Adrian Brune

The issue appeared without fanfare at the 2017 US Open giftshop: a bright-red background offset an Impressionist yet unmistakable painting of Yannick Noah hitting a forehand, dreadlocks flaring. And with that, publisher Caitlin Thompson and editor-in-chief Dave Shaftel — an unlikely journalism pair who had met bonding over the poor state of tennis media — announced the launch of Racquet magazine, a journal that would explore the lifestyle, culture, history and zeitgeist behind modern tennis. In his first editor’s letter, Shaftel more or less laid out his and Thompson’s grand plans. “We don’t think of the game as a country club sport lumped in with golf and healthy only in the suburbs,” Shaftel wrote.

The first finisher crossed the line sweaty, tired and almost black with dirt, his white Decathlon shirt turned gray and his standard-issue blue gloves transformed into a deep midnight. He dragged behind him a refrigerator-sized plywood box, piled high with swollen rubbish bags and secured with a hooked rubber bungee cable — where he grabbed that, nobody knew. Yet José Luis Sañudo Lamela’s smile was wide, and he laughed heartily when onlookers and fans expressed amazement at his feat. But despite Lamela’s assuredness that he would take home top billing in the annual World Plogging Championships, one man outdid him — if not in diversity of goods, in pure heft.

At first, the sleepy little town of Mirleft looks like all the others on the 600-mile trek through the sands of the Sahara: half-gravel, half-concrete sidewalks, faded paint, brightly painted schools and the minaret of a new mosque jutting up toward the sky. But a mile past Mirleft’s dusty high street lie cliffs of California proportions — with swells to match. The cliffs arch down at a near forty-five-degree angle and into meaty waves rolling toward a point break. It’s here that a group of ten French and German surfers have joined up with Issam Surf School, heading down to Plage Sauvage, the beach below, in a 4x4.

It’s been a nearly seven-hour drive up and down the Atlas Mountains from Marrakech before a roundabout appears at the entrance to Ouarzazate, the Amazigh (Berber) outpost where we might be able to stave off hunger, thirst and fatigue. But first, follow that roundabout — the one featuring a gigantic director’s clipboard. Then turn left and enter the parking lot of the Atlas Studios, known to the outside world as Ouarzawood, the must-see largest studio in the Sahel, just 230 miles from Merzouga: the gateway to the Sahara. Park before a half-dozen faux Egyptian Ka statues — think gigantic copies of King Tut’s tomb — then a gate opens and just beyond lie the sets to a dozen or more popular movies.