Ted Dimond Turns His Passion for Tennis into Art

For a couple of decades, Ted Dimond served as the earnest director of tennis at Sportime at the John McEnroe Tennis Academy, where he corrected the forehand and backhand strokes of countless students as a calm and mirthful instructor.

Dimond became inspired to play tennis at a young age after watching matches of players such as Rod Labor with his grandfather. He eventually became quite good himself, and travelled to France to play in junior-pro tournaments with an allowance.

“I’d sketch or draw at tournaments, and I would sell that to help pay for my expenses so I could go to the next tournament,” said Dimond.

Dimond began drawing portraits of players as a way to pay entry fees at local French tournaments.

Soon after, as tennis became less an opportunity and more of a passion, Dimond enrolled at the Beaux art de Lyon. It was here that he honed in on his craft.

But still, Dimond returned to the United States, and found that he needed to teach tennis for a living.

As a tennis professional, he found little time to perfect his own stroke – not the tennis strokes he aimed to perfect in his players or he had in his prime in Franche – but instead the stroke from which he resolved meaning, his genuine passion. Dimond’s painting hung about in the shadow of his profession.

Though he still seized on rare considerations to display his work at regional galleries, long summer days teaching tennis reserved his passion to mere observation.

Readily noticing the swinging motions of his students, the shadows fixed to their bodies from morning to afternoon to evening, the felt tennis balls grasping the ground, all Dimond knew as one knows the back of their own hand. And more, Dimond knew the fervor of an experienced tennis player. He played in numerous tournaments and watched an immemorable number of matches.

He knew tennis,  and so he painted tennis – but only in his spare time.

Juggling work and art, Dimond traveled to Westchester one summer morning for a commission on a junior player’s portrait. He was asked to stay and decided to pick up a pizza for everyone involved.

At a sloped intersection, while waiting for the red light to change green, an eighteen-wheeler freight truck coming from an incline made a late turn.

In the corner of Dimond’s eyes, he thought he saw a bird or an object someone had thrown at his car.

Dimond did not realize until an instant before almost being decapitated that the undercarriage of a truck was about to barrel over and obliterate his body.

If not for the split-second decision to floor it and speed ahead, Dimond would have died on his way to pick up a pizza.

He avoided part of the truck’s undercarriage by veering to the left, but his car was still torn in-half, with every one of his ribs broken and lungs collapsed.

Dimond’s entire chest cavity was shattered, his neck, back and collarbone near irreparable. The next three weeks of Ted’s life passed inside an inundated coma on a ventilator.

Two weeks after the accident, he regained consciousness and recalled how the immediate experience of the truck’s force was not that of pain. It was only after, as he drowned in his car from scorched lungs, that torture beset.

If not for a lifetime of vigorous athleticism and determination, Ted may never have walked again. But his body was as able as his imagination, and thus recovery served him well.

Several months of rest and physical training followed. It was impossible to play tennis, but like most, Dimond needed a stable flow of income. Nearly losing his life caused an immense transition into the life of motion he strived to portray in his paintings and novel techniques – such as his unique style of layering oil paints on canvas – emerged from his inventiveness as an artist.

In recovery, Dimond returned to the canvas with no capable body himself, yet was able to contrive movement through his art. He produced paintings with efficiency and the stability of mind found in having nowhere to run. Still, Dimond visualized the player, the light, the court and passion of it all.

“What I do is oil paint on canvas, but I invented a method where I paint between multiple layers of a clear canvas. It’s a polymer. I call it a clear canvas that’s stretched over the canvas. And each painting has multiple layers of the clear canvas. So every painting has three or four layers. It adds an extra dimension to the work that helps to abstract it and gives it almost that 3d effect because of the multi layering.” said Dimond.

Dimond began exhibiting his work with the muster of an inflamed artist. All his time now reserved for painting, he improved rapidly. Life granted anew. Working with champions like the Williams sisters, Federer, Nadal, Murray, Medvedev, Djokjavik and dozens of rising stars, including Casper Ruud and Jasmine Paolini, today Ted humbly emerges among the greats.

“I’m trying to capture the player and their stroke but also an iconic moment in their career. And they often will look at it and say, ‘oh, I know exactly what tournament that was from.’ It brings it alive and keeps the legacy of the player” said Dimond.

He reimagined the extent of his passion and made it into a purpose.

At Sportime and the John McEnroe Academy, Dimond’s artwork fixtured the campus halls. His friends saw in him a balanced individual with excellent creativity and determination.

On Aug. 24-25 at 6 p.m., Dimond presented ‘The Art of Tennis: U.S. Open Edition’ at Detour Gallery on 545 West 23rd Street in New York City, where attending parties met the top ATP and WTA players depicted in his paintings.

“I’m compelled to create a body of work that represents events, players and sports and the history of sports and great moments because these moments inspire and show us that the impossible is actually possible and can carry over into our everyday life,” said Dimond. “I should have died, right? But I survived, and not only did I survive, but now I’m thriving and living the life that I really wanted to live before my accident. And so the impossible is achievable. And when we watch these athletes, that’s the miracle of sports.”