Keep the Rally Going for Courts Magazine
The finest French/English tennis magazine could shut its doors; please step up
A GoFund Me for Courts Magazine is here.
It takes a lot of heart to step out on to a tennis court — it’s just you and, essentially, a bat with a mesh face. There are no teammates to high-five, no coaches to give pep talks, no excuses. Sure, if you win a match, all the glory is yours But if you lose, all the fault lies at your feet.
Freelance writing — or starting a publication — is much the same. It’s a solitary pursuit that will consume your life. The risks are high and the rewards, if they come, are… well, occasionally worth it all. Let’s stop with the sport metaphors there. Failure is not really an option. Because if you fail at your article or your magazine, it’s not just a game. It’s your money — as well as a lot of others’.
When I first met Laurent Van Reepinghen, the founder of Courts magazine, he had just put out his 12th issue and his 3rd issue in English. He didn’t take a message, or send a terse email that he was too inundated with ideas to listen to mine. He replied to my email, and many of my off-the-wall tennis ideas made it into the pages of Courts: the tennis revival in Iraq; the retired player starting a tennis charity in Uganda; the come-from-nowhere Wimbledon phenom who was now trying his luck as a pro doubles specialist.
Laurent and Courts embodies the reason we all love tennis. He is hands-on; he’s grassroots; he is looking for beauty in every corner of the court. His aim isn’t producing the highest profit margin by putting a star on every cover — or by sacrificing good writing for SEO. He takes pure joy in the game. And he wants his readers to love it, too. We have a plan for Courts. But after seven years of nonstop work, as well as practicing law, Laurent is burned out and €45,000 in debt for printing and taxes. To execute this plan, we need to save Courts from folding. To you or me, it's a lot of money, but among the gazillionaires and hedge-funders and conspicuous consumption, it's not.
Please give what you can — or send this to a Angel or VC fund. We will keep great tennis journalism alive!
