CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/8/2019

Celebrate the Grand Slam with Stephan Würth’s ‘Tennis Fan'

Tennis fans, rejoice! The French Open enters the final rounds this weekend, and we’re celebrating with this 2013 photograph from Stephan Würth’s new monograph, Tennis Fan. Titled “Cleaning lines at the 96th Street Red Clay Tennis Courts,” this simple but iconic image hints at the photographer’s obsession with any and all things related to the sport. “I think true tennis fans are neurotic people like me,” Würth writes. “I almost feel that a true tennis fan is like a jogger. If you play every day, you start looking like this tempestuous, obsessive, neurotic jogger.” About the court in question, his local favorite, he explains, “I believe the guy who maintains the courts flies the red clay in from Europe. If he doesn’t, it sure feels that way. I definitely don’t think it’s American red clay. You feel like you’re playing in southern Spain or in Italy, even though you’re in the middle of Manhattan.”