Which Slam Tournament Are You?

The ultimate guide to understanding who you are with the help of a tennis tournament

The vibes, the looks, the personality - every tennis tournament is different. In a world where marketing is key, where you can’t sell wine unless it’s grown by an Italian uncle who collects the grapes during a full moon in taurus, Slams have caught up. They tell you who they are through imaging, logos and story telling. Maybe more accurately, they tell you who they want you to think they are. In turn, we learn something about ourselves.

What your favourite major says about you, find out here.

Wimbledon

You’re put together and organised. Rules and regulations are more liberating to you than freedom itself. It’s within restrictions that humans truly thrive. You probably shower twice a day. Tradition is something to be upheld and cherished and Bushwick is your idea of purgatory. You despise chaos. But underneath the polished surface, you pour gin into your grapefruit juice and, come to think of it, all the rules you adhere to are rules you made yourself. You like a hint of uniqueness, an unlikely shoe choice is obligatory, and you never fail to flirt with the cute waiter while your husband orders the filet (medium rare). At night, after your second shower and the $100+ skincare routine, you lie awake and think about perfume. If you’re a man, you like tweed a little too much but not as much as you like to think of yourself as the provider in the family. Just don’t make it weird. Neither the provider thingy nor the tweed.

Your car: Land Rover

Your fuel: Gin and blueberries for breakfast or as you call it “vibes & vitamins”

Your literature: Non-fiction only with an occasional dip into F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is The Night.

US Open

Chaos is your vibe. While exes call you the tropical storm in their lives - devastating and as quickly gone as arrived - you like to think of yourself as the eye of the storm. You’re calm when everyone loses their mind. Sirens, rats and cockroaches - you’ve heard and seen it all and you’re the stronger for it. You even watched the Knicks win a championship. Your diet switches quicker (from vegan to carnivore in a fraction of a second) than Emma Raducanu switches coaches and your favourite thing to do is to command a room when everyone seems distracted. It’s not easy to get through to 24.000 people but you promise you will find a way. The only folks that deserve your respect are people who take public transportation. You may be a little flaky, a little too bombastic and loud, a little too obsessed with celebrity and money but nobody celebrates a night session the way you do. And we respect you for it the same way you respect people who voluntarily take the G train.

Your make-up: Heavy eyeliner

Your drink: Frozen honey deuce sans the lemonade

Your literature: Paperbacks with food stains in them

Australian Open

Wimbledon is a greyhound, the US Open are a rottweiler and you, dear Aussie, you’re the golden retriever of the bunch. You’re blonde at heart. In the best possible way. You love your mates, your family and a good, cold beer when the sun sets behind a Eucalyptus tree. You’re the sibling that was a surprise years later and now everyone treats you like a baby even though you’re in your mid forties. But you’ll show them! You’ll innovate and expand, you’ll be happy when nobody else is, you’ll withstand fires and heat, and you’ll go to work with a virus. And slowly but surely, you’ll gain their respect. The only one that people set their alarms for in the middle of the night. The older generation may not ever take you seriously but we all know that you’re the overachiever in the group. Nobody has anything bad to say about you and I hate to put a chink in your shiny armour but I do have a secret to reveal: You’re a sloppy drunk. Sweaty, red-faced and possibly insulting? I wouldn’t know. I don’t speak Australian but Lord knows I try.

Your vibes: Football chants and sun block

Your unique selling point: Distance makes the heart grow fonder

Your literature: Home and Away

Roland Garros

While others lead with what they love to tell people who they are, you begin with what you hate. Here’s a short list: Influencers, superficiality, tennis players checking ball marks. Ill-fitting clothes, sweat, the wrong lipstick colour. Sugary coffee drinks, hollywood, ze Germans. You hate a lot of things. But it’s not because you’re hater, oh no. It’s because you dive deep before you lower yourself enough to feel sympathy. Your depth of knowledge is boundless. Your critical mind is flawless. Your eye is sharp. The only time you flinch and forget your good manners is when a French tennis player enters the court. Singing the Marseillaise is not an obligation. It’s an automatism. It’s like the leg kick when the doctor hits your knee with a tiny hammer, it’s like a flapping of the wrist when a wasp attacks your face. When Hugo Gaston plays a drop-shot, you sing marchons marchons. It’s the only time you lose control over your impeccable façade. And while you’ll never admit it outwardly, I know that it feels good to lose control. That’s why you eat red meat and put butter on top. Because - quietly, secretly, covertly - you seek to lose control. That’s why you keep coming back.

Your vibes: Auteur cinema

Your drink: Sancerre during the day, Bordeaux at night, champagne in the morning

Your literature: Existentialism

Which Slam are you? Tell me in the comments! I’m a US Open with a dash of Roland Garros and next year, when I turn 40, I will have fully committed to Wimbledon. The Aussie Open are my rising sign.

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Things that make me happy

Writing this piece has made me extremely happy. I wrote it during change of ends of tennis matches and in between commentary so excuse the drunk sloppiness of the Aussie Open woven in between the lines but I keep looking at people wondering: Are they a Roland Garros?

Things that make me unhappy

I rented a huge apartment in the Wimbledon village thinking that friends and family would visit me (as they had promised) and then NOBODY CAME. I just aimlessly walk from room to room, sit in one for five minutes, in another for ten. Yesterday, I caught myself crying in the back of the taxi I took to get from my living room to the kitchen. It’s just so Wimbledon of me.

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See you all soon with gin fizzed cheeks!

Yours truly, Andrea