In late 1998, I started a new job at TENNIS Magazine. Four months later, in Key Biscayne, Fla., I did my first player interview, with a 17-year-old rookie named Roger Federer. He sported bleached-blonde hair, hailed from a country with little tennis tradition, and lost in the first round of the tournament to Danish veteran Kenneth Carlsen. On the way to Miami Beach for a photo shoot, Federer laughed the infectiously giddy laugh we know so well now, and told me he hoped would make it on tour someday.
Fast forward 24 years, and both Federer’s career and my job have come full circle. The November/December 2022 edition is the final issue of the print version of TENNIS, ending a 57-year run. The magazine was founded in Chicago in 1965—when racquets were wood, balls and clothes were white, and Grand Slam champions didn’t make a dime. It was “The Magazine of the Racquet Sports” back then, and tennis shared space with badminton and ping-pong. There was also a local focus. The inaugural issue featured a piece on the Milwaukee junior scene,and a tournament calendar for Central Indiana.