While the first signs that tennis is on its way back into our lives have emerged in recent weeks, these remain testing times for those who have dedicated themselves to the sport.

The easing of lockdown restrictions designed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed some nations to reopen their tennis facilities, albeit with social distancing protocols in place. The ITF has provided guidance for pros seeking local competition in the form of its Return to Tennis Guidelines, while regional associations have helped to compile a breakdown of nations’ positions with regard to recreational tennis, information which will be updated weekly.

But with the ITF and ATP extending their suspension of tournaments until 31 July, and the WTA ruling out any tour action until at least 20 July, the tennis world is still some distance from a return to normality. The sense of uncertainty is acute for players the world over – something to which Noah Rubin is particularly attuned.

“I’m in New York and it’s a new world,” said Rubin, speaking to the ITF in April. “It is a very unique time. I have had more than a few people bring up that this is the most difficult time in their lifetime. And this is between old and young, different backgrounds – it’s pretty remarkable that we’re all dealing with the same thing.”

It seems fitting that Rubin should tap into the shared sense of vulnerability brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside the 24-year-old’s on-court achievements – his Wimbledon boys’ singles title in 2014, four ATP Challenger titles, main-draw appearances at all four majors and a career-high ranking of No.125 – he has also founded Behind the Racquet, a series of first-person testimonies from the tennis community, with most coming from his fellow professionals.

‘Everyone has a story,’ is the Behind the Racquet maxim, and the stories Rubin has collected are as far removed from post-match press conference platitudes as one could imagine. Players share intimate details of their lives both on and away from the tour, along with the doubts and insecurities often considered anathema in the show-no-weakness arena of professional sports. Rubin’s own testimony, the first to be published back in January 2019, opened with the line: “To let down the people closest to me, my friends and family, is my most daunting fear.”

In conjunction with their stories, each entry appears on social media and the Behind the Racquet website with an image of the subject looking out of the screen from, well, behind their racquet. Smiling, straight-faced, on court or otherwise, each is a poignant portrait – an athlete simultaneously framed and veiled by the tool of their trade.

"I want to make top-50 in the world, that’s always been a dream of mine. But at the same time, I also want to make a difference in tennis"

Behind the Racquet has gained praise far and wide for providing a perspective on players rarely accessed by the mainstream media – in no small part because Rubin is with them in the locker room, not the press room. The stories they share with him are experiences he can relate to, while he repays his subjects’ trust by having them approve the finished article before it is published.

“One of the major aspects of Behind the Racquet was to bring a voice to people that never really had one, while also, at the same time, bringing a new excitement to the world of tennis – showing how many people tennis actually brings together,” Rubin explained.

“If you get to know players as people, you can relate to them and want to follow them. That’s what I really honed in on: getting to know these players on a deeper level so people would want to watch the sport of tennis.”

To date, Behind the Racquet has posted over 135 stories, including entries from former professionals, celebrity tennis fans and everyman characters who submit their tennis-related stories through the series website. Even within the professional game, the series covers a broad church – stories from former world No.1s, Grand Slam champions and Davis Cup and Fed Cup winners sit alongside those of players fresh out of the junior ranks, those mounting comebacks, and others on the verge or in the early throes of retirement.

Ask Rubin which of the stories epitomise Behind the Racquet, and “there are three that really stand out, just for how they affected me,” he says.

“Tennys Sandgren was the first. We had a 45-minute conversation at the US Open in 2018, and when it ended he hugged me and said, ‘I’ve never shared that story with anyone before, thank you for allowing me to do that.’ Here’s this guy, four or five years older than me, breaking down in tears. This is something I could not have imagined in the world of tennis up to that point. It was unbelievable that he opened up like that to me.

“Then there was Darian King, who spoke about his mum passing away. I thought I was pretty good friends with this guy, and had been for a long time, and I didn’t know that about him. What does that say about people opening up in the tennis world? That’s very, very sad to me.

“The third is Jolene Watanabe, a US coach who was top-100 in the world at one point. She was having treatment for cancer, and about two weeks after I’d finished writing but hadn’t posted yet, I got a message from her husband. She was leaving the hospital to say her final goodbyes, and they would love it if I could post the story before she passed away. This is an idea I had in bed one day, and now it’s a part of somebody’s last wishes. To this day, that makes me tear up. This is what I’ve worked for, but that was far more than I could have imagined.”

"In tennis, it comes down to who is going to give it their all on each and every point – that’s usually the person who wants it more and is happier to be out there"

Mental health is a recurring theme among Behind the Racquet posts, particularly among the pros – their battles with it, the toll life of the tennis circuit takes upon it, and lessons learned to improve it. For his part, Rubin has been open with his own struggles with the pressures of life on the tour, and those he has observed in others. A personal low point after a string of first-round losses in 2018 sparked the project in the first place, and he admits that as recently as a year ago, he considered his future in the sport.

“There’s a snowball effect,” Rubin said, painting a stark picture of life in the grind for those chasing a place among the world’s top 100. “You don’t make enough money, so for the most-part you have to travel alone. And because you’re alone, you are dealing with consistently losing – that’s what tennis brings. You put loneliness and failure together and that’s when depression and anxiety really take place. You start not playing as well, playing even worse because of all the pressures. Once you’re in that circle, it can feel like you’ll never get out of it.

“I was with my girlfriend at the French Open last year and I almost put down my racquets for good, definitely for a period of time. From there on I was saying, I don’t want to be a part of this system. I love the sport of tennis – even then, I was thoroughly enjoying practice – but the system of tennis is not conducive to happiness. At that point, I had to be the one by myself to step up and say, what do I have to do to be happy playing this sport?

“I made a lot of changes around that time. Right before Wimbledon I only practised an hour a day with a 16-year-old, and I was in the worst physical shape I’ve been for the past couple of years, but I was just happy to be out there competing. I was in a good frame of mind, happier on the court, and I qualified for the first time.

“I found out that it’s okay to prioritise happiness. In tennis, it comes down to who is going to give it their all on each and every point – that’s usually the person who wants it more and is happier to be out there. It’s a gamechanger. It can take players from No.300 in the world to No.80 – it’s huge.

“After I figured that out, I wrote on a piece of paper what I liked and didn’t like about my life. I moved back home from Florida to New York, and I changed how I was training; it was so funny to see it work so quickly. But that’s just how it is – that was something I just had to accept, and it took a while to be that honest with myself.”

Rubin, a New York native, has been based at his apartment in the city since tennis events were suspended in March, on the eve of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. Days earlier, he had reached the quarter-finals of the Oracle Challenger Series event at the same venue, beating former Australian Open semi-finalist Lucas Pouille before losing to compatriot Steve Johnson in the last eight.

While Rubin is rightly proud that Behind the Racquet has taken off, with a social media following already 40,000-strong and a warm reception from both players and fans alike, he still has designs on a successful tennis career. His definition of success continues to evolve – and as he looks to the future, he hopes the sport can evolve as well.

“The project has changed my opinion on a lot of things, not just how I view success, or how other people see success,” he said. “A lot of us wanted to be No.1 in the world growing up, that’s just everybody’s dream. But at the same time, I think a lot of people are okay playing the sport they love and making a great living in it. I think that’s something a lot of people would be okay with, and it took some real questioning to get this basically unanimous answer that, for the most-part, if you got money and would be okay financially, and got to play the sport that you love, then that’s what people were looking for.

“I’m going to do everything I can to make top-50 in the world, that’s always been a dream of mine. But at the same time, for me, I also want to make a difference in tennis, more than I have already. I want to make sure people in five or 10 years say Behind the Racquet has enabled so many people to live life differently, specifically in the sport of tennis. I’m not going to say that would mean more to me than being No.50 in the world, that’s a tough thing to say – but it’s almost equal, it really is.”