Tennis Lore
Suzanne Lenglen and the 1919 Wimbledon final
Forty-four games. Two match points saved — one of them off the wooden frame of a racquet. Eight thousand bodies crammed into a…
Tennis Lore
Why Does Tennis Score 15, 30, and 40?
Every coach who has ever watched a six-year-old try to understand the scoreboard has witnessed the same small crisis. The child…
Tennis Lore
Spaghetti stringing: the racket setup tennis banned
In ordinary tennis stringing, the racket face is a woven plane: vertical mains pass over and under horizontal crosses, locking…
Tennis Lore
Wimbledon Whites: Why Does the Strict Dress Code Survive?
In the summer of 2013, Roger Federer — an eight-time Wimbledon champion, the man whose name had been carved into that particular…
Tennis Lore
Ashe in 1975: why his tactical masterpiece still resonates
Arthur Ashe entered the 1975 Wimbledon final as the No. 6 seed. Jimmy Connors was the defending champion, the No. 1 seed, and the…
Tennis Lore
Wooden tennis rackets: the craft of multi-ply lamination
A wooden tennis racket was never simply carved from a tree and fitted with strings. The earliest frames were made from solid ash…
Tennis Lore
Jimmy Connors and the steel racket that held him back
By the time Connors walked onto Centre Court with the Wilson T2000 in his hand, the rest of the tour had moved toward graphite…
Tennis Lore
Underhand serve: tactical genius or disrespectful trick?
At 5–6 metres behind the baseline, the return position becomes a liability. That is the distance many elite returners use when…
Tennis Lore
Yellow tennis balls: the broadcast legacy we take for granted
The yellow tennis ball was not introduced because players needed more speed, more spin, or a different bounce. It was introduced…
News
Amanda Anisimova and the Power of the Strategic Reset in Professional Tennis
By all accounts from a Pure Leaf press release dated August 26, Amanda Anisimova has turned one of the more quietly significant…
Tennis Lore
Riggs’ 1973 preparation: how vitamins replaced training
The photograph is the entire argument. Two days before walking onto the Houston Astrodome court, Bobby Riggs posed for the…
Tennis Lore
Racket stencils: the history of tennis string branding
A tennis racket can carry two identities at once. The frame may belong to one manufacturer, while the strings announce another …
Tennis Lore
The 1926 Wimbledon mistake that ended Suzanne Lenglen’s reign
The 1926 Wimbledon Championships were supposed to be a coronation. The All England Club, marking fifty years since the first…
Tennis Lore
Wooden tennis rackets: preserving the feel of a bygone era
Pick up a standard wooden racket from the late 1960s and the first thing you notice is the weight distribution — the mass…
Tennis Lore
Carpet courts: why tennis abandoned its fastest surface
On carpet, the point could begin to unravel before the returner had properly read the serve. A short takeback, a half-step too…
Tennis Lore
Net cord judges: the forgotten art of feeling the let
A tennis net-cord judge occupied one of the smallest and most exposed positions in professional sport. Seated at the net, close…
Tennis Lore
David Foster Wallace: Why His Tennis Writing Still Resonates
David Foster Wallace reached a regional junior ranking of 17 between the ages of 12 and 15. That fact determines the value of his…
Tennis Lore
McEnroe’s 1990 disqualification: the rulebook mistake
John McEnroe was leading Mikael Pernfors at the 1990 Australian Open when he was disqualified from the match. The score was 6–1…
Tennis Lore
Tennis ball kids: the silent choreography of the court
Wimbledon introduced ball boys in the 1920s, drawing on youth charities and institutions such as Shaftesbury Homes, a Royal Navy…
Tennis Lore
Steel tennis rackets: what the T2000 teaches about flex
The history of steel tennis rackets is often told as a simple technological progression: wood gave way to metal, metal gave way…
Tennis Lore
White tennis balls: the visual history of a forgotten era
For most of tennis history, the ball was not yellow. It was white—or, in some earlier settings, black—and on the grass courts of…
Tennis Lore
Natural gut: the artisanal science of tennis strings
Natural gut tennis strings manufacturing process is one of the quietest forms of craftsmanship still present in professional…
Tennis Lore
Wood vs graphite: did modern rackets kill tennis artistry?
The last Grand Slam singles titles won with wooden rackets came in 1983. Yannick Noah won the French Open. Chris Evert won the…
Tennis Lore
One-handed backhand: is the classic stroke truly dead?
For roughly two months in early 2024, professional tennis produced one of the quietest anomalies in the modern game: not a single…
Tennis Lore
The spaghetti racket: how double-stringing broke tennis
The spaghetti racket did not look like the beginning of a revolution. Its most radical feature was hidden in the string bed…
Tennis Lore
Wooden rackets as training tools for modern swing timing
A vintage wooden tennis racket does not forgive a late preparation, a drifting head, or a contact point that exists only…
Tennis Lore
Wimbledon grass speed: did the courts actually slow down?
The 2002 Wimbledon men’s final lasted three sets and produced no serve-and-volley points. Twelve months earlier, on the same…
Tennis Lore
McEnroe's 1984 French Open: The headset that cost a title
Dominic Thiem's 2020 US Open unraveling? Andy Murray's slow bleed in five-setters when the script turns? When you want a…
Tennis Lore
Wimbledon White: Sacred Tradition or Creative Prison?
A single strip of colour at Wimbledon may not exceed 10 millimetres. Off-white and cream are prohibited. In 2013, Roger Federer…