The Art of Winning

Reilly Opelka is always seeking balance between his competitive spirit and his multidimensional interests.

Tennis pro Reilly Opelka approaches life like a match on the court—with creativity, perspective and imposing directness.

Words RICHARD EDWARDS Photography WOLFGANG ZAC

“I think I have a good balance,” says Opelka, who was photographed at the Club at Ibis in West Palm Beach, Florida, on April 13.

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It’s early summer in London. The sun is out and the mercury is high. The Brits are baking. Reminders of the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament, meanwhile, are everywhere you look. Outside Ralph Lauren’s flagship store on New Bond Street, a picture of a huge tennis ball, positioned next to a bowl of strawberries and cream—a Wimbledon staple—is plastered on the shop front. On the sweaty London Underground, billboards featuring the faces of some of the most recognizable faces on planet tennis, including Serena Williams, Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic, hang at every platform. The London Eye, the giant observation wheel that is one of the English capital’s most famous landmarks, is offering a Wimbledon Pod, which includes a champagne view of Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace, the home of a Queen who has just celebrated her 70th year on the throne.

But Reilly Opelka, the second-highestranked American man in world tennis and the joint tallest tennis player in history—6 feet 11 inches, if you must know—has other sights to see. As The Red Bulletin accompanies him around the headquarters of Phillips, one of the world’s most prestigious auction houses, in London’s Berkeley Square, it is paintings rather than points that consume Opelka.

His passion for the world of art is as obvious as his main weapon on the tennis court. Opelka reels off facts about the artists in the gallery as effortlessly as he reels off on-court aces with a serve that regularly exceeds 140 mph. His knowledge of artists such as Cy Twombly— the son of a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox, who made his name and his fortune in Rome—borders on the encyclopedic.

The majority of athletes have a reputation for being one-dimensional. But the 25-year-old Michigan-born big hitter isn’t one of them. “I’m not sure I’d call it a guilty pleasure, but I do love art,” he says. “I can still remember the first piece I bought. It’s one of those things that stays with you.”

Opelka estimates he spends less than 100 days a year in a Florida home that now doubles as his own private gallery. For the vast majority of the time, he’s on the road. For some, it could prove a lonely existence. For Opelka, it’s nothing of the sort. “I’m a pretty social guy and I think I have a good balance,” he says. “I have friends on the tour, a few good friends here in London, friends in France. Wherever I go, there are people I’m excited to see because the chances are I haven’t seen them for a year. Then there are times when I like to be alone and go to dinner by myself or go to a gallery or a museum. I get a nice balance; I don’t find it lonely at all.”

It clearly helps that Opelka has a range of interests and friends on and off the court. He readily admits to being addicted to the rush that winning gives him, but it’s not the singular force in his life. Yes, he’s a professional tennis player—good enough to battle his way into the top 20—but he’s also someone who is acutely aware of the fact that sports and everyday life have to coexist. And he’s mastered that balancing act.

They may not be pretty, but Opelka says that the blisters on his hands are a constructive occupational reality of playing tennis professionally and actually help him get through grueling tournaments without pain.

Whether he’s on the court or off it, Opelka is relentlessly direct. This is quite evident as he sits sipping an espresso—we’re at an air-conditioned coffee shop that offers some relief from the stifling humidity. He’s explaining his feelings about a Wimbledon championship that has already been as controversial as any in the tournament’s storied 145-year history. There are no ranking points on offer for players this year, with the ATP (the men’s tour) and WTA (the women’s equivalent) proceeding to strip the tournament of its ranking points as a result of its decision to ban Russian competitors from the event.

Should they be allowed to play?

“100 percent they should,” says Opelka. “100 percent.”

That outspoken view shouldn’t come as any surprise. Opelka, who has been burned before for speaking his mind in media interviews, feels strongly that the world’s most prestigious tournaments should keep their noses out of politics.

“I’ve loved all of them [the Grand Slams] at different times, but right now, the French Open is the best by far,” he says. “It’s my least favorite surface, but I love Paris, and it’s the only Grand Slam that has done it right in recent years. All of the others have gone so political. Australia didn’t allow Novak Djokovic to play [because of his COVID vaccine status], but I think they’re going to allow the Russians to play. The French allowed everyone to play, Wimbledon are banning the Russians but allowing Djokovic and the U.S. Open is banning Djokovic but not the Russians. So the French Open is hands-down the best Grand Slam. For me, it’s the only true Grand Slam now.”

That said, Opelka didn’t enjoy the best of luck in Paris back in May. In a

Opelka, ranked 18th in the world, won two ATP tournaments in the first half of 2022: the Dallas Open and the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships.

GETTY IMAGES

Opelka had his run in this year’s French Open cut short by a bad case of food poisoning, resulting in a firstround loss to Filip Krajinovic of Serbia.

first-round match against Serbian Filip Krajinovic, he lost in straight sets on the clay at Roland-Garros. But that defeat only tells part of the story.

“I ate some chicken onsite right before the match,” he says. “The next thing you know, I was as sick as could be. I played the first set of my match fine and then it hit me. I started to get shivers and aches. I was miserable—I just wanted to get out of there. I finished the match but I could barely shower. I laid down at the hotel and had a sharp pain in my stomach.”

The ordeal got worse. “I was vomiting nonstop and had a crazy fever,” he recalls. “I remember booking an Uber from my hotel but no Uber would pick me up because I had put the American Hospital in Paris as my destination. They saw I was going to the hospital and assumed it was COVID related. I just couldn’t get a ride. I eventually typed in a restaurant nearby, so I Uber’d there and walked the rest of the way. It was only a quarter of a mile but it felt like forever. I honestly thought I was going to pass out. My fever was 104°, I had a headache and this crazy pain in my stomach. It was just a blur. They thought they were going to have to take my appendix out. It was just a disaster. That really set me back.”

Given that experience, it’s something of a miracle that Opelka is sitting here with his appendix and perspective still firmly in place. Even if he has already had enough of the constant focus on his height when he’s on English shores. “I hate it—it’s my biggest pet peeve in life,” he says. “I get stopped everywhere. In England it’s so bad. It’s the worst. It’s nonstop. Here in England, I have my headphones on all the time. One of the transport guys said to me, ‘Do you play basketball?’ Come on, I was dressed in white, I had a tennis bag on my back and I was just about to get on the Wimbledon transport vehicle.”

Opelka says the preoccupation with his height is only an issue in England and the U.S. “In England, it’s 20 times a day, I can’t avoid it. Just checking into the hotel, getting a car, any conversation I engage in involves people saying the same thing. Do I give a polite answer? No, but sometimes it’s tough because most of the time I need something from that person. I can’t be a dick to people working at an airport because my bags might not show up. But if these people aren’t making my coffee, then I’m not even going to look at them.”

When you’re as tall as Opelka—and let’s face it, there’s nothing you can do with the cards Mother Nature deals you—you’re going to stand out. He has made the most of those attributes on the court, but it’s little wonder that he gets tired of people focusing on his height off it. And while it’s clear the discussion about his height riles him, in The Red Bulletin’s time with Opelka, he’s as open and honest about other topics as any athlete on the planet— an attitude as refreshing as the plumes of cold air being expelled from the airconditioning unit perched on the ceiling above our heads.

Tennis is a brutal business. Few sports are as gladiatorial—a oneon-one battle between individuals with the solitary aim of beating the other. For Opelka, who first picked up a racket at the age of 5, it’s the reason he plays the sport in the first place.

“I fell in love with tennis when I was a young age,” he says. “I won a lot and when I was 9 or 10, I was playing up in the 14s, maybe even the 16s to get some better competition. I was always a top 10 guy in the country from the age of 12 to 18. But I was never a prodigy or phenom, by any means.”

Everything is relative, though. Opelka admits that it got to the stage of him having to travel for an hour just to find someone that could give him some competition. By the age of 14, he was boarding in U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) accommodations after shooting to teenage prominence by winning two of the four major junior tournaments in the country. By the time he won the Junior Wimbledon title in 2015, victory was already a drug.

“Winning is always the ultimate high,” he says. “As a competitor, as someone who plays a one-on-one sport especially, tennis is the ultimate meritocracy. It really is. It’s one-on-one and you really feel it all. You take it all on your own, for better or worse—that’s why you get such a significant high, no matter the size of the tournament or the match. It’s a rush. I don’t think it will ever stop. That’s what makes it hard to stop.”

Opelka points to the examples of Andy Murray, who has already had two hip surgeries, and Serena and Venus Williams, as players who have achieved so much but keep coming back for more despite the physical pressures of playing at the highest level. He’s good friends with all of them and regularly practices with the Williams sisters in Florida.

“Venus will go down as the secondgreatest tennis player of all time,” he says. “Serena is first by a mile. You have to put her up there with [Michael] Jordan and LeBron [James] or [Cristiano] Ronaldo. I practice with both of them;

OPELKA REELS OFF FACTS ABOUT ARTISTS AS EFFORTLESSLY AS HE REELS OFF ON-COURT ACES.

Opelka is a man of many interests. Fielding questions about his height isn’t one of them.

they live just up the street from me. They hit the ball as good as anyone. Serena and Venus played in the toughest era of women’s tennis and changed the game. But they still love tennis and winning tennis matches. There’s no other reason for Serena to play. I know Venus still loves it, too. Serena has so many records; she’s already known as one of the greatest athletes ever. I think that buzz of winning has to be the only reason she’s still playing.”

At the age of just 25, Opelka has plenty of time on his side. Which isn’t the case for the trio of male players who have dominated the sport since Roger Federer won his first Wimbledon title in 2003. The Swiss, along with Spain’s Nadal and Djokovic of Serbia, have won 63 Grand Slams between them.

All sporting cycles eventually run their course, though. And Opelka will be one of those looking to capitalize when their lengthy era of dominance ends.

“They’re on their way out, but it’s crazy,” he says. “It’s all I’ve known, it’s all most of us have known. I’m curious to see what it is like. [The list of winners] will be more spread out and I think it will help the sport. It will bring more attention to more countries. All of Greece is going to watch tennis once [Stefanos] Tsitsipas wins a Slam, and all of Italy is going to be following it when Matteo [Berrettini] wins one. I think it will more exciting.”

Blessed with great reach and perfect mechanics, Opelka has served in excess of 144 mph, among the fastest in history.

Opelka says that an era dominated by Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic is coming to a close and will radically change the pro landscape, with many more players in the mix for the biggest wins.

By the time the final Slam of the year rolls around, the 2022 U.S. Open, Opelka will hope his serve is in perfect working order in front of a raucous home crowd. But whatever happens in the intervening period and at the tournament itself, his outlook is unlikely to alter dramatically.

“Every time you’re training to be fit for a whole year of tennis, then your mind and body are getting destroyed,” he says. “It’s always finding the right balance—that’s the key to everything in life, but especially in one-on-one sports. When you sacrifice everything, you become so fixated on one thing. When the results don’t come—and results don’t come around that often for so many people—it’s hard to have a balance. Unless you’re great and you’re winning every match, it’s so easy to see how your mind can get screwed up.”

Once again, the word “balance” enters the conversation. “You need that balance,” Opelka declares. “You can’t be too zone-orientated; you can’t just worry about your results. I have my family, I have my friends. If I’m too worried about my results, then I back out of it. Perspective is everything. If I lose at Wimbledon, I’ve got 12 more tournaments before the end of the year.”

Opelka would, in fact, exit the tournament, in the second round. But as he knows only too well, the next tournament, the next opportunity, is only ever a few weeks away, and agonizing

“WINNING IS ALWAYS THE ULTIMATE HIGH. IT’S A RUSH. I DON’T THINK IT WILL EVER STOP."

over one specific defeat does not help you next set foot on the court. It’s that balancing act all over again.

It helps that Opelka is a man with plenty of interests off the court, although someone once known for his passion for fashion admits to falling out of love with it in recent years. “Fashion is a whole crazy world, but it’s more of a thing of the past for me,” he says. “I don’t think the art is there anymore; the art in it has gone. It has gone so commercial. It’s who’s who—it’s so Hollywood. It’s actually everything that’s wrong with society. It’s a world of hypocrites. If you make a piece for 2 grand and it has Dior written on it, someone is going to buy it, put it on Instagram and then never wear it again because it’s so super recognizable. How is that sustainable?”

It’s a point well made, and one served with characteristic candor. Away from the catwalk, Opelka’s own fashion sense is based around far more prosaic requirements. “If I find an outfit I like and it’s practical, then I buy three or four of them and rotate them over three or four weeks,” he says. “I like to spend a lot of time in New York or L.A. When I’m gallery-hopping I’m just about practicality. There’s a pant I like that’s got a huge pocket, which means I can fit my phone, my wallet, my charger, even a sandwich or a bottle of water. It’s just so practical.”

As our time draws to a close, Opelka talks admiringly of how Twombly making it as an American in Rome—the home of some of the world’s greatest painters—is one of art’s great tales.

In many ways, Opelka rounding out the interview by discussing something unrelated to tennis sums him up rather neatly. This is an athlete who loves to win and will be doing all he can to feed that desire in the coming months and years. But despite all his success, Opelka is still very much the 5-year-old kid who first picked up a racket and smashed the ball over the net. He plays tennis because he loves both the sport itself and the feeling he gets when he vanquishes his opponent across the net. But in victory or defeat, he’s not going to let it go to his head. Partly because he has so much to occupy his time off the court.

Just like Twombly, and despite his disappointments in Paris and London this season, as we say goodbye, you get the feeling there are more than a few plot twists in his own career to come.