The Racquet is going on hiatus

What's next, refunds etc...

Apologies for the timing of this, especially with Wimbledon starting next week, but the Racquet is going on hiatus.

I’ve got a few other things right now that need my time more than writing these issues and frankly my motivation for running analysis on relatively similar topics over and over again is waning. I feel proud of cramming a lot of what I think is quite novel tennis/sport analysis into the last year or so, some of which will hopefully be enduringly useful for you to reflexively process how this sport works on and off court. To my continued surprise, the Racquet has ended up being useful for, or used by, a wide swathe of the tennis world, from passionate fans all the way up to pro players/coaches and even sport’s organisations. But unfortunately I haven’t found much of what I’ve produced over the past couple of months challenging or interesting to create (except for a few bigger picture pieces that may now remain unfinished). This jadedness will inevitably bleed, or already has bled, into the quality of my output. That reality, coupled with chronic main character syndrome and a desire to use the time I currently spend writing about tennis in different ways, proved impossible to ignore. I’m also still exasperated with the pace of change in this sport relative to its potential, but that’s mostly a separate issue.

This is arguably silly timing, primarily because the Racquet is still growing, earning revenue that would make conventional sports writers jealous, and even posting what I’m pretty sure are best-in-industry open rates and engagement. But it’s impossible to fake the passion required to keep this on track, most of all because this is a one man show with no understudy. The Racquet had reached a point where I either needed to double down on turning this into a proper media company or go decisively the other way. And well… yeah.

I might still get back to writing about tennis at some point (I’ve been approached by a few publishers to write a tennis book). I just don’t know if/when. Writing was only accidentally part of my life after all.

All active paid subscribers will be given pro-rated refunds for the time left in their subscription, and the archive of past Racquet posts will be available indefinitely for you to dip back into whenever you like.

You have made it a joy to write these. Thank you for reading, commenting, tweeting, and supporting. But most of all thank you for loving this sport, in all the brilliant, interesting ways you do. I can’t describe how much that passion means to me, and how much richer the sport is because of it. No matter who you are, where you come from, what your experience level is, you are eternally welcome in tennis. Please remember that above all else I’ve written.

GSM.

See you around.

— ✌🏻 Matt