The Second Serve, a new tennis media company and lifestyle publication, is proud to announce the launch of a newly designed Solinco x Eddie Martinez tennis racquet, available exclusively on The Second Serve. The racquet combines Solinco’s expertise in crafting sporting equipment of quality, performance, and versatility with Brooklyn artist Eddie Martinez’s signature tennis ball and “blockhead” motifs, to create a stylish racquet for discerning players and fans.

Those who purchase the Solinco x Eddie Martinez racquet from The Second Serve will also receive a copy of The Second Serve’s new print magazine, OPEN (Tennis), Solinco Hyper-G racquet strings, as well as stickers and dampeners bearing Eddie Martinez and The Second Serve’s designs. The racquet is a limited edition of 100, each retailing at $500.

The Second Serve will also sell a capsule collection of apparel made by Brain Dead Equipment, featuring designs by Martinez. The collection includes shorts, a T-shirt, and a hat bearing Martinez’s stylish tennis ball and blockhead elements.

“As a new tennis lifestyle publication, we’re thrilled to bring Solinco and Eddie Martinez’s incredible designs to readers of The Second Serve,” says The Second Serve’s founder, David Shaftel. “The design exemplifies the spirit of The Second Serve and our passion for tennis, art, travel, fashion, and ideas.”

Continues Shaftel, “We really wanted to customize a racquet that not only has a unique design, but is also a high-performance stick that you can actually play tennis with. We’ve seen many vanity frames that are mostly ornamental, or really special limited-edition frames that are in extremely limited quantities only available to pros, not amateur players. Our Whiteout changes all that.”

“Both Eddie and our design team share a playful and experimental approach to their craft. We were eager to explore Eddie’s artistic vision of tennis, creating an aesthetic unlike anything else on the market while staying true to Solinco’s performance standards in the racquet,” said Solinco director KT Kim.

“Experimentation and innovation are core to the Solinco brand ethos. We strive to push boundaries with leading-edge designs and disruptive market approaches. Collaborating with Eddie and The Second Serve offered a unique opportunity to bring this philosophy to life.”

Eddie Martinez, the artist behind the designs, has long enjoyed the relationship between his art and tennis. Tennis became a way for Martinez to recharge between work in his studio and travel to international exhibitions (this year alone, he is the subject of solo exhibitions at the Venice Biennale, Space K in Seoul, and the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton). “The tennis ball came out of my love and obsession for the sport. A lot of times I’ll watch tennis while I work, and one day the tennis ball became a natural part of my art. The blockhead was my young reaction to Picasso and Basquiat that began in 2004—it just showed up everywhere in my work.”

Martinez’s love of tennis came later than his artistic talent, but now the two have combined to drive further passion. “When I was 35 I just decided to try tennis. I found a coach online and got hooked pretty quickly, and my obsession with art transferred to tennis: playing, watching, reading.”

The connection between art and tennis is one of the foundational passions of The Second Serve founder David Shaftel, who previously launched Racquet magazine in 2017 before leaving the publication in 2023. Shaftel is now excited to found a new print publication—OPEN (Tennis) (by The Second Serve)—on Aug. 26, during the US Open. The cover star is Anna Kalinskaya, photographed by Dan Martensen.

A second, limited-edition cover by artist Ethan Cook will also be available.