The TVLG ART x TENNIS CLUB has no dues or fees. It is a club with no clubhouse, no admissions committee, no code of conduct. ATP pro and art collector Reilly Opelka is one of two co-founders. The other is the Belgian gallerist Tim Van Laere, a former college player whose eponymous gallery (TVLG) sponsors Opelka. Friedrich Kunath and Rinus Van de Velde, artists whom Van Laere represents and Opelka collects, are passionate recreational players and core members. Venus Williams is in on it, too—a fellow art collector and close friend of Opelka, Venus is absolutely TVLG ART x TENNIS. TVLG ART x TENNIS is non-hierarchical, apolitical, a state of mind. “It’s something very cerebral,” Van Laere told me.
The club is in session whenever and wherever the worlds of art and tennis collide. When Hubert Hurkacz, on Opelka’s recommendation, visited Van Laere’s gallery in Antwerp, that was TVLG ART x TENNIS. In June 2022, when Van Laere, Kunath, and Van de Velde attended Wimbledon as guests of the 15-seed Opelka, that was TVLG ART x TENNIS x ALL ENGLAND CLUB. The Wimbledon situation, as recounted to me by Van Laere, is a funny one to imagine: Kunath, a melancholic East German whose paintings are held in collections at MoMA and LACMA, helping Opelka stretch out on a practice court; Van de Velde, who makes elaborate autofictional films and rarely leaves his Antwerp studio, watching from Opelka’s box as he beats Carlos Taberner in the first round; Opelka, at dinner after that victory, talking art history with Van Laere.