in 1969. Is this where the manufacturers of the new tennis balls got their idea? All we know for sure is that if we stare at the central colour – peu importe the name – for long enough, and then look at either of the greys surrounding it (warm grey, cool grey, but grey nonetheless,) we begin to get slight afterimages of the middle colour. Savour the thrill, or savor it; words are only words. 

 

Story published in Courts no. 1, summer 2021.

Crafting an Icon: 

How Minoru Yoneyama Built Yonex

from a Single Motor into a Global Tennis Force

 

Yonex continues to shape tennis history as it celebrates its 75th anniversary

The white, wild winters of the Niigata prefecture in Japan may not appear to the outsider as the perfect tennis climate, but to Minoru Yoneyama, Yonex’s legendary founder, there was a correlation to be made. The powerful terrain and mountain tranquillity of his homeland lent itself to engineering success; that engineering success, in time, would blossom into a racquet manufacturing empire that would influence the global sport of tennis in all its sunny corners.

Discipline, creative ingenuity, and a desire to unite. Those are the tenets that projected the image of Yoneyama and his company from chilly Niigata to the sun-streaked clay and grass courts of tennis hotbeds like Miami, Monte-Carlo, Melbourne, and nearby Tokyo, where Yonex would rise to expand its influence over the world of tennis. 

Today, Naomi Osaka swings her mighty EZONE 98, and the world looks on in rapture. Stan Wawrinka unleashes a booming backhand, a visceral shot if there ever was one, then points to his temple with his right hand while brandishing his VCORE PRO 97 in his left. Yonex travels well – the brand has come a long way from its humble beginnings.

It was not an easy road, and this is not a fairy tale. Rather, it is a story of survival, of loyalty and heritage. When Minoru Yoneyama returned to his homeland after World War II it was with the heaviest heart, for he did not just carry the horrors of war in his mind, he had also lost his father while away. But his father, who had owned and operated a wood sandal factory, had left Minoru the tool that would set him off on his journey: a motor to cut wood.

From this single motor, first put to use 75 years ago, an empire would be forged.

Yoneyama used the engine to begin his foray into the wooden float business, and the enterprise thrived until modern advancements – namely, plastic floats – forced him to consider alternatives. The setback would stifle him, but Yoneyama was determined. His challenge was viewed as an opportunity to evolve and Yoneyama vowed to never again be trampled by technology’s ruthless cadence. Instead, it was decided: he would not fear the change, he would be the change.

Relying on engineering expertise, Yoneyama’s fledgling company would seamlessly shift into making badminton racquets as the sport was taking off in 1957. The motto: “The toughest situations create the greatest chances.”

The Yoneyama Sports Company was officially born in 1957, and though there were many uphill battles to be fought over the next decade, the company, guided by the principles of Monozukuri, a Japanese form of craftsmanship that places more emphasis on the skills than the craftsman, began to prosper. Monozukuri, a rich Japanese tradition, calls for respect for materials and their origin. Knowledge is placed on a pedestal, as are the original cultivators of the craft.

Badminton was at the core of the business in the 1960s, but Yonex’s fortunes were altered dramatically when the pioneering Yoneyama made his next bold move. Advancements in tennis, a sport that was capturing the imagination of the public at the advent of the Open Era, would begin in earnest in 1969, when the ground-breaking T-7000 racquet was released. In the ensuing years new technologies would be added – namely the “Oval Pressed Shaft,” or OPS, which improved stability – and in 1974, for the first time, a Yonex racquet was placed in the hands of the great Tony Roche.

Not only did Yonex have a foothold in the tennis world, but they had also added one of the Aussie greats to their stable. It was just the beginning of a long history of collaboration between the brand and legends of tennis.

As the company continued its rapid ascent, one key truth remained constant for Yonex. Production would always take place in Japan, on the land nurtured by the biting climate of Niigata, by artisans faithful to the tenets of Monozukuri, and loyal to the needs of the Yonex customer. In an age of offshore production to cut costs, this intransigence was a rarity among producers in any industry, especially tennis. This was the spiritual contract Yoneyama, who passed away at the age of 95 in 2019, signed in blood, sweat and tears. A tradition honoured for 75 years, which continues into the future… 

In 1974, the same year that Roche joined the brand, Yoneyama sports officially became Yonex. Y-o-n-e for Yoneyama with an extra “X” added to provide the infinite – the X-factor.

Thirty years had passed since Minoru Yoneyama’s return from World War II. In those three decades Yonex had achieved incomparable success, but the best was yet to come.

In 1980, the iconic ISOMETRIC square-shaped racquet head was released to the world, and two of the greatest legends in the sport demonstrated their belief in the Yonex name by signing on to play with the brand. Billie Jean King, 20-time Grand Slam champion and legendary activist, was pictured on the cover of the 1980 Yonex catalogue, swinging a graphite Carbonex racquet. One of the most influential women in the history of sport was swinging a Japanese work of art – it was a giant step forward for the brand.

Even more colossal: In 1982, Martina Navratilova switched to the Yonex R-7 and promptly became the first player to claim a Grand Slam title with Yonex in her hand. The race for the sweetest sweet spot was on and Yonex had its lead horse Navratilova, galloping out in front of the pack. Consisting of a superlight blend of special graphite and fibreglass, the cutting-edge R-7 offered quickness, power, control, and flexibility. It was the ultimate performance racquet, held by the sport’s ultimate performer at that time.

A year later, Navratilova won singles and doubles at the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the US Open, all with the new best-selling Yonex R-22. 

Success did not change Yoneyama. He remained steadfast in his pursuit of quality craftsmanship. His refusal to rest on his laurels kept Yonex in constant touch with new ideas and innovations that propelled the company forward. His loyalty to the tenets of Monozukuri kept Yonex grounded in its roots and enabled tight, flawless production that became popular not just with elite pros like Navratilova, but a growing cadre of devotees who enjoyed the game recreationally, all over the world.

Yonex transitioned seamlessly into the 1990s, with Navratilova locking down her record ninth Wimbledon title in 1990 – an iconic moment for a player and her racquet if there ever was one – while a young Monica Seles (with her wide body Yonex RQ-380 in her two fists) became the youngest female player to achieve a World No.1 Ranking in 1991.

Already established in badminton and golf, Yonex would develop its first snowboard in the 1990s. A shrewd – and cool – crossover move!

But tennis was always a driving force for the brand and a way to connect with a global customer base. Martina Hingis, the incomparable Swiss Miss, utterly watchable and preternaturally talented, made tennis into a teachable moment for all viewers. How could a kid demonstrate such uncanny court craft and guile? In an age of giant hitters, Hingis used timing and technique to become the youngest Grand Slam champion in tennis history.

With Yonex by her side Hingis would stand the test of time. She earned 25 Grand Slam titles across singles, doubles and mixed and held the No.1 singles ranking for 209 weeks. Not quite on a par with Navratilova’s 332 weeks at the top, but nothing to scoff at either.

Seles and Hingis helped young players identify with the Yonex brand, and a hardcore young Aussie, brash, bold, and boisterous, continued that trend in the early 2000s: Lleyton Hewitt and his Yonex were known for pinpoint control and precision, but his most important attribute was his capacity to fight. Yonex, by default, became an extension of that ethos, and a long line of pugilists, from Navratilova to Seles and Hingis to Hewitt and Wawrinka, they all have that in common: winning is a right, and for that we must fight.

Today, as Yonex celebrates 75 years of dedication to craft, a new cast of characters drives the company forward. With personalities that transcend the sport, and skills that boggle the mind, characters like Stan Wawrinka, Angelique Kerber, Nick Kyrgios, Belinda Bencic and Denis Shapovalov delight fans with their artistry and panache.

And then there is the ultimate symmetry, made possible by Naomi Osaka. The Japanese megastar marches to the beat of her own drum as she revolutionizes the women’s game. Osaka is the first Japanese player to win a Grand Slam title and the first Asian player to ever hold the No.1 ranking. Humble by nature, but mysteriously alluring, the four-time Grand Slam champion has created a full-circle moment for Yonex. A Japanese phenom clearly enjoying her moment, Osaka and Yonex (her longest-standing sponsor, backing her from her junior days) tackle the sport together – she is the beacon of light that shines from Japan – and Yonex is the brand that gives her the light to shine.

The collaboration is the perfect way to mark an anniversary, as a new era begins… 

 

Story published in Courts no. 1, summer 2021.