The Sacred Court: How Tennis Becomes a Path to Presence

What makes a practice sacred? Is it the posture, the ritual, the tradition? Or is it something quieter, something more subtle — the quality of awareness we bring to it?

When I step onto the tennis court, I do not see just lines and a net dividing two sides. I see a temple. A place where body, breath, and spirit converge. For me, tennis, when approached with presence, has always been more than a sport. It becomes meditation in motion, tai chi with a racket, a dance with the forces of focus, grace, and surrender.

I remember times when I played fully absorbed — no thought of winning or losing, just the rhythm of the ball, the sound of my breath, the feel of my feet connecting with the ground. In those moments, the court transformed. It wasn’t about tennis anymore. It was about flow, about being carried by something larger than myself.

Consider the breath: in tennis, just as in yoga or qigong, the breath is rhythm, anchor, bridge. The inhale before a serve awakens readiness. The exhale through a stroke releases tension. The pause between points is the same sacred stillness as the pause between breaths. Nothing is wasted. Everything is practice.

Consider movement: each step, each swing, is an expression of flow. Like the tai chi master, the tennis player finds grace not through rigidity but through fluidity. Power comes not from force, but from harmony — the seamless coordination of body and mind with the ball, the opponent, and the moment itself. I’ve often felt that when my body stops fighting for control, my strokes become effortless — and that’s when the game feels most alive.

And consider awareness: to be fully absorbed in the game, free of distraction, is to enter the state athletes call the zone and mystics call presence. Here, victory and defeat fall away. What remains is the aliveness of the moment, the joy of being fully engaged, the sense that life itself is playing through you.

This is why tennis, or any sport, can be a spiritual path. Not because of the rules or the competition, but because of the invitation it offers: to meet yourself in the mirror of movement, to discover stillness in action, to let awareness turn the ordinary into the sacred.

It is not the posture that makes the practice holy. It is the awareness. With awareness, every serve is a prayer, every rally a meditation, every match a journey of the soul.

The court, then, is not separate from the dojo or the temple. It is another doorway. And when you step onto it with presence, you are already home.