I spend too much money on tennis shoes — but it’s worth it

Thank goodness for Zendaya’s “Challengers” press-tour wardrobe: her ball-bright palette, pert polo collars, alligator stamped sneakers, cable knits, and smooth pleats have brought tennis dressing to the forefront of this summer’s style agenda. It feels aesthetically and socially viable to wear tennis shoes anywhere, everywhere, and chalk it up to honoring a style icon’s grand-slam film moment.

But the judge in the high chair watching the lines of my life is shaking her head. Excuses, excuses. Fine. I confess: I own too many pairs of tennis shoes. 

Since I don’t have a blockbuster film to promote, you may ask why I’ve amassed enough court-ready pairs of footwear to make tennis shoes my entire personality. Well, first off, these are not just for fashion; I do play tennis. But I will humble myself and admit to the vertical stacked shoe rack hanging in my closet filled with shoes I’ve “needed” to buy to assess how stack height, midsole softness, flexibility, and foot containment (the most important factor for me) affect my game. They run about $100 to $200 a pair.

There’s the Naomi Osaka Nikes ($160) — a colorful riot on a cloud-like sole that makes it feel like I’m playing on air — that I bought to wear inside on the hard court. They’re extremely breathable, too, which is important because the tennis bubble tends to blast the heat during the more frigid months. 

Another favorite are the Lacoste AG-LT23 Ultra, which are the grippiest of the shoes in my collection, but also have a classic vintage look that makes me want to wear them off the court too. I love the green colorway, and since sometimes tennis clubs require white-only soles on their courts, I have the navy and white too. I’m not going to talk about why I also own the neon-orange-and-maroon ones. It’s possible I went too far there. Each pair is $170. 

Now that I’ve revealed that I own at least $1,000 in tennis shoes, it’s time for some reflection.

I’ve had a long journey with tennis. I played semi-seriously in high school, at the level of playing in the state championship, but definitely never winning. In tennis lessons, at tennis camps, and while playing tennis on vacations, my mom would tell me “it’s a lifelong game,” but when your life has been a decade and change, “lifelong” doesn’t have much value. Playing tennis as a kid is never really casual. Unless you’re in a tax bracket where you have your own court and unsupervised playtime, there’s usually an adult watching who’s absolutely rabid for this game. It means a little too much to them. I didn’t enjoy it. 

So I quit. But 20 years later, I started to play again. And reacquainting myself with the familiar skills and strategy, getting my “game back,” finding that my body remembered how to do something well, even if I didn’t remember any singular moment of learning, well, that’s been a spiritual experience. 

A strengthened mind and the possession of my own inner voice is perhaps the most expensive new equipment I bring to the court, given that it was cultivated over the previous decade and a half with a well-paid therapist. Since teenhood, I’ve dislodged myself from the oppressive whacks of my mind, from living like a ball flying into a net over and over again. Now I occupy an open court with opponents I invite on my own terms. I am the player, the sunshine, the breeze. Playing feels like playing.

But there’s a trade-off to being so internally equipped for this game as an adult. The trade is a body that’s older than 17 years. Much older. The oldest it’s been. Time, gravity, high heels, periods sedentary, periods hauling ass to all the places my presence has been required: they’ve taken their toll. I can’t just jump anytime I want and be sure that it isn’t my last for at least a couple minutes, possibly days or weeks. Higher and higher stakes for jumping are coming on fast. Someday, any jump could be my true last. 

This reality has changed my game: now I can see the angles, I can calculate where I should be, what would be the most effective play, I can feel what to do and triumph over any internal despair, and gently parent my mistakes. And for the first time in my tennis history, my shoes must be effective, must be stabilizing, must absorb shock, and keep me from sliding across the court to an early demise. 

So falling in love with tennis, while beautiful and deeply satisfying, has cost me a lot of money in tennis shoes. Yes, court time, pro time, and all the pricey racket of the racquet sport costs, too, but the shoes… I have shoes for hard court, shoes for clay, shoes for inside, shoes for a backup, in case my shoes get too broken in. I have shoes for when I want to intimidate my opponents, shoes for when I just want to put my feet up and watch someone else, shoes for when I’m feeling contemplative like David Foster Wallace watching tennis balls in the wind in the Midwest, and shoes for when I am ballsy in a way that would make Martina Navratilova proud.

I started my collection with expert advice from the tennis pro I play with (in clinics, not privates: I’m not made of money!). Then, I took in tips from the Strategist until I found r/10s, a tennis subreddit with the perfect balance between specific advice and the realistic knowledge that you can’t really advise anyone else about shoes. Feet are just too different. If you want to learn more about feet, I recommend Foot Doctor Zach on YouTube. 

Here’s the thing. Tennis is a vital social outlet. To be injured would be an even bigger loss on investment than simply having to abstain from exercise. Tennis is time outdoors, it’s being in my body, it’s when I do a lot of laughing, it’s fun. So I really need these shoes to have me, hold me, and protect me.

Oh, also. I do want to look good.

Tennis is one of the few athletic contests that is actually a fashion show. A tennis look is like a finely set lunch table: it’s the middle of the day, but since you’re having a meal, isn’t it nice for the cloth to be crisp and the formality to be upheld as a kind of subversive silliness, and the accessories to be fine and feel good in the hand, so that the participation and subsequent satisfaction go beyond just eating? Just exercising? 

Take the dressing lessons of GOAT Serena Williams, who not only smashed records in the game but obliterated conventions for tennis outfits, starting with colorful beaded braids matched to her looks, and evolving to the glinting glam watches and stacked accessories she wore to win Grand Slams, to tutu, lace and corset-inspired sets that redefined feminine force in the game forever. A lot of players get shoes custom made, but Serena’s longtime favorite shoe was the Nike Court Flare 2, the first shoes Nike made specifically for women tennis players, and still available to purchase now (Serena wore a diamond-encrusted pair at her last Grand Slam, the US Open in 2022).

What difference does a shoe designed for women make? Well, I had to add them to my “research” (shoe collection) to find out. Fortunately, I got a pair on sale for only $68, and they’ve become my outdoor hard-court staple. 

I balance between reading thorough reviews of shoes for their performance and simply liking the look of the shoes. The Nike Court Flare 2 appears simple enough to be nondescript, but knowing they’re good enough for Serena imbues them with special power.

It’s tricky because you can’t trial tennis shoes. If you play tennis once in a pair of tennis shoes, even if you serve once, it shows on the shoes (if it’s a good serve). There’s no way to realistically gauge a good tennis shoe without scuffing. And if you can trial somewhere, well, how many times has the shoe been worn? Where are we in the sole life of this shoe? I never thought about the “style” of my game as a kid, as in how I played. Now I know, I’m a slider. I’m a net player. The start-and-stop lateral movements are especially explosive. When I play on clay (my most often surface), the resulting lines look like a Zen garden after a psychotic break. 

The Asics Gel Resolution 9 tennis shoes, which are designed specifically for clay, resolved a lot of the sliding I was experiencing. Another $150 was worth it to ensure I never slid all the way into the net… again. 

Maybe I simply need an ankle brace. I did try, but I felt constantly aware of my feet, which distracted from my awareness of the ball. I’ve decided to go easy on my last 18 months of tennis-shoe spending, because it was for the sake of trial and error as I rekindled my relationship with this game. I want to embrace what is surely a narrow window in the life of this lifelong sport, where my main opponent is not yet pain. For now, it’s just not being young. And when you love, you hurt. Hurt is coming for all of us. Love 15, Love 30, Love 40…

Katherine Bernard is a writer and artist in New York.