No Team to Hide Behind
Tennis strips away the two things most athletes engrave. There is no squad number, because there is no squad. There is no club crest with a century of argument behind it. A tennis player walks out with a name and a record, and that is the whole of it.
So the engraving has to come from somewhere else.
Initials and dates
The two that work here are initials and a date. Initials because the sport is already personal — the scoreboard has your name on it, not a club's. A date because tennis produces very clean, very specific milestones: a first tournament, a first title, the day someone finally beat the person they could never beat.
One to three characters covers initials. Four to ten covers a date or a short name. Both sit on the back of the court plate, so the front stays clean.
Fonts change the tone
Five are available, and the choice matters more on a tennis piece than elsewhere because you are usually engraving letters rather than digits. Palatino and Times New Roman read formally, which suits a date. Monotype Corsiva is a chancery script and works well across initials. College Block is a slab face, better for numerals than for a name.
Every font can be previewed with your own text on the product page before you order.
Worn on and off court
316L stainless steel in polished steel or 18K gold PVD, waterproof and sweat resistant. Tennis is played in the sun for hours, and a finish that goes dull after a summer is not much use.
Both a court pendant and a bracelet exist. The bracelet is adjustable — a 15 cm base plus a 5 cm extender — which matters if you are wearing it on the non-racquet wrist through a match.
An individual sport rewards an individual mark. Keep it short and keep it yours.