THE LONG GAME

Tennis has become synonymous with health and longevity. But can the sport really help us live longer? We dug into the claims to find out.

- BY NICK PACHELLI

LAST SUMMER, THERE was a good chance you noticed how horny people were for tennis. Partly thanks to Zendaya and the erotically charged, racquet-smashing boys in Challengers (which premiered last April), the Internet became feverish for the sport. Suddenly, we had influencers and celebrities picking up a racquet for the first time or showing off the forehand they learned as a kid. Then the tennis-core clothing trend exploded, making me seriously consider whether I should purchase a cable-knit sweater. At my neighborhood tennis courts in Brooklyn, the battle to get time on a court felt as intense as a Sinner-Alcaraz matchup.

Come September, the craze manifested at the 2024 US Open, which smashed its attendance record by attracting more than 1 million people to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Hats with the event's simple logo and a swooshing tennis ball were everywhere in New York City, with an estimated 200,000 sold.

I'd been to a dozen US Opens before, but the fans at this year's edition seemed doubly fired up. Sitting in the stands at Arthur Ashe Stadium for an early-round match, I overheard so many conversations in which people new to the game asked questions about the scoring, the footwork, and who the players were and where they were from. What stood out most during the match, though, was the huge slogan plastered on the court, on the Jumbotron, and basically on every billboard across the center's grounds: