Happiness in Four Colours!

With System 4, Michel Russillon is reinventing the tennis court in order to bring back its adolescent soul. And to magnify what it exists for – to play.

 

“In life, what you love, you do well.” In this simple sentence lies a proverbial truth. Not absolute, no – but the proven truth of a person who dedicated his life to tennis, tennis as a game, and as an apprenticeship – an allegory of the life we all pass through, tennis as a way of being and behaving: Michel Russillon.

A sports teacher by training, with emphasis on tennis, Russillon has developed a concept, System 4, which aims to put play and fun back at the centre of tennis education. 

“Remove three saucepans that stick to our sport,” he explains the proposed transformation. “From a so-called elitist game, to make a popular game; from an individualistic game, switch to a friendly game; and, rather than suggesting that tennis is difficult to access, provide a learning method that is simple and understandable for all.”

Elitism, individualism, complexity… Criticism that does not date to yesterday. And which today seems to manifest itself within various tennis federations as a decline in popularity. In France, at the national level, the erosion of the number of people holding a tennis licence has emerged as a fundamental campaign theme during the presidency elections of the French Tennis Federation. While in 2010, 1.1m licences were issued, now there are only 950,000. Moreover, ten years ago, when the number peaked, the Federation was already struggling to find ways to attract young players. 

“There is a disaffection with tennis among young pre-adolescent girls,” observed Odile de Roubin, then in charge of tackling the problem at the FFT. A similar battle occurs in the United States, where the number of tennis participants only began to increase with the COVID pandemic, after having decreased from 19 to 17 million between 2010 and 2017. 

On the other hand, the public still longs for its champions, even as the typical tennis spectator has aged. The average age of a tennis fan has ballooned from 51 to 61 in the last 15 years, the cause of much hand-wringing within the sport. 

Perhaps new vision and new champions are what is needed to break this trend. 

 

“We need to touch and feel the ball!”

For Michel Russillon, the key is to focus not on the champions but the players and the teachers. 

“We messed up our approach,” he analyses. “We did too many drills, the so-called Hopman method of hitting baskets of balls in repetition. People saw the coach send balls like that to Federer, Nadal, and company. But, for them, that’s not a problem! For Roger or Rafa, the automation is done, they are just warming up. On the other hand, a beginner who receives a ball fed from a coach does not learn anything. He doesn’t know if it’s an attacking ball, a defensive ball… I’m not criticising those who prefer to use the basket, but I really don’t think this is the right way to learn tennis.” 

“Hit the ball and shut up!” reads an article in Le Monde written 40 years ago about Harry Hopman’s Academy. An entire program! Should we play the role of a charlatan and let the trick be on those who wish to learn the sport properly? No. 

“There is this viral phenomenon among the generation Y, it is undeniable,” says Russillon. “Being able to offer different types of tennis at a club, which is also very popular in the USA: pop tennis, touchtennis, pickleball, padel. For me, it is not a worry. There is no competition – these are just fashions, trends. Most of those who try something else pick up the racquet half an hour later.” 

As time has proven, we don’t drop our passion for the fuzzy yellow ball on a whim; we simply take a break from time to time to reflect on this strange relationship between the mind, the body, the court, and the racquet. 

“Obviously, you need to touch and feel the ball. There is something very specific about tennis,” adds Russillon. 

It is perhaps this imagination that has accompanied us since the moment we struck the first ball. Those dreams that we’ve been chasing since youth. Those moments spent hitting alone against a wall, imagining ourselves in front of throngs of spectators, playing for a trophy against a legend of the sport. Visions of Slam finals, at the end of our idyllic little street, against the worn door of the family garage or the wall of our tennis club – maybe even inside the house, with the sofa fashioned into a net. 

Those euphoric wins we experienced, for the very first time, scoring a victory over a big brother, a friend, an older partner who had been schooling us for years… We mimicked the gestures of our tennis idols – the insouciant volatility of John McEnroe, the crisp, clean technique of Stefan Edberg, the joy of Guga, coolness of Borg, eloquence of Federer, and vibrancy of Nadal – and formed a mystical bond with this craziest of sports.

The pupil? A treasure that has all the talent in the world..

It is also for this reason that Russillon decided to implement his ideas. System 4 is a versatile concept, embodied by a new vision of the tennis court and a new educational approach to competing between the lines. On the surface, occupied by a traditional court within its, not always attractive, grid boundaries, 18 by 36 meters, Russillon has created a “tennis park” with four, quadricoloured progressive courts. 

Colour-coded, on the same surface, and with the doubles alleys eliminated so that the eye can focus on what’s important, the player can become truly aware that they are playing on a rectangle. The four courts can either take this form for educational purposes or another one – a little different and less colorful, but with an associated racquet rental service on top, so that the club can make it a space dedicated to more than tennis, from pickleball to touchtennis.

“Our sport has been around for 150 years, and it never budged,” Russillon says. “I believe it is time to change the infrastructure in order to learn better and have fun immediately. Suddenly, we have smaller courts, which allow us to hit more balls, a colour code reminiscent of traffic lights, and the different roles that I have to play during a game: server or returner, defender or aggressor. 

“In the red zone, I am behind the baseline – I am defending. In the orange zone, I start to take the initiative. In the green zone, I attack, and in the yellow zone, I finish – I volley, I conclude the point. It transcribes well the game that I advocate, a creative game and not a robotic one. If we look at contemporary tennis, we see that it is played a lot in the red zone. With the children, we try to start in the red in order to teach them consistency, but, then, we quickly go to the yellow zone where we take the initiative.”

This colourful environment, that gives pleasure and breathes life into training sessions, must be accompanied by a thoughtful educational approach. 

“I am in favour of the active method, in which people play and draw the necessary resources from themselves,” explains Russillon. 

And finally, System 4 comes with a credo: each child has all the talent in the world. 

“A student is a treasure, an essential person loved by their loved ones, the family, the whole environment,” says Russillon. “It is the coach’s responsibility to help the student find those resources that will lead to success. The player must therefore be able to analyse his game by asking the right questions in order to find the solutions: Did I react well? Did I play with the right pace? Was I well oriented and balanced? Did I play the right shot?”

Using this approach, the quadricoloured courts make it possible to get closer to the essence of the sport. 

“They maximise the stimulation of training. And this is important, because I believe that, if the children have difficulty concentrating, it is perhaps because I, as a coach, have not succeeded in offering them a training session that would lead them to concentration.”

 

The four courts can therefore be broken down into four workshops, says Russillon. “On the largest court, training is individualised with a player and a coach. On the two intermediate courts, we practise improvement and play, free or with instructions. In all three cases, we are in a real match situation. Finally, on the smaller court, we work on coordination using balance balls and footwork ladders, to promote stability and equilibrium. The children are spread out over the four courts and switch according to a set timing.

The result? Satisfaction. 

“When they get home at night, they can say that they’ve perfected themselves, that they’ve worked out physically, that they played and had fun!” 

Last but not least, there is an essential aspect of the instruction: the use of the whole range of training balls. “We are aiming for immediate success,” confirms Russillon. “It’s better to start the volley with a soft ball and, if all goes well, move on to the heavier red ball, then to the orange ball, sharper than the yellow ball, or to the green ball, slower. If you fail, no worries, we go back to the soft ball – we adapt to the level of the child.”

“Tennis is a way to feel good about yourself”

If tennis is a sport that feeds back after every point played, success or failure, the challenge of System 4 goes far beyond. For Michel Russillon, tennis is not a goal in itself. It is “a way to be good with yourself”. 

“It’s only for Roger or Rafa that it’s a goal in itself,” he jokes. “For us, it’s a game, a pleasure, which allows us to develop qualities that we need throughout our lives: taking initiatives, contact with others, responsibilities – useful values ​​in everyday life that allow us to feel good in our sneakers and with our peers. There is no tennis without camaraderie! In short, it is a lifestyle from a young age, and until the most advanced level. It is still rare to find a sport that you can play from 4 to 77-years-old! You do singles, doubles, you can adapt and evolve.”

“In short, it’s the sport of a lifetime. On the physical level, on the play level, but also on the relational level. And that is essential with this painful period that we have been through.” 

System 4 takes up this challenge. Creating bonds, bringing back conviviality in tennis clubs and in everything related to the fuzzy yellow ball.

“Absolutely!” Exclaims Michel Russillon: “When there are eight children who alternate between workshops, have fun, and succeed on these four quadricoloured courts, you have twice as many parents and grandparents around who join the discussion, and then, who knows, maybe play together. When you have the young and the old playing touchtennis or a game of pickleball on the courts, you have so many interested looks and people around who want to test it and maybe come to the club once more during the week.” 

The project then takes on a formidable importance. For Michel, it is embodied in a true profession of faith: “My goal is to bring tennis to the city. In the city! Build city parks that make you want to hit balls rather than go for a run on the treadmill.”

A non-prescription prescription of conviviality and shared happiness: “The game is all within us. And, at the end of the day, we’ll have a drink together!” 

 

Story published in Courts no. 2, autumn 2021.

The Queen said

“it must have been terribly hot”

on Centre Court.

Did you know that Althea Gibson was in a John Ford movie playing opposite John Wayne and William Holden? Are you old enough to know who Althea Gibson was? 

And why is it that, although she had a major role in the 1958 movie, Gibson’s billing hardly ever showed up in any publicity? She had, after all, been ranked world number one female tennis player one year earlier. In 1956, she had won the French Open, and in 1957 she had glided to the top with victories at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. Is it because she was thought of more as a sportsperson than an actress that, even though she was on screen more than any other woman except for Constance Tower, her name is twenty-third in the credits?

More likely, of course, the reason that the 5ft 11in tall 32-year-old who played a slave girl in Ford’s film was not given star billing, or any billing at all, is that she was Black.

When she won at Roland Garros, she had been the first Black woman ever to win a Grand Slam tennis title. Six years earlier, in 1950, she had, at age twenty-three, broken the colour barrier of the American Lawn Tennis League by playing at the exclusive West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills in the U.S. National Tennis Championships. In 1951, she had been the first African-American player to play at Wimbledon. None of it had come easily. Following her Wimbledon title six years after that, when she was shown being congratulated by Queen Elizabeth, she said, “Shaking hands with the Queen of England was a long way from being forced to sit in the coloured section of the bus going into downtown Wilmington, North Carolina.” 

Gibson was born to sharecroppers who worked on a cotton farm in rural South Carolina. The Great Depression had an immediate impact on rural farmers, and in 1930, her parents moved to Harlem. The Police Athletic League operated a play-area near to the family’s apartment on 143^rd Street between Lenox and Seventh Avenues—Gibson, a natural athlete, played lots of sports there, and by age twelve, she was the women’s paddle tennis champion for all of New York City. Her father taught her boxing, and she took to it naturally. Her neighbours made a collection for her to have tennis lessons. At first, she considered tennis to be a sport for weak people. She would later say that combat came so naturally to her that she would “fight the other player every time I started to lose a match,” but, still, she played and she played well. 

Soon, Gibson began to win tournaments. She was discovered by Walter Johnson, a physician in Lynchburg, Virginia, who mentored young African-American tennis players—Johnson would eventually mentor Arthur Ashe as he did Gibson—and he helped her gain entry into tournaments that did not normally have Black competitors. She moved back to the South, to Wilmington, North Carolina, and her tennis was of such sterling quality that she got a full athletic scholarship to attend Florida A&M University. 

But the tennis world was not fully open to her. Gibson was initially kept out of the US National Tennis Championships at Forest Hills. Racial discrimination was prohibited by law, but to qualify for the Nationals, players had to win a certain number of sanctioned tournaments, and they were held at all-white private clubs where Blacks never went onto the courts, even in tournaments technically open to everyone. It took the doyenne of women’s tennis, Alice Marble, to publish an editorial in the July 1950 issue of the magazine American Lawn Tennis to change history. 

Gibson reprints Marble’s diatribe in her lovely autobiography, I Always Wanted to be Somebody— a book that is rare for its candour, lack of boasting, and its freshness of tone, even if it is not great literature. Marble, as cited in Gibson’s book, writes that lots of people “Want to know if Althea Gibson will not be permitted to play in the Nationals this year. Not being privy to the sentiments of the U.S.L.T.A., … when I directed the question to a committee member of long standing, his answer, tacitly given, was in the negative … The attitude of the committee will be that Miss Gibson has not sufficiently proven herself.”

Marble writes that the committee member did not think it adequate that Gibson had been a finalist in the National Indoors. She would have to play in the tournaments in Orange, East Hampton, and Essex. But they were invitationals. “If she is not invited to participate in them, as my committee member freely predicted, then she obviously will be unable to prove anything at all, and it will be the reluctant duty of the committee to reject her entry at Forest Hills.¹

“We can accept the evasions, ignore the fact that no one will be honest enough to shoulder the responsibility for Althea Gibson’s possible exclusion from the Nationals. We can just ‘not think about it.’ Or we can face the issue squarely and honestly … It so happens that I tan very easily in the summer—but I doubt that anyone ever questioned my right to play in the Nationals because of it.”

Just after the editorial appeared, Gibson tried to enter the New Jersey State Championships at the Maplewood Country Club, but was refused on the basis that there was “not enough information.” Then, however, American Tennis Association officials joined the battle for Gibson’s admission to Forest Hills, and the Orange Lawn Tennis Club in South Orange, New Jersey, allowed her to play in an important championship. “The dam broke,” Gibson would write. At age twenty-three, she was invited into the Nationals and became the first Black player, female or male, to enter the tournament. An article in The Daily Worker reported that “No Negro player, man or woman, has ever set foot on one of these courts. In many ways, it is even a tougher personal Jim Crow-busting assignment than was Jackie Robinson’s when he first stepped out of the Brooklyn Dodgers dugout.”² Ebbets Field, where the Dodgers played, did not, after all, reek of exclusivity. The half-timbered Tudor-style buildings of the elegant club in Forest Hills, an oasis of verdure and space in New York’s borough of Queens that seemed like an English village in the middle of the metropolis, made it a bastion of America’s white Protestant establishment. It’s thirty-five tennis courts bespoke quiet wealth—that was one large piece of real estate a short trip from midtown Manhattan. The founders and subsequent inner sanctum of the place had ideas on how to keep it the way they wanted; like private schools, dancing classes, country clubs, and universities all over America’s so-called segregated Northeast in the 1950s, there were unwritten rules concerning the eligibility of Blacks and Jews. 

Gibson’s getting into the tournament was a breakthrough, but it would not have secured her membership in the tennis club. In 1959, Ralph Bunche Jr, the fifteen-year-old son of Dr Ralph Bunche—one of the most distinguished Black people in America, a Nobel Prize winner and United Nations Under-Secretary for Special Political Affairs—was denied membership. Bunche Jr was taking lessons with George Agutter, a 72-year-old pro who had been teaching at Forest Hills for 45 years, and Agutter had urged him to apply for junior membership. Agutter had not realized that his pupil was a light-skinned Negro. After the error was recognised and Bunche Jr was told it was out of the question, “The elder Bunche thereupon called the club president, Wilfred Burglund, who said he was sorry, but Forest Hills simply didn’t take in Negroes or Jews. When Bunche protested that Negro star Althea Gibson twice won the women’s singles title at Forest Hills (in 1957 and 1958) Burglund replied that the club had no control over the players in the tournaments held there by the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association, but it definitely could decide its own membership. If the club admitted Negroes, said Burglund according to Bunche, hundreds of its members would instantly resign.³

Bunche went public about the matter, which was rare for him. “Neither I nor my son regard it as a hardship or humiliation. It is not, of course, in the category of … segregation … suffered by … Negroes in the North as well as the South. But it flows from the same well of racial and religious bigotry. Rather, it is a discredit to the club itself.” Five US senators publicly spoke up against the Club’s policy, and New York’s deputy mayor joined the protest against the heinous policy. The response from the leadership of the Club was silence. The US Supreme Court had made its landmark school integration decision five years earlier, but since the club had nothing in its bylaws or constitution establishing the policy that prohibited Blacks and Jews and other unspecified minorities from joining, no one had further recourse, and the policy stayed in place. Even with the breakthrough allowance to play at Forest Hills, it was not all onwards and upwards. Gibson would write that she was “discriminated against by the tournament committee when they assigned me to Court 14, which is the farthest removed from the clubhouse of all the courts on the club grounds and has the smallest capacity for accommodating spectators.”⁴ 

Ginger Rogers, who played mixed doubles in the tournament, was, on the other hand, put on the court directly in front of the clubhouse. Even at her obscure location, though, Gibson was noticed, to the extent that she had to cope with the annoyance of flashbulbs constantly going off in her face and temporarily blinding her. The press was excited by her breakthrough presence, and her tennis was remarkable. Lean and muscular, she used her long arms gracefully, dazzling people especially with her powerful serve.

Whatever the battles she had been through to get her into Grand Slam tournaments, in 1957, not only was Gibson the first Black champion at Wimbledon, she was the first champion ever to receive the trophy personally from Queen Elizabeth II. When she had been getting ready for the match, “Everyone in the dressing room was talking excitedly about the news that the Queen was going to be there. That made me feel extra good. I would have been terribly disappointed if she hadn’t been.”⁵ An hour before the match, when she was practising on a side court, she “saw Queen Elizabeth eating lunch on the clubhouse porch. Instead of making me nervous, it made me feel more eager than ever to get out there and play.” As Gibson changed into a fresh shirt, she was counselled how to curtsy to the Queen after the match. Then, just after Gibson won the finals with dashing tennis, the tournament officials asked her and the other finalist, Darlene Hard, to walk over to the umpire’s chair and wait as workmen unrolled a red carpet from the royal box.

“Queen Elizabeth, followed by three attendants, walked gracefully out on the court. She wore a pretty pink dress, a white hat and white gloves, and she was absolutely immaculate, even in all that heat. One of the officials called me to step forward and accept my award. I walked up to the Queen, made a deep curtsy, and shook the hand she held out to me. ‘My congratulations,’ she said, ‘it must have been terribly hot out there.’ I said, ‘Yes, your majesty, but I hope it wasn’t as hot in your box. At least I was able to stir up a breeze.’ The Queen had a wonderful speaking voice and looked exactly as a Queen ought to look, except more beautiful than you would expect any real-life queen to look.” Queen Elizabeth then presented the gold salver to Gibson. Gibson “curtsied again and backed away from her… I remembered the backing away business from the movies.⁶ The Queen then retreated and the red carpet was rolled back up.

At a celebration ball that evening at the Dorchester Hotel, Gibson addressed the Duke of Devonshire, who was master of ceremonies, and said, “In the words of your distinguished Mr. Churchill, this is my finest hour.” She thanked “the many good people in England and around the world whose written and spoken expressions of encouragement, faith, and hope I have tried to justify.” She said that her win was “a total victory of many nations… created through the international language of tennis.”⁷ Then Gibson started the dancing by going out on the dance floor with the tennis pro Lew Hoad. The two of them circled the ballroom to the song ‘April Showers’, which Gibson had requested, and it took several minutes before others in the awestruck crowd followed them onto the dance floor. In New York, following her triumph in London, Gibson was the second African-American—Jesse Owens had been the first—to be honoured with a ticker tape parade. President Dwight Eisenhower wrote her, “Recognizing the odds you faced, we have applauded your courage, persistence, and application. Certainly it is not easy for anyone to stand in the centre court at Wimbledon and, in the glare of world publicity, and under the critical gaze of thousands of spectators, do his or her very best. You met the challenge superbly.”⁸

Gibson then won the US Open in the stadium where she had previously been forbidden entry. The following year, she glided to victory yet again in both tournaments. The Associated Press, in both 1957 and 1958, declared her “Female Athlete of the Year.”

It was an unusual idea of John Ford’s to put Gibson in his movie, The Horse Soldiers, and an odd decision on her part to take the role. On the screen, she is subservient and docile. She generally has a look on her face of wide-eyed astonishment.Although she refused to speak in the dialect that Ford had initially requested, and had great dignity as a tall, well-dressed, and pretty slave, was the antithesis of the warrior she was in real life. 

And she is shot dead well before the end of the movie, which generally roars with testosterone and is a general bloodbath. It is not a brilliant part, but she is competent at it.

Gibson liked performing, and not just on the tennis court. Gibson was a talented singer and saxophonist; in 1943, she had been runner-up at an amateur contest at Harlem’s renowned Apollo Theater, and in the same year she won those three Slam tennis titles, she had sung in public at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel at an 84th birthday tribute to W.C. Handy, a well-known songwriter who was considered “The Father of the Blues.” The year after she was in The Horse Soldiers, she released a phonograph record and performed on the Ed Sullivan Show. But despite her moments of glory, Gibson struggled. Once she stopped winning Grand Slam matches, she was low on funds, and made money doing exhibition matches before Harlem Globetrotters basketball games. She, and her doubles partner Angela Buxton, who was Jewish, were turned down on the many occasions that they sought admission to the The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club. Gibson, meanwhile, became a professional golfer, and joined the Ladies Professional Golf Association—the first African-American to do so—at age thirty-seven. She was able to be a member, but still was banned from tournaments not just in the South but also in the North, and often had to dress for matches in her car because she was not allowed into the clubhouse. 

The rest of Gibson’s life did not have the glamour of her Queen Elizabeth years. She did well at golf, but not spectacularly, and made money largely by doing sponsorship deals. She continued with golf and tennis, but not on the same level as in earlier years. Nonetheless, in 1976, Althea Gibson became Athletic Commissioner of New Jersey—and was the first woman to hold such a post anywhere in the U.S. Married and divorced twice, she was essentially alone in the world when she then had two cerebral haemorrhages and a stroke and, unable to pay her rent or medical treatment, she asked for help from various tennis organisations but never received it. Fortunately, Angela Buxton raised over a million dollars from mutual acquaintances to ensure her comfort until 2003 when Gibson died. Today, there are children’s books featuring Althea Gibson as an exemplar of courage and tenacity. Through tennis, she changed the world. 

¹ I Always Wanted to be Somebody, pp. 63-65

² Rodney, L: 

On the Scoreboard: Miss Gibson Plays at Forest Hills, The Daily Worker, August 24, 1950

³ Segregation: West Side Story, anonymous article dated July 20, 1959 in the Ralph Bunche papers of the University of California, UCLA Special Collections

⁴ p. 71

⁵ p. 132

⁶ p. 134

⁷ p. 138

⁸ p. 140

 

Story published in Courts no. 3, Summer 2022.

The Ultimate Demise of New York’s East River Courts?

 

Built on a New York ‘flood plain’ the courts will leave tennis loving New Yorkers dry for at least four years

In the summer of 2019, as the U.S. Open show rolled into New York, the city’s public courts became a boon for celebrities: Lindsay Davenport shot a Heineken ad on a court along the Hudson River; Eugenie Bouchard drilled with then-coach Pat Cash at the Bronx’s Cary Leeds Tennis Center; even Daniil Medvedev turned up to play. His choice: the Brian Watkins Tennis Center at Manhattan’s East River Park.

Why East River Park? The proximity to East Midtown, where a lot of the players stay? For the views of the Williamsburg Bridge? Sightseeing spots created by the famous urban planning despot Robert Moses? Or the relative anonymity and no-BS attitude of the Lower East Side?

The regulars at the Center, one of the most popular tennis playgrounds in Manhattan, never asked. And Medvedev never said. But as the 2022 U.S. Open winds down and hurricane season rolls into the Tri-State area, another storied tennis venue could go the way of the Tudor City Courts, the Forest Park Tennis Courts in Queens and the former Cosmopolitan Tennis Club in Harlem: the Brian Watkins Tennis Center. 

“This is a very low- and moderate-income neighborhood. Most of the park is lined with public housing. It’s people who have been here for generations, who love this park and this place,” said Pat Arnow, a neighborhood resident who started the group East River Park ACTION. “That is why you are losing the park, because the city doesn’t care about the people who love this park right now… It’s not a tourist park. It doesn’t have a lot of rich people enjoying it.”

Last winter, despite protests, court petitions and players staging sit-ins amid bulldozers, construction started on the $1.4 billion “East Side Coastal Resiliency Project (ESCR),” — a hurricane-defense plan created in the wake of 2012’s massive Hurricane Sandy, which put FDR Drive and a good part of the East Side under water.  Following the current blueprints, city contractors will build a 1.2 mile wall along the water and cover the razed park with eight feet of fill to create a berm that will supposedly block hurricane-sized currents. A new park and new courts have been planned to sit atop the levee in four, maybe five years — or whenever workers finish. 

“If we built resilience measures, and didn’t protect the park itself, we would continue failing our communities for the exact reason the environmental justice movement started,” said Carlina Rivera, the City Council member who has represented the area since 2018. “My community doesn’t deserve a park that essentially turns into a bathtub every few years when there’s a hurricane. We deserve a park that’s protected.”

 

Back to Beginnings

For once, the reviled Moses might have done something good for the city — when he embarked on changing the waterfront, the East River was a hub of slaughterhouses, power stations and railroad yards. In tandem with Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive (FDR), Moses created a tree-shaded esplanade that rolled out with the highway. It housed abundant recreational facilities, lots of green space and windswept views — a respite for the tenements.

Acquiring land for a park in the LES proved prohibitively expensive and legally twisted, however. Instead, the city opted to fill in the waterfront, and in 1939, East River Park opened. It  featured a running track, a track house, an amphitheatre for famous producer Joseph Papp’s productions of  Shakespeare in the Park, and 12 tennis courts with a storage house and public toilets. 

Since then, however, the city has chipped away at the park. In 1949, the administration decided to widen FDR and took a section of the park to do it. In 1963, Mayor Robert F. Wagner extended South Street for tourists and pushed into the park. But the most drastic change to the waterfront took place in 2012, when Hurricane Sandy came to town. In a matter of hours, East River Park was under water. 

To keep the fate from repeating, not long after Sandy, the administration of outgoing mayor Bill DeBlasio presented a more palatable $760 million plan which would have razed a smaller section of the park, built berms and marshland, and installed floodgates on FDR Drive. In 2018, however, De Blasio scrapped it for the ESCR, a proposal he argued would create a better-protected space and make construction faster and easier. It would also temporarily sacrifice the newly refurbished track, the amphitheatre, and the courts, while permanently demolishing 1,000 trees — some 80 or more years old — an ecology project, and possibly the landmark protected tennis and track houses.

Local citizens under several groups, including East River Park ACTION, filed lawsuit after lawsuit. Initially, it seemed something might stick. But last December — the final month of de Blasio’s administration — demolition crews began working around the clock under constant police protection and in defiance of an appeals court restraining order to flatten the Southern half of the park, while men, women and their children sat on park amenities and stood in front of trees. On December 16, the restraining order was rejected, but by then, the damage was irreversible.

One of the more widely used courts in the city, the East River courts were renamed — a bit morbidly — the Brian Watkins Tennis Center in honor of a Utah tourist and University of Idaho tennis player who was slain in the subway while attending the 1990 U.S. Open. By spring 1991, the courts had a $1.7 million resurfacing and $30,000 donation from an anonymous donor to teach tennis to local children. 

Used nearly year-round, the courts had recently fallen into disrepair, with cracks filled with cement, downed windscreens, and nets held up, at times, with spare tennis balls, cans and anything leftover in racquet bags. With one of the major tennis centers now gone, other tennis associations across the city have braced themselves for the spill over. 

“My guess is that we are definitely seeing spill over. Fort Greene is very, very busy this season,” said Sam Burns of the Fort Greene Tennis Association, which operates the closest set of two or more public courts next to the East River. “I’m really glad that the City has committed to rebuilding the courts by including them in the improvement plans and I know that the NYC tennis community will be extremely happy when they have access to public tennis courts again.”

Bâtisseurs

Ils sont ceux qui entourent et préparent le joueur. Qui lui permettent de toucher ses limites et de les repousser. Et qui l’accompagnent pour être meilleur… sur le court, mais aussi en dehors. Focus sur ces bâtisseurs de l’athlète, du coach au préparateur physique, en passant par les kinés, les scientifiques et les laboratoires, à l’image de NHCO Nutrition®

 

Construire. Déconstruire. Reconstruire. Il y a le joueur de tennis qui, toujours, souhaite apprendre et progresser, adepte jusqu’au-boutiste de la fameuse citation apocryphe d’Antoine Lavoisier : « Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme. » Oui, pour cet athlète qui entretient l’espoir de vivre un jour l’ivresse d’une remise de trophées sur le court central d’un tournoi du Grand Chelem, rien n’est jamais perdu et tout doit contribuer à paver et niveler le chemin qui mène à cet Eden sportif. 

Mais c’est oublier que « rien ne se crée » non plus, que la transformation est une traversée, un changement qui peut s’apparenter à une simple évolution… comme aux plus profonds bouleversements. C’est aussi ce que son corps raconte, jusque dans ses plus petites unités vivantes, aux tréfonds des cellules. « Quand le joueur de haut niveau fait un effort intense, il détruit ses fibres musculaires, mais c’est en s’entraînant qu’il incite son corps à mieux se reconstruire et à gagner en puissance musculaire et en performance», explique Maud Belicchi, Directrice Recherche et Développement au sein des Laboratoires NHCO Nutrition®, remémorant quelques lointaines leçons de SVT passées à rêvasser plutôt qu’à noircir des cahiers. Résultat ? « Son objectif, dès la fin de son effort, est de les reconstruire. »

Construire. Déconstruire. Reconstruire. Des verbes qui font résonner leurs nuances aux oreilles averties des latinistes : « construire », c’est étymologiquement « construere », « bâtir », « entasser par couches », le tout avec structure. « Avec ». Une préposition qui a son importance : cette plongée rapide dans les pages d’un Gaffiot qu’il a fallu retrouver entre le Lagarde et Michard d’un vieil oncle et un reliquat suranné de cours encartonnés offre un écho surprenant, mais profond à la vie du joueur de tennis. 

 

« Mon corps est mon outil de travail »

Car on ne naît pas joueur de haut niveau. On le devient à force de construction, d’une structuration progressive qui ne peut se faire seule, mais avec : le coach, le préparateur physique, le préparateur mental, le kiné, l’expert nutritionniste… Tous participent au chantier. À sa préparation et à sa création. « La performance est une notion globale », confirme Frédéric Fontang, coach de Félix Auger-Aliassime. « Tous les aspects sont à prendre en compte, de la nutrition à la biomécanique, si on veut atteindre le plus haut niveau et durer. En tant qu’entraîneur, je suis exigeant dans mon approche à 360 degrés avec Félix. »

Il y a le soin apporté à l’accessoire, au matériel, mais surtout celui que le joueur accorde au tout premier de ses outils : son corps. Une réalité sur laquelle s’étendait longuement Pierre-Hugues Herbert dans une chronique pour Tennis Addict : « Mon corps est mon outil de travail. Il est irremplaçable. Si je le casse, ce n’est pas le genre de chose que je pourrai aller changer chez Leroy Merlin… Depuis mon plus jeune âge, mon entourage a toujours mis l’accent sur mon hygiène de vie et m’a fait comprendre qu’il fallait que je prenne soin de mon corps. » L’entourage, ce sont aussi ces différents experts qui contribuent au chantier. « Les meilleurs joueurs du monde voyagent quasiment tous avec des personnes chargées exclusivement de prendre soin d’eux (masseur, ostéopathe, préparateur physique, diététicien) », continue P2H. « Novak Djokovic avec son régime sans gluten, ses séances de yoga et ses deux kinés en est un très bon exemple. Tout comme Serena Williams qui voyage, elle, avec son cuisinier sur les tournois. »

Charlotte Ducos, responsable de la préparation physique pour la All In Academy, abonde. « C’est un travail d’équipe, dont le chef d’orchestre est l’entraîneur-tennis. C’est évidemment lui qui dicte, puisque la préparation d’un joueur dépend de la planification des tournois et de ce que le coach veut travailler. » Il y a les staffs médicaux qui permettent d’établir très précisément le profil physique du joueur avec ses faiblesses et ses pathologies. « Et nous aussi, du côté des préparateurs physiques, on a nos petits tests : est-ce que le joueur est fort du haut du corps, du bas, du devant, du derrière ? est-ce qu’il y a un déséquilibre ? On répète ces tests régulièrement tout au long de l’année pour vérifier que le travail physique mis en place fonctionne. Et on s’adapte. »

Adaptation, le mot est lâché. Car, comme pour tout chantier, les imprévus sont légion. Et le temps manque toujours… « C’est effectivement difficile de caler de grosses périodes de préparation physique dans l’année », confirme Charlotte Ducos. « Pour nous, l’objectif, c’est que le joueur n’arrête jamais complètement de travailler. Tout stopper, c’est faire un pas en arrière. On essaie de le faire comprendre à nos jeunes joueurs : ce travail contribue à prendre soin de leur corps, à le préparer à ce qu’il va endurer. Parce que l’on ne travaille pas seulement le développement physique ; on bosse aussi à prévenir l’apparition des pathologies. »

La science des acides aminés

Si la préparation et la prévention font partie du quotidien du joueur, certains athlètes poussent la rationalisation de leur corps plus loin en mettant la science à contribution. L’analyse biomécanique, par exemple, comme ce fut le cas de Daniil Medvedev avec sa gestuelle au service. La réalité virtuelle également : à l’INRIA à Rennes, on a développé un serious game en VR qui permet aux gardiens de but, en football, de travailler l’anticipation des mouvements « en suivant des cibles de couleur qui bougent dans tous les sens », explique-t-on du côté de l’institut. Pourquoi pas le tennis ? « Il y a des zones cérébrales liées à la concentration, la douleur, l’appétit… plusieurs zones spécialisées qui peuvent communiquer », confie Maud Belicchi. « À force d’entraînement, on peut stimuler certaines connexions cérébrales qui nous permettent, grâce à la répétition et au travail, d’être sollicitées plus facilement et de créer des réflexes. Le cerveau est élastique : plus vous en stimulez des zones différentes, plus les neurones développent de nouvelles connexions entre eux. Il se passe la même chose dans le cerveau du sportif. En fonction des exercices qu’il réalise et à force de répétitions, il ancre une routine jusque dans ces neurones. C’est ainsi qu’il peut modifier son cerveau, ses réflexes, sa rapidité, son contrôle musculaire… » 

Mais la nutrition et la micronutrition sont elles aussi des sujets d’innovation propres à participer au bâti du joueur de haut niveau. Au sein des Laboratoires NHCO Nutrition®, on a ainsi développé le concept d’Aminoscience®. L’explication ? « Le laboratoire a tout simplement intégré les acides aminés dans ses compléments alimentaires », indique Maud Belicchi. La poésie chirurgicale du vocabulaire scientifique a ceci de paradoxal qu’elle est d’une justesse absolue – mais évoque une polysémie d’univers inconnus aux oreilles béotiennes. « Toutes nos protéines sont composées d’acides aminés. Il en existe des centaines, mais seule une vingtaine d’acides aminés sert à fabriquer des protéines, protéines qui servent, elles, à faire les fibres musculaires, entre autres. »

Pas besoin d’être prix Nobel pour le supposer : si les fibres musculaires s’avèrent fondamentales pour le promeneur solitaire qui flâne d’un pas rêveur, à quel point le sont-elles pour Rafael Nadal lorsqu’il vient claquer son ultime volée de revers après 5 h 24 de match en finale du dernier Open d’Australie ? « Un sportif, dans le cas d’une activité intense, a un métabolisme accru. Il a donc besoin de plus de nutriments. On va lui apporter plus d’acides aminés pour faire plus de protéines et, ce faisant, plus de fibres musculaires. Améliorer : c’est vraiment le but des compléments alimentaires. »

Certains acides aminés peuvent être utilisés pour la reconstruction musculaire. Directement assimilables, ils servent immédiatement à faire et à refaire du muscle. D’autres vont davantage permettre de prendre de la masse musculaire ou de faire une sèche en forçant l’organisme à puiser dans ses graisses tout en préservant ses muscles. D’autres encore participent à la prévention de pépins physiques : « On travaille d’ailleurs beaucoup sur l’articulaire », confirme Maud Belicchi. « Avec, d’un côté, le renforcement et le confort articulaire et, de l’autre, le tendineux pour limiter les risques de blessures. Les compléments alimentaires constituent alors une bonne alternative au traditionnel anti-inflammatoire qui soulage ponctuellement le sportif : ils proposent des ingrédients et des substances naturelles pour une utilisation de fond. »

 

« Anima sana in corpore sano ! »

« Avec un corps bien préparé et des nécessités physiques honorées, l’on peut s’attacher à préparer la tête », assénait Nick Bollettieri dans son Tennis Handbook. D’autant que pour Frédéric Fontang, « le physique et le mental sont liés. Pour moi, ils ne font qu’un et on en a la preuve au quotidien si on prend soin d’écouter son corps et son esprit. Ce sont des vases communicants. Il est important pour un joueur de haut niveau d’être stimulé en dehors des limites pour progresser, mieux se connaître et se dépasser lorsque les circonstances le demandent. » Charlotte Ducos va plus loin : « Technique, physique et mental doivent s’imbriquer complètement. Mais je mettrais presque le mental au-dessus des deux autres. Courir, frapper des coups droits, des revers… Ils savent tous le faire. Ce qui fait souvent la différence, c’est la gestion des émotions sur le terrain. »

L’objectif final de ce chantier global ? Être un meilleur joueur de tennis. Mais surtout… « Être une bonne personne ! », s’exclame Charlotte Ducos. « C’est l’essentiel et c’est aussi ce que l’on essaie d’inculquer aux jeunes joueurs : quels individus veulent-ils être sur et en dehors du court ? » Exactement ce que confiait Ashleigh Barty l’année dernière, après son titre à Wimbledon : « Je me sers de toutes mes expériences pour progresser et devenir une meilleure personne. Le tennis m’a beaucoup appris, certes, mais devenir une bonne personne, c’est ça ma vraie priorité. »

Construire. Déconstruire. Reconstruire. Et devenir ! 

 

Article publié dans COURTS n° 12, printemps 2022.

Pickleball on the Rise

The sport was hardly on any one’s radar ten years ago, but today it is growing by leaps and bounds. What is making so many people pick up the paddle?

Listen keenly. Here comes the offbeat chorus of the newest craze in racquet sports; the percussive sound waves that crackle through the air when the paddle hits the pickleball.

Still confused?

Think Toy Story meets tennis: Buzz Lightyear and Woody, played by two paddles about to fall into the hands of a pair of soon-to-be pickleball addicts in Southern Florida.

Thwack! A sound which grows on you, like the crack of a baseball bat, the pop of Rafael Nadal’s forehand echoing inside Court Philippe Chatrier, or the ping of a golf ball being driven off the tee by a PGA pro. And that’s not the only sound we now associate with pickleball. The sound of cash registers clicking, a soundtrack to a relentless expansion of market share, is also heard.

The US Open—Growing Proof of Pickleball’s Growth

2022 marks the 57th anniversary of pickleball, a sport reportedly named after the “pickle boat” in crew races, which refers to boats that were crewed haphazardly by anybody who happened to be ready and available. Pickleball has been around for a while, but nobody seemed to notice until a decade ago, when a half-century of humble beginnings finally gave birth to America’s fastest growing racquet sport craze. In the United States the sport has seen annual participation grow by over 10 percent in each of the last five years. Today nearly 5 million people regularly pick up the pickle paddle in the U.S. alone.

“There is absolutely no ceiling on this sport right now,” says Terri Graham, founder of the US Open Pickleball Championships. “This sport right now has 4.8 million but I would be shocked if there weren’t more like eight or nine million people playing right now.” Graham, who left behind a career at Wilson Sporting Goods to take the pickleball plunge, started the US Open Pickleball Championships, and the rest is history. In 2016, the tournament’s inaugural year at its home base in Naples, Florida, over 800 players made the journey to pickleball Mecca to play the tournament. Six years later, nearly 3,000 players flocked to Naples for the 2022 edition, which now offers $100,000 in prize money. There are 60 courts on site, which sits on a sprawling public park, surrounding a crown jewel center court that holds 2,000 spectators. “We’re sold out all week, we don’t have a ticket available,” Graham says. “The spectators come here in droves. This year, we were thinking we were going to have 25,000 people over the seven days, but it is going to be closer to 50,000.”

When Graham left her job at Wilson, she had grand ambitions, but she admits that she never envisioned the sport growing as exponentially as it has. “My statistics that I did on my business plan at Wilson, they were all wrong, because I never projected this many players,” she said. Pickleball isn’t just an American fad. Currently 62 nations are members of the International Federation of Pickleball. Graham sees growth accelerating in all regions, but particularly in Asia, where it is just starting to make inroads. “When this lands in Asia, then watch this sport go really, really insane,” she says. “Because it is the same size court as a badminton court, and you think of Asia and they are great badminton people and great ping pong players. When it lands there, and it gets popular, then wait and see what happens. There is no ceiling on it—it is just multiplying constantly and as soon as somebody discovers it, they don’t leave it.”

 

Tennis and Pickleball: Rivalry or Harmony? 

There is some talk of a rivalry between tennis and pickleball, with players often bickering over the fact that many tennis courts have been converted to pickleball in recent years. But in reality, many in the racquet sport community, which includes squash, padel, badminton, ping-pong, pickleball, and tennis, subscribe to the adage that more is merrier. Even the United States Tennis Association, the national governing body for tennis and owners of the US Open, has carved out space for pickleball. Calling the sport a “crafty mix of badminton, tennis, and ping-pong,” it has hired a Head Pickleball Professional, and created leagues at its national campus in Orlando, Florida.

What to make of this so-called rivalry then? Anthony Evrard, founder and CEO of Court 16 in New York City, believes that a rising tide lifts all boats. He stresses that Court 16, which is opening a third facility in Manhattan this summer, is a tennis brand first and foremost. But he believes that embracing all forms of racquet sports and remaining inclusive is the way forward.

“You talk to someone who plays squash, and they’ll tell you that the sport is booming,” he said. “Talk to someone who is in pickleball, of course it is booming. There are all these booming sub-communities for all racquet sports. 33 or 35 percent of the tennis players could become pickleball players or the other way around. Every three people that play one racquet sport could be easily converted into another, if properly introduced, in the right context, in the right setting, with the right equipment. “If you put all those pieces together it’s just increasing the general population for racquet sports.”

Families that play together grow together 

Mark Osborne and his wife Jenee had never played tennis or pickleball before 2018. Mark loves to play golf and ice hockey, Jenee wasn’t the sporting type, but when Jenee’s mother came back from a winter spent in Arizona raving about pickleball, Jenee quickly gravitated to the sport. At first reluctant, Mark eventually followed suit. “Yeah, I really didn’t want to get into it,” he said. “I play hockey, I golf, and I didn’t really want to get into another sport, then I started playing and I just got hooked.”

Fast forward four years and the whole family has entered the pickleball community in Michigan. Mark’s son, Dominic, is sponsored by Pickleball brand Selkirk and has professional aspirations. Mark plays doubles with Dominic and his wife at tournaments and their daughter Sofia, a former tennis player, also plays. “It’s not just bringing the family together,” Osborne told Courts. “The people that you meet playing pickleball, it’s almost like you grow your family because you meet so many people that you become close with.”

Another benefit of the pickleball experience? Osborne says he has seen a new side of his son. 12-year-old Dominic plays with passion, embracing his spot on the front line of the pickleball revolution. “He’s pretty darn good, I’ll say that much,” Osborne raves. “The way the kid gets pumped up out there on the court when he starts hitting some good shots—my nerves get more out of whack just watching him than they do when I’m playing myself.”

 

The pickleball channel? Yes indeed! 

If you stream it, they will come. At least that’s the hope, and with pickleball, so far so good. Rusty and Meredith Howes, the founders of the Pickleball Channel, came from the entertainment industry in Southern California and decided to take a shot on the nascent sport when they came across it while working at the Huntsman World Senior Games, which are effectively the Olympics for seniors. Rusty laughs when he tells the story of being asked to produce a piece about pickleball by an employer. “He called us, saying, ‘I have this segment I could make but I don’t know what pickleball is—what’s pickleball?’” Howe explained.

The Howes did their homework and realised two things: One, there was virtually no coverage of the sport. Two, it was growing faster than weeds in an abandoned lot! “We could see even in the first two years it was exponential,” Meredith told Courts. “It will continue to grow because the sport is addictive, once you’re in, you’re in. I don’t see people giving up.”

Howes also believes that the sport will see growth overseas and beyond.

“Certainly North America is so much bigger than everyone else, but it is blowing up in Australia, Asia and Europe,” Rusty said. “We’ve had lots of requests for Pickleball Channel to come.”

 

Easy to Learn, Easy to Play, Easier on the Body 

Evrard, whose Court 16 caters to a more recreational group of pickleballers, says that the simplicity and less technical nature of pickleball helps with children as well as seniors. “There are many reasons that the sport is growing. Less injuries, more social, easier to get into, and now a huge inventory of courts all over,” he says. Most important? The sport’s remarkable growth has everybody talking about it. Now that the bandwagon is filling up, more people want to join the party. Agents are signing pros to contracts. The media is writing about it. Pickleball is snowballing, says Evrard, and he doesn’t expect it to change anytime soon. “It’s getting exposure—even with Octagon and IMG now,” Evrard says. “I have a friend, who is on the agent side, who told me that they just signed some players a few months ago to represent. If some of those guys are starting to have representation by all of the big talent agencies, I think we can anticipate a few more years of good growth.”

 

Story published in Courts no. 3, Summer 2022.

Rick Macci

The Last of the Mohicans

“I’m one of the last of the Mohicans,” Rick Macci states matter-of-factly. “I started this in 1985. It’s still going strong, and there is no billion-dollar corporation behind me,” he says. “And I’ve had a lot of players, at a young age, you know, become real good, real quick.” At 67, there is no false modesty to the Florida-based coach, but he doesn’t brag, either. Sporting a white cap and a yellow top with his academy’s logo, he is bursting with the energy of a man 20 years younger. His amiable face, bronzed by the years spent on Californian sun-baked courts, frequently breaks into a smile. He talks with the easy self-assuredness of someone who believes in what he does, and for good reason. In the business of creating tennis players, Rick Macci is the kingmaker. The list of tennis stars Rick had a hand in creating reads like an ensemble of a tennis-themed Avengers movie: Andy Roddick, Jennifer Capriati, Mary Pierce, Anastasia Myskina, Maria Sharapova, Sofia Kenin, and, perhaps most famously, Serena and Venus Williams.

The Rick Macci International Tennis Academy was founded in 1985, but the story of Rick’s origin dates back even earlier. “I picked up a racquet when I was 12 years old. No one taught me how to play, I taught myself,” Rick says. “I became really good, real quick. But by 21, I knew I wanted to get into teaching. I like to help others more than to help myself.” Although tennis is undoubtedly Rick’s truest love, he did flirt around in his younger days. “I played a lot of sports: football, baseball, basketball, golf, hockey,” Rick enumerates. “I was very good at golf. When I was little, my parents belonged to a country club. And they were both county champions. I had, I don’t know, a four or five handicap when I was 12 years old. I thought I was going to be a pro golfer. And then my dad passed away when I was around 12, and we couldn’t afford to go join the country club and play golf. I fell in love with the game because it was convenient,” Rick says. “I lived a half-mile from a park. And in the park, there were six tennis courts—steel net, no windscreen, the courts chipped up. I went down there, and I don’t even know if I had a racquet, and I hit the ball against the wall. And what I really liked, it came back to me. I said, ‘I kind of like this. I love this sound: bang, bang, bang. I just love the sound.’ And it was close to my house and didn’t cost anything. I would go out there for hours. This was the late 60s. What’s crazy is the full circle,” Rick points out with a smile. “As I sit here today, I live a half-mile from the park where I work. How crazy is that?”

After hours spent facing the wall and then honing his skills against local opposition, Rick entertained the idea of going professional, but, by his own admission, he wasn’t good enough. “I just didn’t have the experience in the technical part,” he says. “I was winning on mental toughness, athleticism, you know, great groundstrokes, a good serve, but you need more. I love the game of tennis. I just love to be on a tennis court. I have a gift, you know, to communicate, and I love to analyse things,” Rick explains. An impish smile creeps up on his face as he recounts, “Even as a kid, I would go to the movies with my friends, and we sit there, and five minutes into the movie, I’m telling them how it’s going to end. No one wanted to sit with me,” he laughs. “But I always wanted to figure things out. I was around Dr Jim Loehr, a pioneer in sports psychology in the early 80s,” Rick continues. “I was always intrigued by that. So I have a deep, vast knowledge of cutting-edge stuff, and I always keep improving. That’s the sign of a great coach: a smart coach is smart because he knows he’s not that smart,” Rick muses. “He keeps wanting to learn every day, you know. So yeah, I knew I wasn’t going to be that good. So early on, I dove into teaching, and it’s the best decision I ever made.”

Today, the Rick Macci International Tennis Academy is a household name in the world of tennis. Located on the lush grounds of Boca Lago Country Club in Boca Raton, Florida, the academy provides the same facilities and level of involvement for all its players—be it a 12-year-old phenom or an 80-year-old enthusiast. What sets it apart from the rest of similar establishments is Rick himself. “It’s a different model, but it’s one that works. And the fact that my name is on the door, and I’m very much involved, is a big part of the reason why,” Rick explains. “When people call, because my phone number is out there, they don’t think it’s me answering the phone. And they go, ‘Why do you answer the phone?’ Well, it rang,” he laughs.

Tennis is an immensely expensive sport to play on a serious level, and the chances of making it professionally are infinitesimal. According to a report published by the International Tennis Federation in October 2019, a total of 87 million people play tennis globally. How many make a living by plying their trade on the tour? About 200 from the ATP and WTA each. I ask Rick, why would anyone even try? “Because you never know. It’s a dream,” is his immediate answer. “You never know where this is going to end up. You work hard, and if you have the ability and good coaching, you can get a free education, which is powerful. Then, you’ll know at 17—do I go to college? Am I mature enough? Am I not? You figure it out from there, but you just never know,” Rick explains. “I knew what Venus and Serena would become when they were 9 and 10. I knew what Capriati was going to be at 10. I knew what Sharapova was at 11. If someone had told me when I had Roddick, at 12, that he was going to win the US Open at 19, I would have taken that bet. There’s no playbook,” Rick says.

There is no playbook. But, over the years, Rick does seem to have scribbled a few lines of notes on the subject. His work at the Academy has produced an undeniable collection of talent, and while they all took different paths to success, Rick’s guidance was a constant in their lives. A few years ago, a chance meeting with two tennis enthusiasts from Bahamas and Switzerland led to founding EDGE— ”a tennis agency different from any other” that provides representation and support to young tennis players hoping to join the professional tour. “I get an email from this guy named Daniel-Sacha, and he wants to come and take lessons from me. He wants to learn the ATP forehand,” Rick recalls. “And he goes, ‘I’m going to be there eight straight days, and I want, like, over 30 hours of lessons’. And he said, ‘A couple of my buddies are coming.’ So they came and I worked them out. I taught them all—great time. Great bunch of guys. They saw kids playing at the Academy, some very good kids. We started talking, and I told Daniel-Sacha that one time I had a girl, and I did something with T Management, I did something with Donald Trump for four years. We stayed in contact after they left and were discussing every other day for weeks. One morning I said, ‘I have this girl, I think she could become one of the best juniors in the world, but she would need help.’ One thing led to another, and we ended up forming a company called EDGE. But it was on the brainstorm of Rick Macci to sign players,” Rick says. “It started off with a couple of players—four or five years later, EDGE has 12 or 13 of some of the best juniors in the world. It’s been a great thing for the players,” he says. Rick pauses and shrugs as if to say it is what it is, the way one would describe one of the unpleasant but unavoidable realities of life. “It’s a very expensive sport,” he says. “You go from Florida to Australia and back—that’s like 10 grand. And you might lose in the first round. So it’s a very, very expensive sport to develop. And then, when you get on the tour, it’s brutal, it’s really tough. That’s why I love my relationship with EDGE. The agency is a game changer for a lot of young talent who need an opportunity and to have a support system.”

For all of Rick’s natural ebullience, the role he assumes in the creation of his stars is a surprisingly behind-the-scenes one. Unlike some of his fellow high-level coaches, such as Nick Bollettieri or Patrick Mouratoglou, who seem to relish the spotlight offered by the player’s box, the majority of Rick’s work is done away from the crowds. “I teach about 50 hours a week—private lessons, seven days a week,” Rick says. “People, often parents, who think they have the next Venus or Serena or the next Roddick, or Sharapova or Capriati—I get the great athlete, a kid with potential, and that’s up to me to put Humpty Dumpty together,” he explains. “But it’s really anybody, anytime, anywhere—whether it be a five-year-old, someone top-20 in the world, or Sofia Kenin—I help them all.” Rick pauses for a moment and a grin lights up his face. “Today, I had an 80-year-old who’s 10 in the nation, and he wants to get better on his forehand. He’s 80 years old!” he exclaims with a smile. “And they all come back. So I think that’s telling you that you’re doing something right.”

I ask Rick if he’s ever been tempted to travel the tour with one of his pupils. “I’ve never had the desire. I bake the cake, I put it in the oven, I put the icing on it,” he says. “You know, I did take Venus to make her debut. And I’ve had opportunities to go with people top-10 in the world,” Rick explains. “But to me, that’s never been real. Four bad losses, you get fired. I’d rather put it together, you know, build the house, make it amazing,” he continues. “The motivation, the passion, and to extract greatness out of other people has always been my gift.” Rick Macci’s self-assumed role of tennis’s éminence grise meant that, apart from a coterie of tennis zealots, his name had been, until recently, largely obscured from most fans. But the premiere of King Richard, a biopic about Serena and Venus Williams’s spirited journey into the world of professional tennis, under the guidance of their father, Richard, has put Rick squarely in the middle of the silver screen. Despite playing a significant part in the story, Rick tells me that he wasn’t involved in the making of the movie. “It surprised me,” he admits. “I was surprised because I could have told so many stories, people would laugh and cry and be on their knees. I’ve got 100 stories to tell, all positive. And only maybe a couple were in the movie. It would have made the movie even better,” he says. Rick Macci’s character, portrayed by Jon Bernthal, features prominently in the story, for the most part trying to rein in Richard Williams’s unfettered drive. “I spoke to Jon Bernthal a few times,” Rick says. “He’s got my mannerisms right, the similar profile. Other than the moustache, no one could have played me better,” he laughs. “I told him, ‘Your moustache looks like a shrubbery on your face. And mine was like a little piece of AstroTurf—it took me 30 years to grow it! But the movie blew me away because it showed how much I care,” Rick says earnestly. “It was amazing. It was about the power of family. A lot of love. That’s the way that family was. Venus and Serena are like two peas in a pod. They’re still like that. But it was the power of family love, inspiration, dedication, education, perspiration, one nation, you know… It was so powerful. And people don’t realise how hard these two girls work. We take that for granted. I mean, this doesn’t happen. I’m not throwing magic dust. It didn’t happen because of Rick Macci. That mental toughness which I saw, and that rage to get to the ball, these two little girls, when they competed, that changed it all, that was put in there from birth—I stabilised it.”

The movie seems to play up the friction between Rick and Richard, with both men unwavering in their vision for the development of the girls. While Rick assures me that the on-screen drama was exaggerated and that he remains friends with Richard, it makes me wonder about navigating difficult parents in Rick’s line of work. Does that happen often? “Every day, all year round, my whole life… How’s that for an answer?” he quips. “Stefano Capriati, Jim Pierce… I tell people, just for putting up with Richard for four years I should be in the Hall of Fame,” Rick laughs. “I not only train the kids—I train the parents. And if you’re going to challenge them on every little thing…,” Rick takes a beat before continuing. “Listen, if I had done that when I went to Compton, I would have never done what I did with Venus and Serena. I knew what I was getting into. But it wasn’t about Richard. It was about me helping the girls. I knew what I was going to have to deal with. And if you saw the movie, I’m bulletproof. At 67 years of age, with everything I’ve been through, I’m bulletproof. At the end of the day, I’m just here to help the kid.”

 

Story published in Courts no. 3, Summer 2022.

Le tennis en héritage

Son arbre généalogique est un livre d’or du tennis sur trois générations. Fort de ce bagage personnel aussi riche que, sous certains aspects, pesant, Chris Davies, lui-même professeur de tennis, a développé un regard singulier sur son sport, entremêlant volontiers l’histoire (la grande et la petite), l’enseignement (via l’observation et l’expérimentation) et l’expression artistique (par les mots et par l’image). A découvrir.

 

Nul ne guérit de son enfance, dit le poète. Celle de Chris Davies, passée au cœur d’un centre de tennis tenu par sa famille sur la Côte d’Azur, ne peut s’affranchir du cliché de ‘l’enfant de la balle’. « Je me réveillais avec le bruit des balles, et m’endormais avec. » Le grand-père, Feri Buding, a fondé et dirige le centre, très coté auprès d’une clientèle allemande au fait de la réussite familiale. C’est que le patriarche s’est aussi chargé en personne d’enseigner le tennis à ses quatre enfants, amenant trois d’entre eux à défendre les couleurs de la RFA au plus haut niveau mondial. Edda atteint les demies à Roland-Garros en 1961 et, en équipe, la finale de la Fed Cup en 1966 ; Ingo joue les quarts de finale à Paris en 1965 et est incontournable en Coupe Davis la décennie durant ; Ilse enfin gagne ‘le French’ chez les juniors mais arrête très vite la haute compétition suite à sa rencontre, à Wimbledon, avec le meilleur Britannique de l’époque, Mike Davies.

Davies (rien à voir avec Dwight – notez le ‘e’) sera à la fin de sa vie intronisé au ‘Hall of Fame’ du tennis, pas tant pour ses résultats, pourtant très honorables (finale à Wimbledon en double en 1960, puis passage chez les pros de Jack Kramer) que pour son leg en tant que dirigeant : directeur général du circuit WCT de Lamar Hunt dans les années 70, puis directeur exécutif de l’ATP dans les 80’s, et enfin directeur général de l’ITF dans les 90’s, Davies aura trois décennies durant ‘remodelé’ le tennis pour favoriser sa télégénie et, partant, son expansion. La promotion du tie-break (pour assurer une durée limite au set et ainsi ‘cadrer le produit’) ? C’est lui. La pause changement de côté tous les deux jeux (pour mieux caser des pages de pub) ? Encore lui. Les balles jaunes et le lâcher-prise sur le code vestimentaire (pour un meilleur rendu visuel à l’écran) ? Lui toujours. Jusqu’à être le papa de la coupe du Grand chelem dans les années 90… entre autres initiatives ayant contribué à asseoir le statut du joueur professionnel de tennis.

Lignes de courts, lignes de fuite

Avec une telle ascendance, le chemin de Chris Davies est tout tracé… mais n’est pas pour autant un long fleuve tranquille. Parents à un très jeune âge, Mike et Ilse se séparent bientôt. Lui part faire carrière aux États-Unis, elle refait sa vie en Allemagne. Au milieu, Chris et son frère aîné grandissent avec leurs grands-parents, oncles et tante au centre de Bandol… pour lequel le clan finira par s’entre-déchirer par avocats et coups de carabine interposés – spoiler, personne n’y gagnera : le club finira à l’abandon, la famille Buding, disloquée. « Le tennis lie la famille, mais il l’enserre. » Enfant, Chris taquine la balle, « forcément. » Mais ce qui était une évidence vu son hérédité ne vire pas à la vocation. « J’ai rêvé d’être champion, mais comme tous les enfants… et surtout plus pour échapper à l’école que par passion. J’ai été classé -2/6, ai gagné à l’échelon Promotion, juste avant la sacro-sainte Première série. Puis je me suis blessé. J’ai été opéré de l’épaule à 18 ans. Je n’ai jamais rejoué assidûment. Mon dernier tournoi remonte à il y a 10, 12 ans. Physiquement je ne pouvais plus. Mes blessures n’étaient pas toujours psychosomatiques mais… pas mal quand même. »

En parallèle d’un court qui commence à lui sembler étriqué à mesure qu’il grandit, il y a surtout, très vite, la naissance d’une passion, une vraie : l’art. « J’ai eu un véritable choc culturel avec la musique, la peinture… Je me souviens encore de ma stupeur en découvrant Arte. Les émotions que j’y découvrais étaient plus fortes que celles du tennis. Plus facilement accessibles, aussi : le tennis, c’est beaucoup de frustrations et finalement peu de matchs où on ressent cette sensation ‘d’état de grâce’. Des appareils photos traînaient à la maison, je m’y suis mis… » Ils ne le quitteront plus. Pour autant, le tennis reste son gagne-pain… et son fil rouge. Il se tourne vers l’enseignement, « sans emballement au départ, mais je me suis épanoui là-dedans, quitte à en être le premier surpris. » Au fil des ans, il tâte du haut niveau au contact de la jeune ouzbèke Iroda Tulyaganova, qui gagne Wimbledon chez les juniors en 1999. Devient ‘Head coach’ du tennis-club du Gezira, au Caire – où, famille toujours, le nom de sa tante figure au palmarès du tournoi international organisé là-bas au temps des amateurs. Entraîne à Bâle, puis en Autriche, avant de revenir se fixer en Suisse, où il arpente dorénavant les clubs en photographiant les jeunes joueurs d’écoles de tennis pour ensuite proposer les clichés aux parents.

La ‘soul’étude’ du joueur de tennis

Des voyages, des photos, du tennis : tout est là. Ne reste plus qu’à lier tout ça. Le projet s’appellera ‘Soul’étude’, et sera finalisé en 2017 : 500 pages de ce qu’il nomme ‘auto-photo-biographie’, où comment relater à la fois un parcours personnel et une épopée familiale, à travers des photos (beaucoup) et des textes (un peu). Nul besoin d’être passionné de tennis pour être happé par ce récit tumultueux, captivant et émouvant. « Au départ, ces photos étaient prises sans autre but que de répondre à un besoin. Elles m’enracinaient à l’existence. Et puis à l’âge de 25 ans environ, j’ai commencé à penser à ce qui deviendrait ‘Soul’étude’. Je sentais que je devais le faire, que je n’arriverais pas à vivre en paix sans le concrétiser. J’y suis arrivé à la cinquantaine, au bout d’une longue fuite : fuir le tennis, y revenir, fuir ma famille, renouer avec, ne pas rester coincer là… C’est à la fois une thérapie, et un hommage. » L’instantané d’une époque, aussi, quand le tennis avait une empreinte sur la société – voire en était un phénomène. Au fil des pages, on y croise ainsi Noah et Sinatra, la sainte Trinité australienne Laver-Rosewall-Hoad et Bernard Tapie époque Phocéa, Nick Bollettieri et Michel Platini, Metallica et Liesel Bach, le couple Peron et un dictateur ouzbek…

Il faut reconnaître que l’homme ne craint pas les projets de longue haleine. Deux ans plus tard, en 2019, il publie un second livre en germe depuis longtemps : ‘Balles neuves’, une réflexion sur le tennis et son enseignement. Là encore, l’héritage familial n’est jamais bien loin, l’ouvrage dédié à « deux architectes du tennis ». Explication de texte : « Mon grand-père était un fou de technique. Il a même écrit un livre sur le sujet. J’ai voulu raccrocher son bagage au tennis moderne. Je m’étais aussi beaucoup rapproché, sur le tard, de mon père par ce biais. Ce livre est le résultat d’années d’enseignement et d’observation en bord de court, un manuel à l’usage des profs de tennis, un métier difficile, où les progrès des élèves se voient lentement et qui peut susciter de l’ennui et de la frustration. »

Et après ?

Au détour des chapitres, l’auteur y aborde la pédagogie (et une question centrale, et universelle, de l’enseignement : le (bon) joueur fait-il le (bon) prof ?), le matériel, parfois en levant des tabous (le mieux serait-il devenu l’ennemi du bien dans la profusion de raquettes ayant fait la fortune des équipementiers ?), la biomécanique et la technique… Sous ses allures de coup de pied dans la fourmilière, l’ouvrage a l’immense intérêt de questionner des dogmes contemporains : « Partout aujourd’hui, on compte : les licenciés, les pratiquants… Cette politique du chiffre a amené l’apprentissage du tennis à se tourner vers le plaisir immédiat, le ludique… en reléguant l’aspect technique au second plan. ‘Amuse-toi d’abord, tu apprendras les fondamentaux ensuite’. Mais non, on ne peut pas y revenir plus tard sans que ça ait laissé des traces ! Le tennis est un sport dur à apprendre, austère même ! On voit de moins en moins de techniques propres. Or le joueur finira toujours par être rattrapé, et pénalisé, par les mauvaises habitudes prises au départ. Il en sera frustré, voire il abandonnera. »

Et lui : au bout de deux projets de longue haleine achevés en trois ans, est-il prêt à abandonner, lâcher la plume ? « Ah non ! J’ai un fantasme de trilogie de ‘Soul’étude’. Le volume 1 était le passé, le bagage, la famille… Le 2 serait le poids de la société, et le 3 la vie en rose, quelqu’un qui trouve une manière de fonctionner malgré les deux premiers. » Qu’on se construise dans la continuité ou dans l’opposition, on est toujours le reflet de ses jeunes années. Et plus l’on avance en âge, plus on se retourne dessus ?

Balles perdues ? Pas pour tout le monde

« J’ai commencé à travailler sur de vieilles balles comme ça, en les ramassant au bord des courts, où on en trouve toujours plein, abandonnées parfois depuis tellement longtemps qu’elles sont enfouies dans le sol. J’ai commencé à les photographier, et leur donner des noms, leur réinventer une histoire. C’était un peu mon test de Rorschach ! » Au gré de ses obsessions donc, personnages historiques (Gagarine, Geronimo, Bob Marley, Massoud) ou mythologiques (Achille, Agamemnon) côtoient les légendes du tennis (Borg, McEnroe), tandis que grands évènements de l’humanité (Première guerre mondiale, Apollo 13) voisinent avec objets du quotidien (Mac) et références du bout du monde (poisson Fugu du Japon, têtes réduites d’Amérique du sud).

Un peu de silence, les joueurs sont prêts. Et alors ?

Le fameux débat du GOAT, un instant tué par Rafael Nadal, est plus vivant que jamais au lendemain du 7ème sacre de Novak Djokovic à Wimbledon. 22-21-20. Pas besoin de vous faire un dessin, vous savez qu’on ne parle pas des mensurations de Diego Schwartzman. Nous ne nous épancherons pas plus là-dessus puisque tout et n’importe quoi (surtout n’importe quoi d’ailleurs) a déjà été tweeté au sujet de Sa Très Gracieuse Majesté la subjectivité. Il y a bien plus important. Dimanche 10 juillet, c’est Nick Kyrgios qui nous a soufflé une problématique autrement plus sérieuse et quantifiable au moment où il perdait la deuxième manche par la faute (absolument, c’était l’unique facteur) d’une brave dame accusée d’avoir ingurgité « environ 700 verres » pour expliquer son état second. Une théorie du complot de plus en plus populaire prétend même qu’il s’agissait de Kate Middleton, ne pouvant supporter que les mimiques du Prince George lui volent la vedette une seconde de plus. Dans ce monde aseptisé qu’est devenu le circuit à l’ère du code de conduite, quand Kyrgios, Paire ou encore Ostapenko ne sont pas sur le terrain, c’est bien sûr dans les tribunes qu’il faut aller chercher l’essence perdue du tennis. Petit hit-parade des locataires de sièges en plastique les plus décalés de l’histoire récente.

Tiens, c’est rigolo ça : vous ne vous êtes jamais demandé pourquoi le tennis était le seul sport (avec le billard, les échecs et la lecture en bibliothèque peut-être) dont les acteurs principaux sont proprement incapables d’exercer leur profession si le silence le plus absolu ne s’abat pas sur leur lieu de travail avant le moindre lancer de balle ? Comment se fait-il qu’une manchette, un slap shot, un penalty ou encore un lancer franc puissent être effectués proprement sous un concert de sifflets alors que le moindre pet de mouche (dont la déflagration est certes décuplée par les micros des télévisions) peut faire sortir un joueur de tennis de son match ? Tout cela prête évidemment à rire (sous cape, l’échange est engagé), mais il arrive tout de même que des éléments extérieurs perturbateurs d’une magnitude un chouïa supérieure défraient la chronique de la petite balle jaune.

« Madam, you’re delaying everything »

Pas de rain delay à Melbourne, la faute au toit et à l’été australien généralement torride et désespérément sec. Et pourtant le liquide coule tout de même à flot pendant la quinzaine, la température aidant. En 2021, c’est Nadal qui a fait les frais de l’humeur orageuse d’une spectatrice s’étant probablement fait servir plus qu’un doigt d’éthanol au cours de la journée (on imagine que Kyrgios aurait un nombre de verres plus exact à proposer, mais on n’y était pas). Tournoi du Grand Chelem oblige, c’est de son majeur qu’elle a salué l’Espagnol avant de se faire remettre à l’ordre par la sécurité.

Du plomb dans l’aile

Si à Wimbledon Rufus le Faucon vole dans les plumes du moindre pigeon intempestif, ce n’est pas le cas partout. Il n’est ainsi pas rare de voir un chat traverser le court à Moscou, à Rome ou à Istanbul ou de se retrouver nez à nez avec un iguane à Miami. Vous l’aurez compris, les spectateurs ne dénouent pas toujours les cordons de leur bourse pour prendre place dans les gradins. Mais attention, le vol (en rase-motte) ne paie pas. Jouer l’homme en double, par contre… Une hirondelle des antipodes l’a appris à ses dépens, fusillée par un coup droit de Michaël Llodra (avec deux ailes, si vous cherchiez encore un truc mnémotechnique) lors d’une demi-finale franco-française de l’Open d’Australie en 2002. Llodra et Santoro en profiteront pour clouer le bec de la paire Boutter-Clément et atteindre le septième ciel d’une finale majeure. Quand on dit qu’il faut faire des sacrifices pour atteindre le plus haut niveau…

« Excuse me, sir ? Monsieur ? S’il-vous-plaît ! »

A Monte-Carlo, même un an avant le début de la pandémie, on ne rigole pas avec les mesures d’hygiène. Ou alors on sait se montrer passif-agressif lorsqu’un match dure trop longtemps à son goût, c’est selon (au Rolex Masters, on ne plaisante pas avec les horaires). Toujours est-il que le 14 avril 2019, un premier tour très accroché entre Borna Ćorić et Hubert Hurkacz s’est trouvé interrompu en plein jeu par l’intervention en tribunes d’un membre (visiblement accrédité) du service d’entretien du stade armé d’un seau et de multiples balais et autres chiffons. En plus d’avoir toutes les peines du monde à localiser le lieu exact du sinistre, notre brave concierge ne semblait comprendre ni l’anglais ni le français d’un arbitre de chaise au bord de la panique. Voilà qui fait tache sur un Rocher qui a connu des anecdotes plus reluisantes. Malheureusement, l’histoire ne dit pas si notre intermittent du spectacle d’un jour a pris une brossée en coulisses. Ćorić, quant à lui, finira par briller jusqu’en quarts de finale cette année-là, battu par un Fognini à la recherche de son lustre d’antan.

« It can’t be that good ! »

La phrase est signée Frances Tiafoe au cours de son premier tour face à son compatriote Mitchell Krueger au Challenger de Sarasota en 2017. Le score est de 6-3 3-2 0-15 (Josh Levin, dans les colonnes de Slate attire notre attention sur le fait que le score de « love-fifteen » n’est pas innocent dans ce contexte) quand ce qui est d’abord identifié comme le son d’une vidéo pour adultes retentit dans le stade floridien. Que nenni. Après quelques minutes d’embarras général, il s’avère que les ébats sont bien réels et proviennent d’un appartement voisin dont les locataires avaient également prévu une night session, avec fenêtre (ouverte) sur court. Comme quoi l’antichambre (à coucher) du circuit ATP est aussi capable de provoquer son lot d’émotions. Le climax de ce paragraphe revient à Josh Levin qui en conclut que les deux hommes n’ont pas été particulièrement dérangés par ce « tennis interruptus ».

Winning streak 

Si la mode actuelle est à la fixation de certaines extrémités corporelles au bitume ou même au poteau soutenant le filet du Court Philippe-Chatrier, cela n’a pas toujours été le cas. Pas de colle rapide pour les activistes d’il y a une vingtaine d’années, et nul besoin d’acétone pour les déloger puisque c’est le plus souvent dans le plus simple appareil que ces agitateurs se présentaient sur le court. Comme Jimmy Jump avait fait figure d’exception lors de la finale de Roland-Garros 2009 quand il avait tenté – tout habillé – de coiffer Roger Federer d’un chapeau traditionnel espagnol, nous nous concentrerons sur le cas plus traditionnel de Melissa Johnson. Et quoi de plus traditionnel que prendre le Temple du tennis pour cible ? En 119 ans d’histoire, jamais Wimbledon n’avait connu de streaker avant la finale de 1996 entre Richard Krajicek et MaliVai Washington (croyez-le ou non, cela s’est reproduit à plusieurs reprises depuis). Melissa Johnson, serveuse de son état (voilà qui ne s’invente pas), a corrigé cette anomalie avec un véritable ace sur le Centre Court cette année-là. C’est vêtue uniquement de son tablier forcément d’un blanc immaculé que la demoiselle de 23 ans à l’époque a choqué la Royal Box. Elle passera le reste de la finale au poste et son employeur lui demandera ensuite de rendre son… enfin de présenter sa démission.

Richard Krajicek and MaliVai Washington watch as Melissa Johnson runs across Centre Court ahead of the 1996 Wimbledon men's final. "She smiles at me," Washington said. "She had on an apron. She lifted it up and she was still smiling. I got flustered. Three sets later I was gone." pic.twitter.com/62nNamCohM

— Historic Sports Pictures (@HistoricSports2) October 30, 2021

« How much money do you have ? »

Certains spectateurs ont un sens de la tradition encore plus aigu que Mlle Johnson puisqu’ils décident de passer devant Dieu avant de songer à se dénuder. En effet, lors de cette même édition 1996 de Wimbledon, un incorrigible romantique décidait de demander Steffi Graf en mariage au beau milieu de sa demi-finale contre Kimiko Date (une foule de jeux de mots plus misérables les uns que les autres se bousculent dans notre esprit, ne nous tentez pas). L’occasion pour l’Allemande de montrer qu’elle n’est pas seulement la plus grande joueuse de simple de l’histoire, n’en déplaise à Margaret Court et Serena Williams, mais qu’elle se défend plutôt pas mal non plus en termes de répartie. « How much money do you have ? », lance-t-elle à son admirateur éperdu. Si Andre Agassi était dans les environs du stade ce jour-là, il n’est pas étonnant que la réponse l’ait poussé à se tenir coi pendant 5 ans avant de tenter lui-même sa chance, lui qui venait de perdre au premier tour du tournoi et s’apprêtait à plonger jusqu’à la 141ème place mondiale 16 mois plus tard…

« What did you say you lost ? »

Les spectateurs en live c’est sympa, mais si le covid nous a appris une chose, c’est bien que les stades pleins, c’est surcoté. L’important c’est quand même qu’on puisse voir les matches depuis son canapé, si possible à portée d’avant-bras du frigo. L’arbitre de chaise ne perdait donc pas le nord au moment où la caméra principale du duel de l’année (voire du siècle) entre Emil Ruusuvuori et Mikael Ymer au troisième tour du tournoi de Miami 2021 décidait de partir en vrille. En effet, les 17 fans (à vue de nez) présents en tribunes ne semblaient pas représenter suffisamment de parts de marché pour continuer à jouer sans tenir compte de l’audimat potentiellement stratosphérique drainé par cet affrontement au niveau planétaire. C’est donc 3 minutes (ce qui n’est jamais qu’un cinquième d’une pause toilette serbe à deux sets à zéro en sa défaveur) de hiatus qui ont été offertes aux deux protagonistes de ce derby nordique. La détermination du Finlandais à battre son collègue suédois (« il ne passera pas l’Ymer », l’aurait-on entendu maugréer) est néanmoins restée intacte puisqu’il finira par s’imposer en trois manches, le tout retransmis en direct et en mondovision bien sûr.

À ce qu’on dit, l’été sera chaud. Ne passez pas à côté de l’occasion de vous rafraîchir.

 

La bière des champions

Imaginez la scène : vous venez de perdre au tie-break du troisième contre un marathonien qui fait des ronds du fond en célébrant chacune de vos fautes d’un « Come on ! » avec accent. Non content d’être déçu, non content d’être furieux, vous êtes en nage, car il fait 40 degrés à l’ombre. Une envie d’oublier mêlée à une soif intense. Et là, vous la voyez. 

Imaginez un peu : vous venez de remporter un double tendu avec votre meilleur pote qui enchaînait les doubles fautes mais vous a sorti d’affaire grâce à un ace sur seconde que personne n’attendait. Vous êtes nerveusement épuisé et prêt à porter aux nues celui qu’il y a deux secondes vous vouliez clouer au pilori. Une envie de célébrer mêlée à une soif intense. Et là, vous la voyez. 

Vous l’aurez compris, on parle d’une bière, même si on parle encore et toujours de tennis. Tout comme celui d’amortie-lob, l’abus d’alcool est dangereux pour la santé mais enfin de quand on a soif, autant se faire plaisir. Et c’est précisément ce que proposent Kevin Didion et Jonathan Lanero, deux amis belges (ça ne s’invente pas) passionnés de tennis et de houblon glacé. 

I have a dream

Ils jouaient l’un contre l’autre avant de s’associer, aussi peut-on imaginer que leur envie de faire leur bière est née autour d’un verre d’après-match. Cela dit, ils n’avaient pas imaginé associer leurs deux passions. L’idée – brillante – est venue en rêve à Jonathan alors que les deux compères, pandémie oblige, avaient remis aux calendes belges leur projet de créer leur bière. Quand certains, la nuit, survolent la voie lactée, quand d’autres se rappellent qu’ils ont oublié de payer l’URSSAF, Jonathan, lui, se prend à rêver de bière bien fraîche aux accents de tennis. E que s’apelorio la 15A. Jonathan parle de son rêve à Kevin et, pour une fois que le récit d’un rêve s’avère intéressant, Kevin écoute. On ne peut pas lutter contre son destin : leur bière sera tennistique ou ne sera pas. La 15A est née, du moins sur le papier.

Objectif zéro déchet

Rappelez-vous de ce que vous répétait votre prof de tennis : pour gagner, il faut remettre la balle dans le court, éviter les déchets. Une maxime retenue par Kevin et Jonathan qui, dès le départ, tenaient à ce que leur création s’accorde avec leurs valeurs. Cette 15A à imaginer devait être réalisée en circuit court avec des ingrédients belges, préférentiellement bio, et être écoresponsable. Il leur fallait dès lors trouver le brasseur en phase avec cet engagement pour fabriquer la bière dont ils avaient imaginé la recette. Chasse fructueuse : Pierre Lamarche serait leur brasseur. Avec un curseur poussé encore plus loin puisque les résidus de sa brasserie sont collectés pour nourrir des animaux ou réutilisés par des boulangers. Rien ne se perd, tout se transforme.

Côté recette, Kevin et Jonathan pensent, là encore, tennis. Quelle serait la bière idéale, celle que l’on rêverait de boire après un match disputé ou pour célébrer une victoire ? Un profil se dessine : une bière blonde, artisanale, légère, très rafraîchissante, légèrement amère. 

Mais la bière parfaite se mérite. Pendant six mois, en 2021, les deux amis testent différentes variantes, jusqu’à trouver l’équilibre parfait. La bière est prête. Encore faut-il trouver des convives pour la boire.

Avancer à son rythme

En quelques semaines, Kevin et Jonathan s’attaquent à l’administratif et à la communication. Ils imaginent un logo, un site Internet, montent la société et protègent leur création. Et se mettent en quête de clients potentiels.

Fidèles à leurs valeurs, ils n’imaginent pas la 15A fleurir sur les étals de la grande distribution. Leurs premiers clients sont les clubs de tennis, cibles naturelles et premiers ambassadeurs de cette bière du tennis. En quelques semaines, la 15A trouve sa place à la buvette d’une vingtaine de clubs de la région de Liège, avec un succès immédiat : un petit club de trois courts en a vendu dix cartons en à peine un mois. La 15A plaît, et ce n’est que le début de l’histoire. 

À la faveur d’un partenariat avec l’Association francophone de tennis en province de Liège, la petite société devrait trouver de nouveaux clubs partenaires, clubs comme tournois. Avec comme objectif à moyen terme de devenir la bière officielle du tennis belge. Mais Kevin et Jonathan se gardent bien de brûler les étapes. Leur jeune structure n’a pas encore les épaules pour assurer une distribution d’envergure même si le marché français est également dans leur viseur. Pour l’heure, l’aventure doit rester un plaisir.

Un plaisir bientôt décliné avec deux nouvelles bouteilles dans les cartons. D’abord la 30A, une bière triple qui ne déplairait pas à Benoît Paire, puis une autre, fruitée, dont le nom reste encore à trouver (vos idées sont les bienvenues). Et dès juillet, la bière du tennis lancera sur son Facebook un concours pour permettre à ses abonnés de remporter une caisse.

À ce qu’on dit, l’été sera chaud. Ne passez pas à côté de l’occasion de vous rafraîchir.

 

 

 Lacoste, Kontaveit and Leitmeritz:

The Crocodile’s razor-sharp fusionof sport

and fashion is an astute move.

Interviewing the player of the moment, Anett Kontaveit couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. After a meteoric rise, Kontaveit has risen to a career-high WTA singles ranking of world No.2 on 6 June 2022. She is also the highest ranked Estonian tennis player in history. A perfect muse, therefore, for Lacoste to launch their new Fashion Sport silhouette range via a photoshoot with world renowned fashion photographer Radka Leitmeritz. The shoot location was Indian Wells Tennis Garden, the self-named ‘Tennis Paradise’, a spectacular oasis in the Californian desert, where Kontaveit was competing. Leitmeritz and I met months later, at the 2022 French Open. 

2022 marks a creative shift for Lacoste, redesigning the feminine silhouette around fashion and sport to create the Fashion Sport range. Thanks to technical crafting, fashion pieces have been created with sports-inspired features. It is not only a lifestyle range merging the two cultures of sports and fashion, but also a collaboration between retro and modern. René Lacoste would undoubtedly be proud of his brand’s evolvement, by continuing his legacy of innovating, yet remaining true to its tennis roots.

The shoot photographs are galvanizing, even if for the colours alone. In homage to Lacoste’s ethos, they showcase high-end fashion in a setting that could be from a bygone age. Kontaveit is presented with minimal makeup—the perfect canvas to showcase this colourful, bold collection, against an exotic backdrop of bougainvillea, and an ageing private clay court. The clothes are in vogue with their androgynous, oversized cuts. A chunky cable knit V-neck sweater in the collection is a nod to the past, but with a quirky twist: both sides of the V have contrast-colour stripes. A plum-coloured jacket plays with tones and textures, and is paired with chunky fluorescent sneakers, brown knee-high socks and a bright green sun visor. Colour is big: whether playing with ombré or colour blocking, pieces can be mixed and matched. Anything and everything goes, so throw away the rule book! This range is tailored for both the fashion-savvy and athleisure buyer. Designed to make a fashion statement, yet comfortable enough to exercise in—what more could anyone want? 

Having been sponsored by Lacoste since 2019 and with her love of fashion, Kontaveit is the right choice to showcase the range. We spoke about the Lacoste launch, and life both on and off the court.

Courts: Firstly, congratulations. You are the highest ranked Estonian tennis player in history. Your ranking continues to rise above the top 10, and now you are about to shoot this very special Lacoste Fashion line with world-renowned fashion photographer Radka Leitmeritz. Life is looking very exciting for you right now. Tell us more!

Anett Kontaveit: Thank you! The end of last year was very special for me, especially making the top 10 for the first time! Shooting with Radka Leitmeritz for Lacoste is a dream come true and such an honor. To say I am excited is an understatement. 

 

C: You are about to play at the aptly named ‘Tennis Paradise’ (Indian Wells). What a perfect place to launch this range. What piece from the range do you think encapsulates these surroundings, and which is your favourite?

A.K.: It’s tough for me to pick just one item because I genuinely love them all. The collection really matches the landscape at Indian Wells, it’s a beautiful complement to the setting we are in. Tennis Paradise really takes the athletic apparel to a new level. 

 

C: Your endorsement with Lacoste began in 2019. Before that you were with Adidas. Two very different brands, with very different silhouettes. What does the Lacoste brand mean for you?

A.K.: I am definitely very happy that I joined the Lacoste team in 2019. I love the clean lines and refined styles of their tennis apparel and have always been a big fan of their ready-to-wear collections. I grew up wearing the brand, and when I first started working with them, they made me feel like I was part of the team from the first day. I am very grateful for our partnership; we’ve been having a lot of fun. 

 

C: 2022 marks a creative shift for Lacoste, with the feminine silhouette completely redesigned to make sport more fashionable. What are your thoughts on this increasing trend of fashion in sport?

A.K.: I think it’s great! It’s important that we also look good and feel confident in what we are wearing. It’s obviously not the most important part of my on-court performance, but it certainly helps. 

 

C: Rene Lacoste was a true visionary. He was the first to feature a logo on the brand’s clothing. He also patented a shock absorber for the strings on his racquet in 1960 and called himself an “inventor”. If he were here today, how do you think he would view the visionary aspect of the brand?

A.K.: I hope that he would feel very proud! I think Lacoste has done a great job staying true to the original vision and look of the brand, whilst continuing to innovate and create a product that meets the current trends that we are seeing in athletic apparel today. 

 

C: Lacoste is associated with elegance and exclusivity yet is also fashion forward. There is the classic line (e.g. the polo shirts), but there is also a line that continues to attract a younger, fashionable clientele. Lacoste often has limited edition collaborations with brands of the moment, such as Opening Ceremony, Keith Haring and Supreme. How do you feel this new range embodies the Lacoste brand?

A.K.: I love that Lacoste has been doing collaborations. It keeps the brand fresh and exciting, while also attracting a lot of younger people who may not have considered Lacoste otherwise. It’s good to push boundaries and try new things! Of course, their polos will always be elegant and a staple piece in my wardrobe. They are a classic and something that I enjoy wearing too. 

 

C: In a 2019 interview with Lacoste, you said that you were into popular music with an upbeat vibe, like the song Levels by Avicii. What is your go-to song these days to energise or relax you before walking on court?

A.K.: My music taste is honestly all over the place, I listen to different music from Avicii to RnB. Songs remind me of important people in my life and special memories that I carry with me. It all depends on what mood I am in, and what I feel like listening to that day. Before matches, I usually listen to something more upbeat. It helps to get me in the zone and pumps me up! 

 

C: I understand that you have a creative side and enjoy pottery. What other artistic talents do you have, and can you see yourself designing your own range of tennis clothing one day?

A.K.: I wouldn’t say that I am a super creative person, but I do really enjoy pottery! I like studying, reading, and learning new things. Truthfully, I do not see myself designing my own range, I will leave that up to the professionals. I am happy to wear clothing designed by others! 

C: Luxury fashion brands are beginning to incorporate tennis into their collections. I know you like to wear some of them when off-court. Chanel, Prada, and Saint Laurent, for example, have branded tennis racquets. What is your view on this—do you think there is a market for luxury end tennis racquets?

A.K.: Tennis is growing all over the world! It’s a classy sport to play, so it does not surprise me that fashion houses and customers would gravitate towards luxury, high-end tennis racquets. I like seeing how the culture of tennis is infiltrating into popular fashion! 

 

C: The Lacoste Fashion Sport range blurs the boundaries between sport and fashion, making it versatile to wear both on and off court. What is your off-court style for daytime and evening?

A.K.: Much like my music, my style changes with my mood. Sometimes I like to wear jeans and a baggy T-shirt, and sometimes I like to dress up for no reason at all. It’s really whatever I am into at the moment. 

 

C: Which player, either from the past or present has best portrayed fashion and culture in tennis?

A.K.: Maria Sharapova is a good example. 

 

C: You have a positive happy outlook, always smiling. Your best friend Heidy once said in a WTA interview that you were always “kindhearted and upbeat”. What do you think is the secret to happiness?

A.K.: I don’t have the secret to happiness, but I know that the things that make me happy or that I seek out for myself are my freedom. Having good people around you that lift you up, encourage and support you, and make me laugh always help too! 

 

C: What has surprised you most about your career?

A.K.: It has taken me time to realize how strong I can be, and how much more I am capable of. I surprise myself every day. 

 

C: Who were your style icons, growing up?

A.K.: I didn’t grow up with a style icon or a tennis icon actually! I’ve always tried to remain true to myself, doing what feels right, wearing clothes that I like and make feel good. There isn’t one person in particular that inspired me. 

 

C: If you could help yourself to someone’s wardrobe, whose would it be, and why?

A.K.: Probably Blake Lively! Her red-carpet appearances have been amazing, she has amazing style. 

 

C: Tell us one thing about you that people would be surprised to know.

A.K.: I love cooking and my favorite meal to make for myself, friends and family are fish tacos. They are really good! 

 

C: What are the upcoming tournaments in your calendar that most excite you, and why?

A.K.: I am really looking forward to tournaments in Europe, I love the summer there. I’ve always enjoyed Stuttgart and Rome is one of my most favorite cities to visit, it also has one of the most beautiful tennis venues. And, of course, the slams in Paris and London are always very special. 

 

C: Can you walk me through your typical day routine, from breakfast to bedtime.

A.K.: Routines for a tennis player look different on training, versus tournament weeks. So, on a training week at home for example, I wake up, make myself coffee and a good breakfast and then head to tennis training right after. I typically have lunch at the courts and then either go to the gym or hit again. After training, I go home and rest a little, and take some time for myself. Sometimes I go out to dinner with friends or catch up with people I haven’t seen for a while, catching a movie afterwards, if possible. I make sure to always get a good night’s sleep, so I can wake up and do it all over again the next day. 

 

C: Many tennis players are superstitious. Are you, and if so, what superstitions or rituals do you have on court?

A.K.: My biggest ritual would be a braid that I make for every one of my matches. It’s like a lucky charm, I guess. But no, I don’t think I have any on-court superstitions. 

 

C: Looking to the future, tennis has entered the metaverse. The Australian Open released NFTs for the first time, Nadal, Osaka, Svitolina and Wawrinka are also endorsing NFTs. As the metaverse continues to narrow the gap between digital and physical reality, and art and tennis start to embrace this, what are your thoughts on the metaverse, for your own career as well as future showcasing of new Lacoste launches? 

A.K.: Technology and metaverse are definitely not my strong suit. But I do think the Lacoste Minecraft collection is very cool! 

Radka Leitmeritz

A few months later, I interviewed Radka Leitmeritz at the 2022 French Open. Lacoste’s selection of photographer couldn’t be more suitable. Leitmeritz’s foray into tennis photography has presented a unique lens through which we see tennis players. Her background is in fashion photography, having impressively shot for publications such as Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar. An example from her portfolio is that of Petra Kvitova. Lying with her back to the camera, Kvitova is covered in red clay on a bench with faded, peeling paint, a vintage racquet propped up against the wall beneath. The photograph’s muted colours add to a timeless feel. Lacoste’s choice of Leitmeritz, was therefore a shrewd one. Together with her fashion and tennis credentials, Leitmeritz’s forte is to juxtapose vintage with modern. Much like Lacoste. 

Leitmeritz arrived at our meeting wearing a cap and t-shirt from her own brand Court Supremes (the name of her upcoming book, sponsored by Porsche). A stylish accessory paid reverence to her surroundings: a tennis-inspired silk scarf tied in a French knot around her neck, which she untied to show me the tennis racquet print across it. During our conversation, it became obvious that this is a woman in demand. Despite being interrupted by incoming calls and emails, the generosity of her time speaks volumes about how she does business. Leitmeritz’s openness and positive energy was infectious, even at the end of the day.

Courts: Your background is in fashion photography, with an impressive portfolio of supermodels and Hollywood A-listers as your subjects. You transitioned to tennis photography a few years ago, after taking an interest in playing tennis yourself. You have turned tennis’s superstars into magazine icons. What attracted you to tennis from fashion?

Radka Leitmeritz: I signed up for a tennis lesson in a park and got addicted, falling in love immediately. As a photographer, I see the world’s beauty through my camera. I took photos of people playing on public courts and was visually inspired. My first tennis assignment was to shoot Petra (Kvitova) for the cover of Elle Magazine. Elle knew that I had started playing tennis, so they called, saying, “we have something for you—with Petra. And you can do what you want”. I was very happy with this unique opportunity to bring a player into my world and treat it like a fashion shoot. 

Watching tennis, I noticed that nobody else was photographing the players in the way I envisioned. I see something totally different to what a sports photographer sees. Tennis players have such interesting characters, and the courts are a beautiful location. I began shooting old tennis clubs and courts, before collaborating with Racquet magazine. The WTA then approached me for a collaboration. We agreed tournament portfolios, portraits, and backstage photography—unlike anything that had been done before. But suddenly, the world was hit with Covid. My first series was when Indian Wells got cancelled, and everything was suspended for 2-3 days. The WTA and I decided to turn this into an opportunity, given the unusual situation where players had time, and nobody knew what was going on. Coming from a fashion background, I’m aware of styling shoots, so I started to bring props, like vintage racquets, or skirts, being careful not to clash with the players’ sponsor endorsements. Depending on the sponsor, I would bring some vintage Adidas or Nike, or even an unbranded item. I got great feedback!

 

C: From a fashion photographer’s perspective, what has been the main difference/challenge with shooting tennis players? Models and actors are used to being in photoshoots. But this doesn’t come naturally to a tennis player.

R.L.: It wasn’t that different. I found many similarities in these two worlds. Tennis players, like models and actors travel a lot. Many players have good fashion sense, with even better physiques than models because of their profession. But when attending my first tournament, I’ll never forget one major difference. In the players’ lounge at lunchtime, I saw female tennis players eating plates full of protein, carbs fruit, and they looked great, which was amazing. On modelling shoots I was used to seeing models snacking on carrots! There is a strong link between tennis and fashion. When I’ve styled a player for a shoot, they have appreciated that I will make them look better, as my approach is so different to the typical sports photographer’s approach. I gained their trust fairly quickly. 

Some actors are more comfortable with a moving camera, so still photography doesn’t always come naturally to them, either. So, the difference between the subjects isn’t actually that great. I just wish I could move better around the court to take my pictures. Tournament photographers have fixed allocated areas for shooting, which means that I can’t always shoot with the perspective I would love to, like lying under the tennis net! It’s hard to create something different. But it’s the ‘backstage’ access where it becomes more interesting, where I have more creativity outside of the tournament.

One-on-one moments with players are not easy to get. It took time to build trust and rapport, travelling with them for tournaments, becoming the familiar face at the breakfast buffet every morning. They understood that I was with the WTA and on their side, rather than a press photographer, so I was able to spontaneously photograph moments on a day off, or in-between matches. It makes a difference to have such unprecedented access to their life. But it wasn’t easy, the tennis world is difficult to penetrate. I had no tennis contacts, so I didn’t have immediate access. Thanks to the WTA’s support, it was made possible. They understood my vision and supported me. So, I was very lucky.

 

C: Your photos of tennis players are unique, merging tennis with art, often taken outside of the player’s normal surroundings. I love your photos of Petra Kvitova, covered in red clay, which you mentioned earlier. How did you manage to convince her to do that?

R.L.: Thank you! I guess because we were both crazy Czech girls, and we were in the oldest club in Prague, like home. And it felt like a sisterhood! I said, “hey Petra, I have a great idea. You’re going to hate me for it, but I want to roll you in the red clay”. And she’s like “alright, if you want, let’s do it!” You have to be lucky that it’s the right moment, the player’s in a good mood, open to experiment. Because not everybody is. 

 

C: Still on the subject of merging tennis with art, which players do you see as the best in portraying fashion, art, and culture in tennis and why?

R.L.: This is an interesting question because I don’t necessarily go for high-ranked players, or those who look like models. For me, every player is an interesting challenge because all have different characters. My job is to make everybody look good in front of my camera, whether it is a tennis player, or a lady working in the player’s restaurant, I’ll make my subject look good for a portrait. That beauty has to be personal, and different. It’s great if a player is open to being photographed. But I find players that are camera shy equally interesting and can often get something intimate. I had a great moment with Ons Jabeur. She had just lost a match but was happy for me to photograph her. These are precious moments because we are used to seeing smiling tennis players photographed with a trophy in their hands. But you rarely see photographs of players who have lost, and tennis is all about losing, only one person wins. For me, the challenge is to capture the losers too. I don’t just want to shoot the beautiful happiness of the tour. 

 

C: What does Lacoste mean to you, and how do you feel Kontaveit captures the brand?

R.L.: I’m truly excited about Lacoste. It’s hard to find a tennis brand with such good taste. Most brands today don’t have the same exclusivity or consideration for the physiques of all the players like Lacoste does, so we see so many players wearing the same outfits on court. Lacoste is selective about who they sponsor. Louise Trotter, Lacoste’s new designer has done an amazing job. She has really managed to turn a very conservative, posh brand with a little crocodile into a really cool brand. 

Lacoste is classic but with a modern touch. I follow fashion and love the fashion range. I was very happy when Lacoste approached me to shoot Anett, because I was able to choose looks from the fashion show and mix them with tennis. Anett looks like a model and understands fashion. Whatever I had wanted to do with her worked, but we weren’t so lucky with the weather on shoot day. There was a storm in Palm Springs which took out the light. Of the 2—3 hours we had, we only had 15 minutes of sun to utilize.

C: Looking at the photos, it’s hard to imagine those conditions that day, with the colourful bougainvillea in the background, and the muted colours of the court! Take us through the process for how you approached this shoot—can you reveal your brief?

R.L.: The muted colours were due to the storm and lack of light. We were praying for beautiful light which we had for 10 minutes when we arrived on location, until the wind and clouds appeared. Everything was flying! So, when you see the photos of Anett standing in front of a parasol, it was literally used as an umbrella and reminded me of Tim Walker’s work (British fashion photographer), as he uses big, oversized props. So, although this look was unplanned, it was cool in the end, and we did a good job. We had lots of fun running in the storm, trying to make something from the situation that we had. You often have to improvise like this and work with what you have. I wanted to do something colorful and really bring out the retro aspect, and the location helped. I did a mood board for Lacoste, putting together some ideas and we chatted a bit, but it was basically really organic.

 

C: What are your favourite outfits in this new collection? You have previously said you wanted to bring out the romantic, visual, stylish side of tennis. 

R.L.: I love the knee high socks, which remind me of vintage Prada from the late 1990’s. I love the big chunky sneakers, the oversized jackets and the crop tops with the big, high-waisted shorts. And I love the technical materials which Lacoste have used, which you would normally think wouldn’t work, but it looks amazing. I wish people would wear this collection around tennis—perhaps before or after tennis. It would work in the lifestyle of the tennis world. 

 

C: I agree – we need more creativity in today’s tennis collections, which brings me naturally to my next question. Many sports photographers like something with movement during play (like a pleated dress or skirt). What are the best types of tennis outfits that provide the most dramatic results? 

R.L.: As a photographer, I never appreciate heavy patterns or crazy prints, which can hide the player. Some brands are too creative with their cuts for tennis players on court. They don’t understand the context or court surface that the dress will be in. Plain colours and a good cut are so important. I have said this in so many interviews, but I really wish the brands would work more closely with female players to develop a more individual style suited to the player, in the same way they do with the men. Rafa and Novak have their individual styles. Serena has had her outfits made for her. Sharapova had her ‘Maria dress’. But I wish that every female player who is endorsed by a big brand can create a little personal version of that brand’s collection. There’s nothing worse than watching two players on court wearing the same thing! It takes the personality of the player away, and you really have to pay attention to who is who if watching from afar.

Psychologically, it’s important for a player to feel good with what they’re wearing during a match. Imagine playing the semi-finals of a slam wearing something that doesn’t fit well or is not to your style. There are many elements to consider when designing for extreme athletic movement. A brand should elevate the personality of the players, which is missing on the women’s tour, so players often look like an army of athletes in identical clothes.

What Lacoste has produced is classy, chic and looks great on court. The colours work with the surface. It’s important for brands to understand that not everyone is lucky enough to watch tennis live. The majority will see the outfits through broadcast cameras or photography.

 

C: You did something very resourceful during the pandemic: a lockdown series, photographing tennis players via FaceTime on your iPhone. The results are impressive. Where did you get this idea from and how did you convince your subjects?

R.L.: Thank you. Many of us tried to be creative during the Covid pandemic. I follow players on social media and remember seeing their posts from their hotel rooms in Melbourne during the Australian Open hard lockdown. They were isolated for 2 weeks, unable to leave or open their windows, yet they had to prepare for the tournament by hitting a ball against a mattress propped up against the wall or biking in their bathrooms – crazy! So, I contacted the WTA, convincing them of this one-time opportunity in sports history. They liked my idea and contacted a few players who were happy to oblige, as they had nothing else to do. It was very special to be allowed into the intimacy of a player’s room, even remotely. Because not everyone that I had shot had met me before, until we FaceTimed. 

The WTA were initially concerned that the photographs would be a depressing depiction of isolation and loneliness, but the outcome was much more fun. I posted videos on my social media showing how we set up the shoots. We were laughing so much. Sometimes the players were alone, having to tape their phone using an overgrip against foam rollers if they didn’t have a tripod, with me directing them according to the light. When they had somebody with them in the room, I would direct that person like a DP!

 

C: From what you’ve just said, it’s clear that your job is as much about soft skills as it is about the technicalities. In an interview for Porsche Bucharest, you discussed bonding with Maria Sakkari over the Porsche design. How do you get the best out of people and what do you do to make a player you have never worked with feel comfortable?

R.L.: It’s an interesting question. I have the same approach for all my subjects. I try not to familiarise myself, so as to know as little as possible about the people so that I can make my own vision and picture. When you research too much, it can influence how you see them. I just go with my instincts and feeling, but I’m also very adaptable and open to work collaboratively. The player has to like what I do and feel comfortable because it’s about them. The clothes are a little touch to make the photograph visually organic. But I don’t want to change their personality or make them into creatures of my own vision. So, it’s important for me to try to help dress them in the way that suits their personality and what they’re comfortable with. I am honest, natural, and open with them in the same the way I’d be with a friend. 

Maria and I connected because she is a Porsche ambassador. Porsche is one of my project sponsors, so we both had an amazing experience together with the cars. Sometimes you connect with some people more than others. If you do portraits, you just have to find a connection. The subject doesn’t have to love you. But I do like to find something within my subjects that inspires me and helps me connect with them. 

C: I understand you are very particular about certain colours like the Porsche red, or Neptune blue for example. What colours do you like in this collection?

R.L.: I like the browns, Bordeaux, dark greens, yellows, and the weird, unexpected combinations. This is a very photogenic colour palette. It works with my colour treatment, which has been the same for many years because I come from the analogue photo generation. So colours for me are very important.

 

C: You often mix vintage with modern in your photographs. I’ve seen today’s players pose with vintage wooden racquets, or outfits. Is that why you think Lacoste chose you for this shoot, as the brand manages to retain its classic lines but also be fashionably progressive?

R.L.: I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I don’t think it’s about the vintage. I just think that certain things were just more beautiful in the past. Or maybe it’s the nostalgia of it. A white or wooden racket in certain contexts works better as a prop than a new racket from a modern brand, sprayed with weird colours. But a wooden racket can also be a cliché: sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Looking at the locations that I use and all the backdrops from an aesthetic point of view, sometimes old things just look better on camera than the modern stuff. Vintage props often tell more of a story. I’m attracted to retro in general. But we are living in 2022, so I don’t want to be stuck in retro and shoot people with vintage racquets. It’s important to bring modern aspects to it.

 

C: Your approach and style is very different to regular tennis photography, capturing the emotion rather than the action. How challenging is it to capture the right emotions and expressions on tour?

R.L.: Very challenging! It depends on many things. I’m not looking to shoot a player’s backhand, but I’m looking to have a moment with the player. Those moments can be during the changeover when the player grabs a towel, or on the bench deep in thoughts, for example. So, you have to be patient because maybe the moment never happens, or the light or positioning is poor. At the French Open, the location of the photographer’s pit on court is great because you are so close to the players. But you have to be lucky because the emotion has to come from a moment you’re trying to capture, which doesn’t happen on command.

 

C: You’ve previously said that your work is inspired by movies. Which film, book or artist has inspired you the most?

R.L.: The 1960’s film Blow Up has an inspiring pantomime scene in a park full of tennis courts. There is something fascinating about abundant tennis courts. I love clay courts, as they look like a battlefield: a ‘before’ and ‘after’ battle scene, which has a very specific energy. The film Belle de Jour, has a beautiful scene with Catherine Deneuve, wearing tennis whites, with a headband, in the 1960’s in a posh tennis club, it’s a great look.

The fashion photographer (and tennis lover) William Klein is also an inspiration. In the 80’s, he created a documentary about tennis’s golden age called The French. It’s beautiful because it was made with all those iconic players and beautiful tennis looks of the 80’s, and shot in 35mm film, so everything has a cinematic quality. The camera angle access he had would be unachievable in today’s broadcast tennis, which has specifically allocated camera angles. Klein was able to film wherever he could on court, so the sound is unbelievable. Back then, you could interview or photograph players in their locker rooms, with their coaches smoking cigarettes whilst speaking to the player and journalist!

 

C: What is your best court surface to photograph, and which tournaments are you looking forward to shooting at this year?

R.L.: The French Open has been my dream court surface to photograph for two years, so it’s exciting to be here! The next one will be Wimbledon which I’m also excited about, because we need some green also and some tennis white!

 

C: How do you think the metaverse will affect tennis and fashion photography? The Australian Open and Roland Garros have released NFTs for the first time, Nadal, Osaka, Svitolina and Wawrinka are also endorsing NFTs. As the metaverse continues to narrow the gap between digital and physical reality, and art and tennis start to embrace this, do you see yourself branching into this new world?

R.L.: It’s a very interesting question because this is a topic that I’m thinking about a lot. My Court Supremes book project will incorporate NFTs in some form, but I don’t want to speak about this just yet, other than to say that it gives sense to everything digital, especially for art collectors. As for the metaverse, it is far away from the reality, so I still don’t know how to approach it. I have mixed feelings about it because I still want to be in the real world. 

 

C: Finally, tell us about your soon to be published tennis photography book, Court Supremes?

R.L.: Court Supremes is a book sponsored by Porsche, which we are hoping to publish in 2023. It will be the first book dedicated to the beauty of women’s tennis, including tennis courts and player portraits. I’m hoping that it will be a beautiful coffee table book. It will focus on women’s tennis, because I feel that the men’s tour has enough attention, and that equality between men’s and women’s tennis is still to be achieved. Women still have less tournaments than men, some tournaments still don’t pay equal prize money, so I want to support women’s tennis. The book is a gift to women’s tennis and its beauty. 

There are still very few female tennis photographers on tour. Right now, we’re in the Media Centre at Roland Garros. How many women do you see here? Very few as it’s a male-dominated profession. I wish there’d be more women. Photographs and editing would look different taken from a female point of view, with a little more sensitivity around some of the angles and expressions that women would not want to show. I’m not trying to change the world of tennis sports photography. I appreciate that I am stepping into somebody else’s world, so I’m just trying to bring my own angle to it. It’s a sports journalism versus fashion art world—two worlds that cannot be compared.

As we wrap up, and before Leitmeritz leaves, she says something unprompted that leaves me on a positive high, staying with me for the rest of the day: 

“Since I was 19, I’ve learned that I got into photography intuitively because I attracted to it with all my heart and loved it. It was not calculated. I really believe that whatever you choose to do in your life, no matter where you come from, you can do it if you are inspired. I had the same approach when I went from fashion to tennis photography, and doors opened for me. Everything is possible. What you choose, wherever you come from, whatever you do, it doesn’t matter. When I started in tennis, many people questioned my choice. My answer was always the same: I felt inspired. Do whatever inspires you, whether it be photography, writing a book about tennis, flowers, dogs, or animals. Follow your inspiration with your heart and doors will naturally open for you because people feel that positivity. I’m saying this right now because I’m reminding myself about it!”