Good tennis writing is hard to find. This frustrates me endlessly, because tennis lends itself beautifully to writing. There’s the individual competition, one player trying to break another, their naked emotions on court, the overlap of playing
style and
personality, the vastly different
venues around the
world, the mental drain of the scoring system. But the sport is difficult to cover consistently, so most outlets don’t even try.
Defector is
committed to covering tennis and is always finding
interesting angles into doing so. Staff writer
Giri Nathan, winner of 2022's inaugural Tom Perrotta Prize for Tennis Journalism, is one of the
best tennis writers on the
planet. As a fan of the sport, I consider myself lucky that he chooses to blog about it. Giri has an eye not only for players’ strengths and weaknesses but also point play itself, often neglected in match reports. Each turn of phrase he uses is one you wouldn't have thought of, but immediately want to add to your tennis vocabulary.
I did my best to keep up during my
time as an intern this summer. I’m grateful that Defector gave me
space to write from the
nerdiest depths of my
tennis-addled brain. I was also glad to convene with Giri and recent tennis convert Patrick Redford for long
post-tournament chats.
If you’re dismayed by the lack of regular and substantive tennis writing out there, you should give Defector a shot.
With the U.S. Open starting up and our $1.04-for-your-first-month sale winding down this week, it’s hard to imagine a better time to do so. If you need some more convincing, four classic blogs are gift-linked below the jump:
