Courtship

Courtship: For the Love of Tennis is a photographic ode to the world’s most alluring courts and the communities that animate them. Laura Bailey’s text, paired with Mark Arrigo’s evocative images, takes readers from Riviera clubs and mountain terraces to brutalist city complexes and hidden seaside rectangles chalked into rock. The book celebrates surfaces and settings—clay patina, grass stripes, chain-link shadows—as metaphors for the sport’s many moods. Along the way, we meet caretakers, teaching pros, and locals whose rituals give each venue its character, reminding us that tennis thrives as much in pickup sets and public parks as it does on tour. Design notes linger on typography, paint, nets, and lighting; travel interludes suggest places to play or watch at golden hour. More than a coffee-table survey, *Courtship* captures the tug that keeps players seeking “just one more set”: rhythm, camaraderie, and the geometry of ball on strings in beautiful light. It’s a love letter to a game that rewards patience and nerve, and to the courts—grand and humble—where its magic unfolds.