ABSTRACT
A typical tennis club offers its members the opportunity to share interests, emotions, knowledge and expertise. Proximity is paramount to the typical club. It thrives because members can physically gather to enjoy the sport and the company that fellow members offer. Increasingly, though, tennis enthusiasts are gathering through electronic means. Virtual formats offer tennis fans many of these same opportunities to gather and share but do so in ways that far exceed those of the traditional club. They extend members’ reach to thousands of fellow enthusiasts around the globe. We think this is noteworthy. Our goal here is to better understand the culture of the sport itself through the lens of an online tennis community. Trends and patterns that are replicated in online settings may be viewed as both central and pervasive to the sport itself. It is useful to monitor what is reproduced and even enhanced within online tennis community settings. The results may extend notions of tennis culture in general and online culture in particular.
