Move over, Pickleball.
All six of the Echo Park Tennis Courts are full most weeknights , and each chief lawn tennis role player type is well represented . There are serious bingle players and casual groups of doubles , leatherlike former dudes still out there after a full day of hitting , and friends who barely know the rules hacking away for jape after employment . But on Monday night , one group stands out : About a 12 fashionable and young - ish actor flow in sozzled circle around the court , represent quick - affect points and shout encouragement as music thumps from a little boombox . This is no average tennis clinic — it ’s anLVBL.Clubsession , the plot that ’s giving tennis culture its cool , artsy boundary back .
A standard LVBL school term starts with a warm - up and go on quickly into the game itself , a King of the Court stylus mini - lucifer in which a team of randomly pair challengers on one side are fed a serial publication of balls as they endeavor to take down the champions across the lucre . compass point are sharp with little downtime in between , designed to boost friendly chatter and gentle contention and to give you a good workout all at once . It is also the rarified group lawn tennis course that moves fast enough to get you into a flowing country , where the eternal rest of the world melts away and clip seems to halt , a meditative and calming form of focal point covet by athletes across all sports .
Sometimes one pair of champions dominate an integral session , and sometimes no one does . Sometimes competition is fierce and vivid , and other times the vibration is chill , like a pleasant exercise class . But the one affair that always seems to go on over a duet of hour of group tennis is that people make protagonist . The mid - game chatter is supportive , and after the session wraps , the great unwashed fall out in trivial clusters , talk tennis and setting up next games but also just chatting .
Photo courtesy of LVBL Club
And that ’s the essence of it for LVBL founder Guy Logan . LVBL was bear out of Logan ’s love for tennis , but it was also the result of a sexual love of the plot ’s social side . Logan is a longtime player who used to host an intimate meetup holler the Los Feliz Tennis Club , a nonchalant weekly doubles plot with euphony and a beer ice chest in Griffith Park . He has always found the soft camaraderie that take form over sportsman refreshing , a different way of socializing beyond the standard - offspring small public lecture . “ I ’ve played with people for over a twelvemonth , and I do n’t even know what they do , ” he says .
He fell away from tennis as living things happened , kids and body of work and all the common suspect , but he witness his way back during the pandemic , as so many did . That ’s when he find out about liveball and pass in love with the game he calls a “ militant tennis party . ”
Logan has worked in entertainment , and he ran a originative agency , and he ’s been an entrepreneur , but it was n’t until he jump play liveball and had a little free time that it bump off him . “ You know how you do that Venn Diagram of lifetime , like with ‘ What do you have a go at it ? ’ and ‘ What are you sound at ? ’ ” he says , “ for me they intersected in lawn tennis . ”
Photo courtesy of LVBL Club
He team up with several friends , including the folks at legendary tennis shopThe Racket Doctor , CBD companyDad Grass , the sporting goods companyWilson , Spencer Nikosey ofKILLSPENCERand tennis coach and optic artistGunner Fox , and put on a liveball tournament with marking and plunder and the whole shebang . It filled up and sold out , and they were off to the races , expanding to multiple liveball session per week at a variety show of locations around townspeople . They play at the public motor hotel in Echo Park and at Mar Vista Rec Center , but there are also games at theLuxe Hotelin Brentwood and on a private courtyard in South Pasadena ; tournament have been held atLa Cañada Country Cluband theOjai Valley Tennis Club . LVBL is also a fun way to get into some otherwise unaccessible places .
Logan ’s passion for the game show through in every school term he assist , whether he ’s hanging out and chitchat or skip into a secret plan himself . And his background on the creative side of the business macrocosm shows through too . LVBL is fun , engaging , and social , and it is also thoroughly cool . Their aesthetical choices , from the logo and the on - tribunal energy to their merch andsocial media presence , are spic-and-span and appealingly stylish without being intimidate . Together it paints a portrait of exactly the kind of thing you want to do on a affectionate summertime evening .
Those pristine vibes are n’t just in service of the business , though . They also bring out a different sort of tennis actor than you might find in an fair group class . LVBL musician are drawn in by the melodic theme of community , a casually competitive game for citizenry who need a physical exercise and to find a flow as much as they want to refine the minutia of their groundstrokes or think about how to best fabricate a point . There are no sexuality variance and no overall scorekeeping . That means the crowd trends mellow , flashy but not intense , with lawn tennis strokes rarify by YouTube and Instagram video or else of in private lessons at country clubs or on high schooltime first team teams . There are advanced classes , too , with players who can really rip it , but the overall ethos stay on integral even there . That is to say , it is a welcoming game , inclusive and encouraging to newcomers and the great unwashed who might otherwise be intimidated by what is , frankly , a surd - ass mutant to see .
Courtesy of LVBL Club
“ Tennis at its nucleus is really cool , it ’s sinewy and it ’s edgy , ” Logan says . It may be charm to connect lawn tennis with the still of Wimbledon , Champagne-Ardenne and strawberry and fine manicure grass , but Logan direct to Bjorn Borg , John McEnroe , and Serena Williams , trendsetters and rebels , icons in the mutant but also in style , outsider unbothered by institutional expectations . That is the ethos Logan want to convey .
the great unwashed in LA have responded , and Logan and the crew are systematically adding more time slots and locations . And they ’ve nonplus big plans for the future — they’re set up more local events , like a Wimbledon watch party and clinic day on July 16 , a co - production withRacquet Club LA . And they ’re search other constituent of the state too ; there will be LVBL event in partnership with Wilson in Chicago around Lollapalooza , in Miami for Art Basel , and in New York for the US Open , and they ’ve partner withSwimplyto help relate masses to private courts .
The big goal is to plunge their own app by the oddment of this year , a tennis lifestyle hub for player to connect to all aspect of the game , from setting up matches to style and culture . That could be immense , and it ’s something that ’s been sorely lacking in recreational lawn tennis games . For now , though , you could ascertain Logan out on the court most even , trying to find a flow and making some friends in the outgrowth .
Courtesy of LVBL Club
