Welcome to Racquet’s inaugural dispatch of See You In Court, a regular column in which I, Mel Kenny, a famously mediocre lifelong player, heed reader questions about tennis, be they desperate (Help! I’ve won a few matches moonballing and now I can’t stop!), desperate in a different way (Where are the hot young tennis players in my area?) or life-threatening (Is it just me or are all tennis shoes fugly?). What I’m trying to say is, AMA! Look out for prompts on Racquet’s Instagram, or make yourself known in my DMs.
First things first, though: a fodder-free tête-à-tête with myself on the topic of etiquette. Consider it some level-setting in the spirit of new beginnings. Etiquette is a good topic for narcs, you might be thinking. Not no, reader. Rule-following isn’t all that compelling. Wimbledon’s preservation of pomp and circumstance—a tightly wound hullabaloo of the whitest kind—is the least electrifying part of tennis. Until, of course, it’s met with defiance.
Mel Kenny, right, famously mediocre lifelong player.
The pros
Seeing a pro abandon all formalities and unravel down to their most unvarnished, infantile form tickles the same part of my brain that longs for Jax Taylor to flip a table as Lisa Vanderpump purses her sinewy lips in disapproval. It affirms there’s a charade that we’re all playing in addition to the game at hand. That it’s de rigueur to never mirror your outsides to the blood that boils on your insides—though if you do, onlookers get the Schadenfreude-flavored dopamine hit they crave. Both indulgences are human.
Of all sports, ours produces the most satisfying transgressions simply because there is farther to fall. Once, for Serena Williams, the fall cost $82,500. After being foot-faulted during a match in 2009, she told the lineswoman, "I swear to God I'll fucking take the ball and shove it down your fucking throat". In 2018, peerless dummy-spitterr Nick Kyrgios jerked off a water bottle (to dribbling completion) during a straight-set loss to Marin Cilic. For the pantomime, his bank account was relieved of €15,000. YouTube is a deep reservoir of anthropology in its racquet-smashing compilation videos, though this is garden-variety stuff^ where code violations and fines are concerned.
Conversely? Some creativity can help you express your frustrations while skirting penalties. In 2012, after hitting a particularly demonstrative swinging forehand, Maria Sharapova shouted “Run, run!” at Agnieszka Radwanska knowing the ball was unreachable. Martina Hingis once tried to tweak Lindsay Davenport during a coin toss by saying, “Do you want me to hold first or break you?”. At the 2022 Australian Open, Daniil Medvedev warned the ump he was in grave danger of acting like “a small cat” if he failed to penalize Stefanos Tsitsipas for being coached by his dad courtside*.
Moving with grace is important in 2025; an age where self-interest is unwieldy and crying selfie videos exist. But pro tennis isn’t the stage for that. Pro tennis needs swagless players like Iga Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz to clown someone just once to remind us that they’re alive.
The plebs
At the plebian level—where you and I reside—poor etiquette is all of the above and more. Could be sleeping on returning a ball to your court neighbor, or the motion to replay a point because you “didn’t see” where your opponent’s ball landed (the answer is always “in”). But good behavior starts the moment you join the queue.
One morning last summer, around the hour of 8 o’clock, something I considered quite important revealed itself to be, in fact, closer in value to water or air: the early morning hit before work. It wasn’t forehand epiphanies or even the transcendental rush of endorphins that bore the discovery—but a silly squabble with someone in line.
With inboxes full, my friends and I had big dreams of hitting for 90 minutes before a day of working cross-functionally. Math led us here, since New York public courts allow one hour for singles and two for doubles.
The guy waiting courtside with his partner—no doubt also up to his ears in emails!—saw some holes in our logic. He and my mouthy friend descended into a verbal beef inspired by toy-snatching toddlers: feeble, circular, little sense made. Huffily, we at last left the court with the distinct feeling no-one had won because everyone was embarrassing.
I’ve run my mouth in the name of tennis before. But on this day, I let the brouhaha transpire without me—not because I’m not petty, bless you for considering that as an option—but because I'd realized my squabbling friend might’ve brought receipts from the wrong store.
A month or so later, I remember looking up between points to see my same friend and an unknown man move toward each other and embrace. I later learned it was his adversary from that morning—both had sheepishly apologized in unison; each had caught the other on an off day.
Let it be known, they fought doing what they love. But with distance from tennis, they realized what tennis can do: reduce you to a trashy, trifling sonofabitch. Maybe it’s a bit ugly, but at least it’s real.
*The umpire eventually penalized Tsitsipas, and coaching from the player box is now fair game. The entirety of Medvedev’s umpire tirade lasted “45 minutes” according to Business Insider, for which he enjoyed multiple fines and code violations. Likening the umpire to a small cat was well within his rights, though.
^I still have my yellow HEAD Titanium Ti S4 racquet—an icon—albeit very busted from my time as a petulant junior.
