Tag: sports

Atlanta is widely acknowledged as the tennis capital of the world, with more than 100,000 players throughout the metro area in leagues such as the Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association (ALTA) and USTA Atlanta. It’s near impossible to get an exact number, with those participating in junior tennis, high school, and college teams, as well as those who play independently or in private clubs, adding to the tennis craze.

Christopher Eubanks, who grew up playing on the courts of the South Fulton Tennis Center, announced himself at Wimbledon in 2023. His string of upset wins was impressive, but the reckless abandonment he played with, plus the shock on his face after every win, made him a crowd favorite. His run ended in the quarterfinals, the furthest an American man had gone at the tournament since 2017, and his ranking jumped to number 29 in the world, a career high. But since that summer on grass, Eubanks hasn’t been back on tennis’s biggest stages.

It wasn’t unreasonable to imagine Horace Reid on a rocket ship to the top of the tennis world. Many already saw him as the next great Black champion. But within a few years, Reid’s tennis dreams would be all but dashed: He’d quit college, fail to find consistency on the pro tour, and suffer an agonizing fallout with Arthur Ashe, his hero and would-be mentor. The rupture would not only hamstring Reid’s career, in his telling, but also burden him with a secret he felt he could never share: how everything went so wrong.

Yes, the Atlanta Open was not the best venue for tennis, though I do also see its temporary structure, and existence, as a sign: Commitment is important, for both the people with the checkbooks and pens, and the fans.

The women’s pro volleyball team Atlanta Vibe started its second season in January, and it really is a vibe. The Vibe is one of eight teams in the Pro Volleyball Federation, a women’s professional league that launched in January 2024. The new league reflects a recent explosion of growth for American professional volleyball, which struggled for decades to attract investment and fans.

These are Atlanta's 500 most powerful leaders. We spent months consulting experts and sorting through nominations to get a list of the city's most influential people—from artists to chefs to philanthropists to sports coaches and corporate CEOs. In this section, we focus on arts, film, music, entertainment, and sports.

At the age of 50, I joined a women’s rugby football club and found a true sense of camaraderie.

I was a tennis warrior until the game wore out my knees; after surgery, I yearn to get back on the courts.

An Atlanta skater named Sweet ‘n Sour shoves her way past players from rival team Terminus like a human Tetris block. She pushes and jumps her way to securing the lead—only to fall. She’ll get back up and try on a future lap, because it’s just the beginning of the first bout of Atlanta Roller Derby’s 20th season, now in a new home at Agnes Scott College.

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins’s calculus is this: Stack great daily habits in the film room and on the practice field, stack them in conversations and building relationships, and this tower of invisible hours will result in victories. Stick to this process, and the chances of winning a Super Bowl increase tenfold.