With a whole world at our fingertips, it sometimes seems as though we can access absolutely anything with ease. This includes official tennis player websites. There are a lot of them that look they were made by someone in 1992 with a severe lack of computer knowledge. Others, equally bad, look as though they were thrown together without much thought and are trying too hard to look a little too good. The following are my 10 favorites.
There’s something to be said for having the most intense tennis website ever. I’ve got to hand it to the design team – it’s empowering to see someone take an idea so far and execute it perfectly. For those of you unwilling to actually click on the link, the website loads with Bethanie Mattek amid totally black and red clouds, wearing matte black oversize sunglasses and a black velour hoodie. Her hair is styled into what my mother what consider a “poof” and she is adorned in giant gold hoop earrings, a gold necklace with a twinkling cross, and in her hand she holds her racket. This is the light source for the image – a brightly sparkling sterling silver racquet. I know what you’re thinking – it can’t get any better than this. Oh, but it can. And does. A scrawled signature leads to a charred cement background with the tennis star swinging a flaming racquet and posing beside a rather hungry looking alligator. You are now my new favorite tennis player,
Bethanie Mattek-Sands. Kudos.
Personally, I enjoyed an aesthetic of minimalistic simplicity. And
Richard Gasquet takes us there. Using a pretty straight-forward template that seems to have been around since the days of Geocities, the website is great. Simple text leads you here, takes you back there – you see a photo, click it and it pops up, like it should. For an example of a website that is basic and to the point, look no further than this one.
This is almost the exact opposite of Richard Gasquet’s website. It’s intense with dark purple explosions and streams running over the entire website. Unlike Gasquet’s HTML-based website, this is 100-percent Flash-based and flaunts every bit of the format – things sliding, flipping, flashing, counting up and down for loads. It’s over-indulgence at its greatest and its pretty fun to cruise around on. The only downside here is that the entire thing is in German and I can’t really understand where I’m going or what I’m looking at. All I know is that I really like Bilder and don’t like Steckbrief. Go figure.
While the site unfortunately doesn’t have a forum, it’s a very well-designed website that is a collection of aesthetically pleasing text documents and photographs. What the site lacks with its reluctance to allow users to communicate, it makes up for in being beautifully and succinctly designed. As a pretty major player in men’s tennis in America, much of his website is directed towards the buying of his apparel and the promotion of his sponsors. All in all – a beautiful website that just needs a bit more user input like the length of
Isner's record breaking Wimbledon match.
This website feels like I’m back in 1999 and getting ready for the oncoming apocalypse of Y2K. Things are flashing and buzzing and I’m aboard a Matrix ship, cruising through a web of information. It’s a beautiful thing and Filippo Volandri has captured it perfectly. A personal favorite is the section titled “Top Secret” (I wish I could tell you what it contains, but then Filippio would hunt me down and kill me). Check it out and feel like The Chosen One.
Another German website that I enjoy cruising around. With top and side navigation, this site is very, very simple and easy to access (that is, if you speak German). And moreover, it’s packed with information about her. A lot of player websites
seem nice, but really are pretty superficial and vacuous. When I go to a player’s website, I’m looking to find out information about she/he, not looking at how much money you can pay for web design. I now know way more than I ever thought I would know about
Julia Görges.
With a meager front page and massive backend,
Tommy Haas really knows how to treat his true fans and lure in the potential ones. His website employs massive amounts of reflective lettering to make it seem futuristic. The photos are organized, the text is interesting and the forums are bustling. Tommy Haas’ website is yet another great example of a straight-forward German-language tennis player portal.
This is a really nice website. Big, bubbly buttons and text clearly delineates this from that and helps you navigate around this nice Belgian tennis player’s website. It successfully integrates all of her other communication platforms -on the sides are Twitter feeds, blog re-caps, and news. Also, the website nicely uses video to give fans a better perception of what the
real Yanina is like. I like what I see.
The Spanish-star has a website that whisks me away to a Miami Vice-world of technological advancement and teal. It features fluid menus for photos, videos, an extensive biography and press articles. While it lacks a forum to interact, the sheer amount of information is enough to wrap you in
Tommy and see what he’s all about. However, the most interesting feature is the tool that instantly converts from Spanish to Catalonian and English. Finally, a new world order.
One of the cutest players today deserves one of the best player websites. With a homepage that is a gigantic wall composed of picture of
Andrea, things start off right. She packs a ton of information here and manages to be funny (in English and German!) and seem like a real person. She has a small section that is all about her friends and what they do. Twitter is well integrated and she has a feature that allows you to listen to her favorite music from the past year. Instead of a forum, she encourages people to use her Facebook and email her questions that she answers in her weekly video blog. Best website. I’m a huge fan. Maybe she’ll answer my question this week!
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