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One of my first jobs as a teenager was working at the tennis center at my local public park. I was given way too much responsibility and was in charge of booking courts for adults and telling them when they could and couldn’t play.
It was empowering!
I really do love tennis so much. I love watching it, wearing cute outfits to play (horribly), and observing how much the tennis world has changed over the past few years.
The US Open, in particular, has felt like a completely different tournament from the one I attended as a kid. There weren’t any brand activations and grounds passes weren’t going for hundreds of dollars.
With the first round kicking off this weekend, I turned to tennis expert Jessica Schiffer. She writes Hard Court, an incredible newsletter about the business, culture, and style around the sport.
Schiffer views the evolution of the US Open as “…New York Fashion Week with a scoreboard,” and I think she’s onto something here.
I’m making this newsletter free, but interviews like this are typically reserved for paying subscribers, so consider upgrading to support the work I’m doing.
Enjoy our conversation!
An Interview With Hard Court’s Jessica Schiffer
This interview has been edited for clarity. You can subscribe to Jessica’s newsletter here and follow her on Instagram here.
What’s your favorite off the court storyline going into the tournament?
Welp, most of the off-court storylines right now are bleak, whether it’s chronic injuries rippling through the tours or Nick Kyrgios testing positive for cocaine. So I’m going to go with the continued transformation of the US Open into New York Fashion Week with a scoreboard.
The celebrity attendance, outfits and general competition to be seen at the tournament have become almost a parallel spectacle to the tennis itself.
The Open was one of the first places we got to see Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner out in the wild as a couple, and the following year Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce showed up to the men’s final at a time when we were all watching their every move.
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I also think we’re going to see the WAGs come together much more visibly this year—sitting in packs in the stands, showing up for each other’s events and generally becoming their own little social scene around the tournament.
I’m very excited to watch this particular sideshow unfold, and I have a sneaking suspicion we may even get a few new player-partner reveals along the way.
With the rise of influencers/content creators and brands at the US Open, what is the biggest shift you’ve noticed in how the tournament runs?
The US Open kicked off its creator program last year, inviting creators both in and outside of the tennis space to attend and cover the event in the hopes of widening its audience reach.
These influencers are given all the same permissions as media, meaning they can attend press conferences and ask questions of athletes.
I think it’s generally a smart move—creators are at the forefront of new media—but I still think there should be some delineation between tennis-focused journalists and, like, a food influencer, so I’m curious to see how it unfolds.
Is there a brand partnership or activation you are most looking forward to seeing this year?
I’m not super excited about anything on the grounds, to be honest—I still think the US Open has a ways to go before it reaches Australian Open levels of interesting activations.
There’s so much attention on the tournament right now that I’d love to see brands get a little weirder and more ambitious with what they do with it (Ralph Lauren, I’m looking at you).
That said, there’s a big beauty partnership being announced for one of the top WTA players this week that I’m very keen to see come to life, because beauty has been sorely underrepresented in tennis despite the obvious overlap.
Paige Paul (nee Lorenze) is also doing a Dairy Boy pop-up during the Open, and I’m interested to see what she does with it because she’s built such a specific world around the brand—this mix of outdoorsy Americana, Martha Stewart-esque domesticity and sporty, slightly irreverent fashion. Frankly, a lot of tennis brands could learn something from how clearly defined that world is.
Speaking of worlds… World Team Tennis is also being revived and taking over Rockefeller Center on Friday to celebrate, which is a pretty major moment for the industry. For the uninitiated, WTT was the co-ed team tennis league founded in the ’70s by Billie Jean King and others that brought a much more colorful, entertainment-driven approach to a traditionally buttoned-up sport.
Its return feels particularly well-timed given the explosion of interest in tennis right now.
Have there been any significant endorsement shakeups for the major tennis stars ahead of the tournament?
We typically see the biggest endorsement shakeups after the US Open, when contracts are being renegotiated or coming to an end, but this is when a lot of the fun gossip starts.
I’m particularly focused on what Ben Shelton will do with his apparel deal, given that his contract with On is up for renewal at the end of the year.
There’s been a lot of chatter about a potential move to Nike, and word on the street is that Shelton would love to do something with Jordan Brand.
The wrinkle is that Jordan reportedly turned down a similar request from Carlos Alcaraz, so I wouldn’t bet on that one—but stranger things have happened in tennis sponsorships.
I feel like I still see so many commercials/endorsements from former stars during the tournament (ex. Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, etc.). Maybe it’s just what I’ve been served (pun intended), but do you feel like brands are collaborating more with legacy stars than with active players or is it about the same as it has always been?
I think tennis as a whole is having a little trouble emotionally moving on from the Big Three era.
Federer and Nadal obviously have enormous cultural value and absolutely deserve to remain part of the sport’s commercial world, but at some point we do have to accept that there are other tennis players now.
What’s frustrating is that we have a new generation of genuine superstars who should be incredibly easy to market, and I don’t think brands have fully risen to the occasion.
Carlos Alcaraz is probably the most glaring example. He’s one of the best players in the world, wildly charismatic, incredibly fun to watch and already has enormous global recognition, and yet I think Nike in particular has done him pretty dirty from a marketing and creative standpoint.
We can love the legends and still acknowledge that tennis has produced some new people since 2005.
Are there any new tennis brands or collaborations in the sport that you are excited about?
My friend Bryson Malone just opened this amazing vintage tennis archive and creative studio called Graphite, and I’m really hoping tennis brands take advantage of both his collection and his talents because they’re in desperate need of a fresh POV.
His archive is also a great reminder that tennis history isn’t all Wimbledon whites and varsity sweaters—there’s so much weird, colorful, genuinely cool stuff to pull from. We are truly overindexed on country club cosplay, and I would love to see brands designing clothes that reflect a different side of the sport or, at the very least, are actually in line with what REAL PEOPLE play in.
With the US Open being the last major of the season, what’s been your biggest takeaway or observation this year in the sport?
Unfortunately, my biggest takeaway is that tennis’s punishing schedule is in dire need of changing, given how many players we’ve seen dealing with chronic injuries this season and last.
There are obviously multiple factors at play, including today’s increasingly physical style of play, but one thing we do have some control over is how long the show goes on. Tennis is essentially nonstop at the moment, and I think it’s worth the headache of figuring out how to lessen player obligations without hurting the sport. It’s not a miracle cure, but it feels like an obvious place to start.
Do you have any predictions about what we will see more or less of in the culture around tennis next year?
I think fancy walk-on outfits are going to move from being the exception to the rule for top players next year, especially after we saw so many players follow in Naomi Osaka’s footsteps at Wimbledon this year.
Brands are realizing there’s a whole additional fashion moment before a player even hits a ball, and one that’s arguably more useful from a marketing perspective because it doesn’t have to comply with the same performance or tournament restrictions as matchwear.
I expect we’ll see a lot more custom jackets, suits and other pieces designed purely for the entrance.
More broadly, I think we’re going to see brands giving players a lot more creative input.
Tennis has become so intertwined with fashion and culture that simply putting a logo on someone isn’t particularly interesting anymore. The players with a distinct point of view (and the brands smart enough to let them run with it) are going to get a lot more attention.
Just Something I’m Into
Not sponsored, just something I’m really into!
I’m not opposed to a long road trip, but I do think you need to break up the drive sometimes. On our way up to Maine this week (more on that later), I was gifted a night at The Beatrice in Providence, Rhode Island.
Not only was stopping in Providence a good halfway point, but I loved everything about this hotel. The service was incredible, beds were a 10/10 imo, the water pressure in the shower was actually strong, and it was dog-friendly.
They also had an amazing sauna, which is always a good idea after a long travel day.
We also had dinner in their restaurant, The Bellini. It’s a Cipriani restaurant and, once again, the service was outstanding and the food was delicious.
Get the burrata and cacio e pepe trust me.
Thank you again to the wonderful team at The Beatrice for having me. I will be back!
If Bravo and ESPN had a baby, it would be Impersonal Foul. This newsletter is free, but please consider becoming a paying subscriber. Annual subscriptions are currently 20% off.
For partnership inquiries or to just say hello, email madeline@impersonalfoul.com.
I LOVE Jessica's work (just much as I love yours) and LOVED her take on walk-on outfits. More Hard Court crossovers pls!