Tennis Players Not Welcome
A Club Leftist Tennis dispatch from The Drift issue seven launch party
The leftist tennis player is nothing without a deep commitment to the study of theory. Not only must they engage in praxis on the tennis courts, but also dedicate themselves as a student of the game and the leftism that informs their tactics. In places like New York City, with a particularly rich intellectual culture, this includes attendance at social gatherings of luminaries at the intersection of tennis and leftism, or so I thought.
When I heard that there was going to be a launch party for the seventh issue of The Drift, “a magazine of culture, politics, and literature,” I knew that I needed to be in attendance. Naturally, this would be a meeting of great minds, a place to engage in conversation that effortlessly rallied between geopolitics and the finer details of the perfect slice backhand. I was eager to find some new comrades to hit with, and potentially get a few sets in that night.
However, I didn’t know what to expect so I erred on the side of being prepared for anything the night might bring. For all I knew, the editorial staff of The Drift might have set up tennis courts on the roof of the Public Hotel. With such a leftist name for a hotel, ‘public’ evoking the Parks Department-run courts across the city, the practice of tennis was certainly not out of the realm of possibility. I grabbed my 9-racket tennis bag and filled it with five rackets, a pair of tennis shoes, a spare set of laces, a small towel, four extra overgrips, two spare string dampeners, eight wristbands, two headbands, four energy gels, a water bottle, two spare shirts, four cans of clay court balls, four cans of extra duty balls, and a banana, and headed off towards Manhattan.
When I arrived at the hotel, I was surprised to notice that I was the only one with any piece of baggage larger than a handbag. I wondered where everyone's rackets were. Had I gone to the wrong address? Striking up a conversation with a young man next to me in pleated plants wearing an NYU lanyard around his neck, I learned that I was, in fact, at the right place. He asked if the large pack on my back contained advance reader copies of the new Ottessa Moshfegh book, to which I returned a confused glance. I peered down at the man's feet and noticed that he was wearing chelsea boots, hardly appropriate footwear for clay, grass, or hard court. Nevertheless, I waited in line unperturbed for the next three hours as eager attendees were slowly let in. Compared to the line to get a court time at Fort Greene Park, this was nothing.
Eventually, I reached the front of the line at the entrance to the hotel where I was greeted by a bouncer seemingly as tall as Reilly Opelka and as buff as Rafael Nadal. He sized me up for a few seconds, and then curtly announced “NEXT” without permitting me to enter. I was shocked. For the second time that night I inquired, “This is the party for The Drift magazine right?”
“That’s right,” the bouncer replied, “No tennis players allowed.”
Overhearing the commotion from just inside the door to the hotel, one of the editors of The Drift walked over to see what was going on. Spotting a potentially friendly face, I called out to her, “They’re banning tennis players from the party! What kind of pickleball racket are you running here!”
I watched her face go pale as my accusation sunk in. She turned to the bouncer, “Is this true? I never gave any instructions to ban tennis players. In fact, many of our own editors occasionally participate in the great sport of tennis.”
Without even looking her in the eyes, the bouncer replied, “Sorry ma’am. I’m under strict orders from real estate capital. No tennis players means no tennis players.”
The editor gave me a shrug and walked off towards the bar where she picked up on a conversation with some aspiring short storyists. Crushed, I wandered off into the night, my bag starting to weigh heavy on my shoulder.
Despondent, I walked into an unremarkable dive bar to rest my back and see if the bartender could fix up a Honey Deuce. Sitting at the counter, I replayed what had just happened to me over and over in my head, as I overheard small clips of other people’s conversations in the bar. It was mostly uninteresting chatter, but then I thought I overheard a whisper about the upcoming Wimbledon tennis tournament. Filled with an excitement I hadn’t felt since the beginning of the night, I quickly spun around to see who had mentioned tennis, slamming my bag against a bar stool and emptying its contents on the floor. Embarrassed, I reached down to start collecting my belongings and noticed a woman walking over to help.
“Don’t worry about it, this has happened to me many times,” she said, “nice to meet you, I’m Billie Jean King.”
“Wow, Mrs. King, it’s an honor.”
“Please, any tennis player is a comrade of mine. Call me Billie.”
She invited me over to her table, which I gladly obliged. After a while, we got to talking about the anti-tennis incident at the entrance of the Public Hotel. Billie shook her head disapprovingly, “After all these years, tennis players are still viewed as second class citizens in this country.”
She went on to recount the establishment of the Virginia Slims Circuit, which was a women’s tennis tour she was instrumental in founding in 1970 in protest of unequal pay by the United States Lawn Tennis Association. “Do you think that I was let in the first time I walked up to the Philip Morris offices to ask for support?” she asked, “These capitalist interests won’t have anything to do with tennis unless they are dragged kicking and screaming.”
Having lost track of time, I eventually heard the bartender make an announcement for last call. Thanking her for her advice, I told Billie I better be on my way back to Brooklyn. As I turned to walk towards the subway, she called out, “Remember, tennis is practiced on the court, not at boardroom meetings or trendy lit parties!”
I thought about her words as I sat on the A train. Maybe I had gotten it all wrong. In pursuit of theoretical knowledge, I had neglected to hone the basic tools that leftist tennis players have used to gain power since the days of the Tennis Court Oath: the kick serve, the inside out backhand, the half-volley.
At my stop, I walked off the train and out of the station, instinctively heading out towards a glow in the distance. It was the Lincoln Terrace Park tennis courts, illuminated by its stadium lighting. I looked down at my Rolex Day-Date 40 watch (a favorite of Roger Federer) and saw it was almost 4:30 am. Even though the sun had yet to rise, there were already some tennis players out hitting. Walking over to an empty court, I pulled a racket out of my bag, popped open a can of balls, and began to practice my serve.