PORTLAND TENNIS COURTERLY

Thanks to a post-covid surge in popularity and ambassadors like Serena, Naomi, and Zendaya, tennis is hawt right now. Yet, tennis culture at large is still dominated by the stuffy, high-veneer shine of the country club. But for KAMP copywriter/"aspiring tennis professional" Logan Corcoran, the heart and joy of the game exists within the faded lines and sagging nets of his local courts. That’s why he's a contributor and supporter of Portland Tennis Courterly (@portlandtenniscourterly).

Operating with a DIY punk zine ethos, the Courterly is an open-source newsletter serving the racquet-curious throughout Portland, Ore. Printed for free at the library, each issue is hand distro’d to cafes, pro shops, and courts (admittedly in violation of Park Department code) across the city. PTC publishes everything tennis: first-person narrative fiction, profiles, interviews, “hard” news, satire, poetry, prose, art, comics, graphs, and whatever else translates well to 2D.

Editor Tyler Pell sums it up like this: “At its core, I think the Courterly serves as a kind of funhouse mirror of the local tennis scene, and I hope it reflects back, at least from an angle or two, something that resembles the fourth estate, building a shared political consciousness around access to community resources.”

In addition to the newsletter, PTC also releases an ongoing “Pocket Pro Series,” mini-zines authored by local tennis folks and thinkers covering topics like match strategy, nutrition, the zen of tennis, and on-court fashions. Find the newest issue on cracked courts across Portland this summer.