LONDON — The start of summer in Europe doesn’t just signal the return of alfresco dining and cocktail parties, but tennis tournaments, too, including the The Queen’s Club Championships.

The event, also known as the HSBC Championships, take place three weeks prior to Wimbledon in West Kensington. This year marks a milestone in the club’s history, with women’s tennis is returning after more than 50 years.

To mark the occasion, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) hosted a cocktail reception with Katie Boulter, the British tennis number one, and Marina Storti, chief executive officer of WTA Ventures, the commercial arm of the Women’s Tennis Association.

Storti said she has big dreams for women’s tennis, including the return of the sport to the Queen’s Club Championships.

“It’s really important for the sport to continue to grow and to stay at the forefront of culture. With tennis in particular, we’ve been leading the way for [more than] 50 years and our players can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their male counterparts. We have a sport that [attracts] billions of fans, and we want to continue that growth and visibility in elevating our players, and giving them a platform,” she said in an interview.

The WTA has also undergone a rebrand with a new logo and color palette of a lime green and deep purple.

According to the WTA, women’s tennis is the number one women’s sport in the world and the second fastest-growing sport by social following, beating out Formula One and Premier League football.

Storti’s strategy is to make the female tennis players the face of the WTA to encourage fans to get involved. 

“We have grown our social media channels by 25 percent year-on-year and we’ve also seen video engagements tripling. Fans are connecting with our athletes with the content we’re putting out there and getting closer to the players not just on-court, but off-court too,” she said, adding that women’s tennis is not just a sports business, but also an entertainment business.

The WTA has more than 2,500 players from nearly 100 countries, and the biggest market to date is the U.S. “It’s growing at an incredible pace,” Storti said.

“China really came to life last year, and a new market we’re in is the Middle East. We took our WTA Finals to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia last year, [which will continue through to 2026]. We’ve done a lot of work with the Saudi Tennis Federation to bring tennis into schools and the wider community to really accelerate participation. We don’t want people to only watch tennis, we want them to pick up a racket and play,” she added.

According to an International Tennis Federation report, Britain is the population with the most amateur tennis players, and women’s tennis has grown by 30 percent over the last six years.

Britain’s new tennis star Boulter has been playing since the age of 5, and will be competing in the Queen’s Club Championships.

“Every single time grass court season comes around, there’s definitely a flourish of excitement and I’m more excited to go out and compete on grass, which is my favorite surface,” she said in an interview.

With her tournament-packed summer schedule, Boulter said she lives vicariously through her fellow Brits in the summertime.

“Everyone rushes outside and either goes to a pub or a park. I do get the same sort of feeling when I’m playing on a grass court – it feels like I’m in my back garden. It takes me back to my childhood a little bit,” she said.

She also talked about her daily routines. “My home routine is getting up at eight o’clock, and going for breakfast. Starting my day with coffee is always important, so that my team can get the best out of me. I spend a lot of time on the courts, around three hours of tennis a day, then gym, and then I recover, which takes an hour and a half,” she said.

Being Britain’s number one takes discipline.

“Tennis is something that is on a knife edge at any point and there’s a lot of momentum shifts because if you let it slip for two seconds, that could literally be the match. It’s an individual sport that can be nerve-wracking,” said Boulter, who praises the people around her for helping her become a “regimented” and “focused” person.

Boulter, who became the British number one tennis player in 2023 said her biggest motivators growing up were the Olympics Games; the British athlete Jessica Ennis-Hill; and Maria Sharapova.

“Sharapova was someone that I looked up to as a little blond girl and she was someone that I watched a lot of when I was younger. She knew what she wanted, and she had this aura about her,” said Boulter.

She is recognized for her powerful forehand and charming personality. She’s also become part of a group of young female tennis players who are having fun with fashion.

On court, Boulter is sponsored by Nike, but that hasn’t stopped Boulter from adding her own touches to her uniforms.

“I always try to have a little nod to myself and make it slightly my own, because I don’t always like being the same as everyone else. I remember the very first time I played Wimbledon, I had this free-flowing dress and I don’t know where my brain went, but I got one of the headbands and put it around my waist to accentuate [the outfit],” said Boulter. 

At the WTA cocktail reception, she was wearing a white jersey cut-out midi dress from Self-Portrait. She finished the look with a pair of Vivi 65 backless mules in coffee from Jimmy Choo. Boulter said she’s “obsessed” with her Jimmy Choo heels “because they’re the perfect height. As a tennis player, too high is not good.”