WIMBLEDON, England — Bounces wasn’t the first Substack about tennis, but in its first 21 months of existence, it grew into the largest by several measures. I am very grateful for the loyal readers I have gathered here. Bounces and how it continues to grow – often thanks to you wonderful people telling new people to check it out.
I’m also excited to see this new category of media gaining traction. In one clear sign of progress, for the first time this year, the US Open’s media entry listed “Substack” in the drop-down menu of media categories, alongside much more established types like “Radio” and “Newspaper.”
There are several other substackers here in the Wimbledon press room, including Carol Bouchard, Chris ClaryJessica Schiffer from Hard Court (Where Bounces readers can still get the discount for a few more days) and Simon Cambers, newest on the block.
But this Wimbledon was not just numbers in the press room, but also another milestone in the development of Substack’s tennis presence: the first active tennis Substacker. playing in the third round of the major: Claire Liu, whose In search of Claire-ity launched in 2023, earlier Bounces for more than a year.
Because I knew I wanted to write about Liu as a player-writer in Bounces sometime this year I went to her court during the first round of Wimbledon qualifying last week to take some photos of her.
Claire Liu, who missed a break point early in Wimbledon qualifying. (Photo by Ben Rothenberg for Bounces)
As inevitably happens in qualifying, where only a single digit number of people were watching her match, Liu quickly spotted me on the edge of the court. After she stopped her first serve, I decided to leave, knowing that I could distract her.
When we later met in the media tent, she joked that when she saw me, she was worried that I would want to interview her after she lost, which she wasn’t in the mood for.
Like most media requests during qualifying, my request for Liu was the only winner. And, fortunately, after I left, she quickly won: 6-2, 6-1 over Despina Papamikhail.
It wasn’t particularly surprising to me to see Liu rolling around on the grass: after all, she was a junior champion at Wimbledon, having won the title there nine years ago. When Liu won in 2017, defeating Ann Lee in a historic All-Asian-American final on Court No. 1, she became the first American to win the Wimbledon girls’ singles title since Chanda Rubin in 1992.
I assumed the grass must still give her confidence?
“I feel like a lot of people have told me this, but I don’t feel it at all,” Liu said after his first qualifying win. “Yeah, it’s been three years since I’ve played here; to be honest, I haven’t felt that comfortable. So I was a little nervous going into it, just because I haven’t had many matches in general.”
But Liu, ranked 146th, has continued to win on the lawns since we spoke, picking up two more qualifying wins and then two more wins in the Wimbledon main draw to reach the third round of the women’s singles at a major for the first time.
For Liu, who turned 26 in May, the milestone, coming so late in her professional career, didn’t come easy. Young success as I wrote earlier in Bouncesis hardly a guarantee of a successful professional career.
Former child stars audition for tennis’ biggest stage
CAPITAL LETTERS indicate girls who subsequently won major women’s singles titles; gold if they win the women’s singles major at the same tournament.
For Liu, whose career-best WTA ranking was 52 at the start of 2023, seeing her name on the wall at Wimbledon – where it is currently somewhat hidden behind the Evian counter – has sometimes brought mixed feelings, which she has tried to turn into something more positive.
“I’m learning to be more grateful for it,” Liu said of her youthful triumph. “It’s not that I have a sour taste about it, but I wanted my professional career to match what I did in the juniors.
“But it helped me when people around me said, ‘No, you can look back and have something to be proud of. And although you may not be satisfied with the way things are going, it’s not something you can compare it to.” Because I think I do this a lot. I also remember, ‘Oh, when I was in the top 100…’ and that’s no use.”
Self-doubt is part of being a tennis player, and it’s also part of being a writer. Liu’s current joint activities force her to do double duty in clearing doubts. When I told her that I liked the way she wrote, she immediately expressed disbelief.
– Oh God, really? – Liu said.
For Liu, writing was an outlet she found in search of intellectual stimulation in the often monotonous life of a tennis player.
“When I first started, I remember I just felt like I needed to do anything“, she said. “I know a lot of people get degrees and stuff, but I just don’t want to go to school anymore. I journal a lot and I liked the idea of writing and publishing something, so I decided to bite the bullet and do it. I didn’t know how everything would be, but everything was fine. It was hard to constantly post things like I saw you and Andrea (Petkovic) do.”
Petkovic truly is a machine on Substack, with a deeply German strict regime for publishing new posts on Ultimate joke every Friday.
“It’s so impressive and she writes so well,” Liu said of Petkovic. “And I release one every six months.”
Liu usually not enough it is sporadic; On average, she publishes a little more than a post every two months. But as I told her – and meant it: “But when I see someone from you come in, I know it’s because you have something to say: quality is more important than quantity.”
“I definitely have no shortage of ideas,” Liu replied. “I think it’s just a good challenge for me. I mean, even this week I had three or four ideas, but it’s a lot harder to turn them into something.”
Last post by Liureleased a week before Wimbledon qualifying, she had been working on it since February, inspired by watching Ilya Malinin during the Milan-Cortina Olympics.
“I wrote about 10 full pages,” Liu said, annoyed with herself. “It’s word vomit, and so when I write, I try to boil everything down to something more coherent. Hopefully, the more I do this, the more accurately I can contribute to the process.”
But when she finished the piece, she held the landing better than Malinin did on that fateful day.
“As I learn more about myself, I realize that I’m not only looking for a sense of accomplishment, I’m looking for a sense of belonging.” Liu wrote. “Perhaps the more I win, the more I’ll feel accepted. But it’s actually in loss that we see connection and humanity. When you see yourself in the grief and devastation of others, and can understand the emotion and confusion that someone else might be feeling… So when I say I like seeing other people fail, I think I just mean that I like feeling a little less alone.”
Like her tennis in her prime, Liu’s writing is often bold and inspiring. The most offensive thing she wrote June 2025 post titled “Asian Invasion” about his history of fighting discrimination in tennis.
There were times when I didn’t want to be Asian.
It sounds harsh, I know. But what I mean is this: There have been times when being Asian made things noticeably more difficult. And in these moments I found myself regretting it. Not because I was ashamed, but because I knew that what I had to go through was unfair.
Like every time I was mistaken for Ann Li, Carol Zhao, Danielle Lao or any other Asian tennis player. Or when I went to the ITF World Junior Tennis Championship finals to represent the USA and someone called us “Team East” because two of the three of us were Asian. Or when the tennis player started calling me “Sai Sai” because there was another Chinese tennis player with that name and I think we are all the same. Or just recently, when tournament staff couldn’t find my registration folder, they kept pointing to another Asian name and joking, “But pretty close, huh?” – just to find out. was Mine was just labeled incorrectly.
Earlier last year, Liu wrote a post titled “I hate Grand Slams” where she wrote about how there was a “constant battle” in my head about whether believing in her chances of achieving her dreams was delusional or not:
My Grand Slam record is nothing special. I was lucky enough to play in the main draw and win a round in each of them. But after years of this being all I have to show for it, it’s safe to say that my Grand Slam performances haven’t been up to par. That’s why it’s amazing to me that every time I play a Grand Slam, I still manage to think, “This is my chance to win.” It doesn’t matter if I’m 50 years old in the world or last in qualifying, in my head there is always a path to the end of the rainbow.
This time the path took her to the third circle, further along the rainbow than she had ever been. And for the first time since winning the girls’ final in 2017, Liu is back on Court No. 1 at Wimbledon, where she’ll face another junior champion whose online creative outlet we recently learned makes anime supercuts: Coco Gauff.
You can subscribe to Substack Claire Liu Here:
To know more about Liu, it was good stuff about her Los Angeles Times Doug Robsonwho was fun to see on the tennis court again this year.
Aside from Claire Liu vs. Coco Gauff, which is in third place after 1 p.m. on Court No. 1, here are my picks for the best matches to watch Friday at Wimbledon as the third round begins.
To read the rest, subscribe to Bounces! -Ben