Justin Kuritzkes
January 8, 2025
“Tennis was big in my family. My mother’s family were all real tennis fanatics. It was inevitable that when I was old enough to hold a racquet, I would take tennis lessons. But when I got sent to tennis day camp, I wasn’t very good at all. By the time I was a preteen, I could see that there was a ceiling as to how good I could be and decided it wasn’t going to be a part of my life anymore. I really didn’t think about or follow tennis much until sometime in 2018 when I happened to turn on the US Open, and I watched the final between Osaka and Serena. As you know, it was a controversial match because the umpire accused Serena of receiving coaching from the sidelines. Because I hadn’t followed the sport in so long, I didn’t know about this rule. Immediately, it struck me as a very cinematic situation. For whatever reason, it started to percolate in my mind, like, “What if you really needed to speak to that person and what if it was something beyond tennis? Maybe even between the two of you? Or with the person on the other side
“Tennis was big in my family. My mother’s family were all real tennis fanatics. It was inevitable that when I was old enough to hold a racquet, I would take tennis lessons. But when I got sent to tennis day camp, I wasn’t very good at all. By the time I was a preteen, I could see that there was a ceiling as to how good I could be and decided it wasn’t going to be a part of my life anymore. I really didn’t think about or follow tennis much until sometime in 2018 when I happened to turn on the US Open, and I watched the final between Osaka and Serena. As you know, it was a controversial match because the umpire accused Serena of receiving coaching from the sidelines. Because I hadn’t followed the sport in so long, I didn’t know about this rule. Immediately, it struck me as a very cinematic situation. For whatever reason, it started to percolate in my mind, like, “What if you really needed to speak to that person and what if it was something beyond tennis? Maybe even between the two of you? Or with the person on the other side