Tag: festivals and events

Last year at my local community tennis courts in Brooklyn, the tennis fever seemed to hit a peak. The courts were packed from sunrise to the last drop of light. Even if it rained, the most committed found a way to dink some balls back and forth. Every tournament and league not only was full but also had an endlessly growing wait list. 

“People can’t stop thinking about tennis,” a friend said, begrudging how hard it was to reserve a time to play amid all the new and renewed interest in the sport. 

Everyone on the local courts had their opinions about what was driving the tennis boom: the sport was portrayed as a font of wellness; the pros were getting more accessible on social media; pop culture was getting more obsessed with the tennis aesthetic; Zendaya and her boys in the film Challengers seemed to propel the already engaged fashion brands to glom on to the sport like never before. “Tennis-core” was all over TikTok; tennis players appeared in massive Louis Vuitton and Gucci campaigns and even on the cover of Vogue. Serena Williams hosted the ESPYs. 

The impact played out, literally, on the local courts. Alongside big growth in other racket sports like padel and pickleball, more than 24 million people are currently playing tennis in the United States and 106 million worldwide, and the numbers are only trending upward.  

At the center of this tennis pop-off are the pro events—the most alluring moments for tennis fans new and old. True to form, every attendance record fell at last summer’s U.S. Open. More than one million people passed through the Billie Jean King Tennis Center, many of them with Honey Deuce drinks in hand. That’s more than 75,000 fans per day over the middle weekend. It seemed like the whole of New York City was awash in U.S. Open hats with the tennis ball swoosh, which had sold in record numbers as well. As a further sign of the love that the luxury world has for tennis, men’s singles winner Jannik Sinner, a Gucci ambassador, carried a custom Head x Gucci duffel at the finals, while Aryna Sabalenka signed on as a new ambassador for Audemars Piguet after winning the women’s title. 

The U.S. Tennis Association seized the moment and reached for superlatives. One slogan seemed everywhere, on the national morning shows and even painted on the courts: The World’s Healthiest Sport.  

It seems only fitting. A 2018 paper published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings found that tennis players can live three to eight years longer than their counterparts who play other sports. The study, which went viral, observed 8,577 Danish residents ages 20 to 93 from 1991 to 2017. (The research team did not include some popular sports like basketball or baseball.) One other study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, showed that tennis players gain greater health benefits than do players of other racket sports, like badminton, table tennis, and squash. 

The findings didn’t come as much of a surprise to those who know and love the game. Tennis is both aerobic and anaerobic—perfect exercise for heart health. All the quick sprints, moving in multiple directions, rotational torque, and hand-eye coordination keep you sharp. You must think fast—the ball is coming back—and account for myriad variables at once. The short of it is, your blood flow, mind function, and heart are just better on tennis. 

And yet, the health benefits are not what the chatter is about at courts around the world. What’s bringing people back and garnering so many newbies are the community and the belonging that come with the sport. 

Anyone who’s played at public or private courts can tell you there’s a buzz to arriving at the venues day in and day out. There’s always a mix of familiar and new faces. The game demands that you increase your community interaction. Something else all the studies raised: Social connection keeps loneliness at bay, which has a significant impact on longevity. If we stay social, we can stave off cognitive decline.  

Sure, all sports have a social element, but racket sports require that you get to know your opponents and partners on a deeper level than any other sport. In tennis, we find each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and we also use downtime between games and sets to learn more. We’re not just diving deep into the nuances of the game, which we do a lot, for sure; we’re constantly growing our tennis networks and garnering a more intimate relationship with our own neighborhoods. Some coaches encourage players to keep a journal of everything they thought of during a tennis match. I’d nudge people to go further and write down everything they learned about their hitting partners that day, tennis-related and otherwise. You probably learned where your partner or opponent lives, about their family and job, and, more importantly, how they feel about all those things. The breadth of sharing (and maybe oversharing) always surprises those who notice. Tennis players love to analyze, and we love to ask questions, which fosters connection. 

This all culminates with millions of tennis players chasing opportunities to immerse in new tennis communities wherever they may be. And maybe this is the tipping point tennis has reached now, where a massive community is seeking out new tribes simply for the joy of doing so. Tennis comes with its own lexicon, its own social media banter, its own heroes and villains, and you can show up anywhere and feel a part of it. I’d venture to say this is why tennis has so many true obsessives. 

Many an eager traveler has also taken this approach on the road. Through an increasing number of travel outfitters, tennis enthusiasts are finding journeys centered around tennis. Much like I did for the book I wrote about tennis courts and communities around the world—which took me to grass courts in Ireland, where 90-year-old grandparents play tournaments with new friends, and “sand courts” in northern Spain that emerge only when the tide goes out—players of all levels are setting their sights on a region and heading there with rackets in tow.  

At the 2025 Australian Open, numerous travel groups from the chilly northern hemisphere ventured to the courts of Sydney and Melbourne to hit with the tennis communities Down Under, as well as attend the first Grand Slam of the year. Outfitters like Lux Tennis partner with professional players and opulent hotels to craft customized tennis retreats. This will only grow, with more ways for people to find new tennis tribes and learn about their game and themselves.  

For those setting off alone or with their tennis tribe, there are some holy grail courts that are worth the adventure of getting to them: Bunabhainneadar Tennis Court in northern Scotland (for the world’s most remote and idyllic single courts); the indoor court at Dansk Tennis Club (for pristine Danish architecture and indoor acoustics surrounded by preserved 1930s paintings); and Sportchalet Mürren (for a fairy-tale clay court surrounded by natural waterfalls of the Swiss Alps). 

As long as tennis keeps booming, the opportunities for community and adventure in and around the game will undoubtedly grow more inspired and diverse. And we may never be able to truly pinpoint just what it is that makes the game so alluring for so many millions of people. Maybe that’s the point. We’re meant to explore all the enticing parts and find our own way around one of the world’s favorite sports, always venturing down new, untrodden paths.  

This spring, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts launched the Road to the Giorgio Armani Tennis Classic, an inaugural series of doubles tournaments. Participants had the chance to be coached by tennis players including Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Goran Ivanišević before competing in doubles matches. The new series culminated with the Giorgio Armani Tennis Classic at London’s Hurlingham Club (June 24 to 28).

Nick Pachelli is the author of The Tennis Court: A Journey to Discover the World’s Greatest Tennis Courts.