Tennis Courts II

“I like to photograph tennis courts when they´re empty, deserted, abandoned, or in disrepair, and sometimes simply when it´s raining and no one´s around and they can´t be used. Seeing them in such a state has, for me, a special kind of eroticism, like the memory of a former lover one still feels for. Each court is in the midst of a landscape, near homes, among trees, or next to streets or buildings. Some are like the ghosts of a tennis court, with faded markings and sagging nets, where too many seasons have passed and not enough care has been given to them. Gathered together, these unoccupied tennis courts engender a special kind of metaphysic, one that relates to the ceremonial combat of an organized competition; the aesthetic atmosphere in which freedom and struggle flourish. Seeing courts in such varied states as these is like coming upon a memory, a new beginning, and another possibility all at once.” Giasco Bertoli