When I decided to throw the inaugural Hard Court cocktail party a month ago, I envisioned a room filled with my favorite people in tennis—the people moving the sport forward every day with their creativity, intellect and business savvy. More than anything, I wanted it to feel like the kind of space I wish existed more often in tennis: one where nobody felt judged when they walked through the door, where a famous influencer and a reporter who couldn’t care less about fashion not only felt equally welcome, but might actually end up talking to each other. Where top agents mingled with young creators, all the WAGs (who are far more interesting than that catchall title suggests) came together rather than competed, and brand execs left with a long list of people they were suddenly dying to work with.
A lot of the parties leading up to the US Open are simply too big to feel meaningful. They’re filled with people who want to see and be seen, everyone orbiting their existing little cliques, and I often leave feeling strangely hollow as a result. For all the attention and money pouring into tennis right now, the sport can still feel remarkably siloed. The people covering it don’t always know the people marketing it, who don’t always know the people making things about it, who don’t always know the people actually playing it. I wanted to see what happened if you put all of them in a room together.
The answer was something better than I could have imagined.
The energy was buzzing from the start, with so much warmth and excitement emanating from people who were finally getting to meet their many internet pals IRL. I was in hectic hostess mode, bouncing from person to person and wishing I had more time to talk to every single one of them. Every time I looked around, I saw some combination I never could have planned: old friends talking to new friends talking to my family, people from completely different corners of tennis or fashion discovering they had something in common. It was so nice to watch all these people I love start falling for each other, too.
In one corner there was Keith Murray, the extremely tall but gentle-souled massage therapist I met while doing physical therapy at HSS last year, only to realize mid-session that he was the Davis Cup massage therapist and worked the US Open every year. He eventually connected me to Wolfgang Oswald, now one of my favorite people on tour, who made a point to show up despite juggling work with a top-10 player in Taylor Fritz. In another was Mel Kenny, the utterly hilarious Aussie behind Hard Hitting, chatting it up with her internet bestie, my mom, trading their trademark bitchy anecdotes.
I finally got to meet Daniel Yaw-Miller, the genius behind Sportsverse, who is so prolific he went home at 11 p.m. that night and wrote about the party and the rising stock of Substackers in tennis (hell yes). My favorite twenty-somethings, Christian Basknight and Evan Cole, of Christian’s Court and Racquet Theory fame, were hamming it up in one corner, their laughter infectious even from the other side of the room. My tennis day-one Anastasia Folorunso of Ground Pass was gabbing with Nick McCarvel, who is not only kind but so handsome it should be illegal. My friend James Hansen of The Athletic was there too, quietly observing everything in that soft-spoken way that disguises one of the most acerbic wits in tennis.
Paige Paul entered and engulfed me in a ray of warm light, as she tends to do, gassing me up and filming my speech like a proud mom—whatever you think you know about her, it’s wrong. Alex Boston and Sebastian Arriagada, also known as Team Naomi Osaka, who have been so supportive of Hard Court from the jump, spilled out onto the street just as Alex’s bestie, the vision that is Ayan Broomfield, arrived and gave me the biggest congratulatory hug.
My platonic soulmate Bryson Malone, who pushed me to make the beautiful Hard Courterly newspapers with Abbreviated Projects that were sprinkled throughout the event, was chatting with the Spence crew, Amanda Greeley and Leland Grossman—two of the realest and most fun people in tennis. Our tennis T-shirt king Mike Cherman slipped in and spent most of the night talking to my mom, the icon who got me into tennis in the first place. Dave Shaftel, a fellow product of Summit, New Jersey, and the definition of my kind of people, came through alongside Vicente Munoz, who treats tennis like an art form and is so thoughtful with everything he does.
The whole Served crew showed up (well, minus Andy and Jon—we’ll get ’em next year), and I ran around saying, “Producer Mike, Techie Sean and Social Sophie are here!” like an embarrassing fangirl. My mom, it must be said, was ELATED to meet them. My favorite tennis creators Madison Appel and Isadora Pejovic came through, and I finally got to meet the preeminent male tennis influencer, Ben Johnson, who you probably know as The Tennis 101.
We even had some out-of-towners: Raven Johnson, who is doing such important work with Black Tennis Connect, and Lee Glandorf, the brilliant mind behind The Sweat Lookbook. Martin Landaluce took a break from training to swing by with his amazing girlfriend Loreto Corbelan, who recently started a tennis apparel brand called Eighties. My girl Emily Snyder, the partner of overnight sensation Valentin Vacherot, was there alongside other stylish and smart WAGs like Mia Savio, Ellie Mujushi and Sidney Fitzgerald. And my newly married bestie Courtney Kelly, who founded one of the hottest new tennis brands, Courting, showed up in the sickest white Christopher Esber fit (oops, same) and joked that the pictures from that night would be her wedding photos.
Some of my favorite agency folks—Ryley Settles, Adam Sraberg and Matt Jordan—were in the mix, as was Sarah Koudouzian, the hustler behind Richsport, the first female-founded racquet accessories brand, who seemingly never stops making things happen.
I could go on and on and on (and if I didn’t list you, please know it’s because I’m low on sleep).
What struck me afterward wasn’t simply that all of these people had other places they could have been that night and chose to come. It was how many messages I got from people saying how good it felt to be in a room full of genuinely kind, interesting people who are all chasing their dreams and making shit happen in an industry that has been stuck in the past for too long. Friends gushed about all the people they’d finally met, the great conversations they had, and the collaborations they were already dreaming up.
Earlier this year, I had a call with a potential agent who helped me step outside myself long enough to see that one of the strengths of what I’ve built with Hard Court is the connections I’ve made in such a short period of time. I understood what he meant intellectually, but I don’t think I fully understood it until that night.
Because what I saw in that room wasn’t really about me. It was the version of tennis I’ve been trying to capture with Hard Court from the beginning: curious, creative, ambitious, welcoming, and uninterested in the old hierarchies dictating who gets to matter. Tennis is having this enormous cultural moment, but making the most of it requires more than inviting new people in—it means letting all of those people actually find one another.
For a few hours that night, they did. And it felt like a tiny glimpse of the tennis world I want to inhabit all the time.
Loose notes:
Lululemon held an intimate, 22-person dinner in celebration of Frances Tiafoe at Storied last night and it was so refreshing to be at a SMALL party for once (says the girl who had 200 people at hers). The menu was curated by chef Jon Gray, co-founder of Ghetto Gastro, and inspired by Tiafoe’s heritage. But the company was the best part. I discovered that Ethan Quinn is the ideal seatmate at a dinner party—wise beyond his years and well-adjusted in a way that, frankly, many athletes are not. Instead of receding into himself or his phone, as many of them do (and hey, they’re tired, I get it), he was inquisitive about everyone around him. I’ve always noticed he’s a good interview, but the guy is bright. My favorite moment was him saying, “I find taxes so interesting,” after he told us about a book he was reading about someone who committed tax fraud. Surely he’s the first and last person to every say that. Other topics included farming, the complexities of sneaker design (I legitimately learned so much from him), and murder—naturally.
Courting launched a new collection called “Courting East” in collaboration with Nini Molnar, the lovely influencer and wife of Marton Fucsovics. Molnar has her own namesake bag line and I’m obsessed with the fluffy Pombags that are part of the collection. They bring me back to Venus William’s epic yellow shearling racquet bag designed by ERL last year. Friendly reminder that paid subscribers get 20% off all Courting products—hit me up for the code if you don’t have it.
Thanks for reading! If you have tennis news or tips to share, email jessica@hard-court.com. For regular updates, follow Hard Court on Instagram.
Ain’t no party like a Hard Court party 🤍🤍🤍
perfectly put into words how special this night really was 🫶 it honestly set the bar so high for the quality of people and conversations that going to other events i was disappointed that they weren’t more like the hard court one!! already looking forward to next years 🥳