Like so many tennis players and fans, I was saddened when Florida Tennis magazine arrived, and on the front cover, I saw “In Loving Memory of Jim Martz." Jim, the founder and editor of this elite publication, died on December 30th at age 80.

I met Jim for the first time in the early 1980s at the Orange Bowl, Sunshine Cup, and Continental Cup, international junior events he was then covering, as the tennis beat writer for the Miami Herald and I was covering for foreign tennis magazines. His love of tennis, the writing profession, and Florida shined warmly and brightly, much like the Florida sun.

“I was blessed,” Jim wrote in an article Florida Tennis excerpted, because “I was covering a sport [in the early 1970s] that was exploding at the amateur and pro level.” The truth is, tennis, and especially Florida tennis, was just as blessed because Jim accelerated that explosion that produced millions of new players and fans.

His knowledgeable, enthusiastic, fair-minded coverage of our sport in the Miami Herald for 18 years and then for 31 more years as the publisher and editor of Florida Tennis made Jim one of the most impactful journalists in American tennis history.

Jim and I became friends, and we regularly stayed in touch over the years. We discussed regional, national, and international tennis issues and shared our views on how we could improve the sport and tennis journalism as members and later officers in the United States Tennis Writers’ Association and as concerned observers when other regional tennis publications (with rare exceptions) declined and died. We co-wrote a piece about their plight and the great importance of regional tennis magazines that appeared in Racquet Sports Industry magazine. 

The poignant appreciation pieces in the recent issue of Florida Tennis by Cameron Mofid (“Remembering My Friend, Jim”) and Adam Ross (“Recollections of My Friend and Mentor, Jim Martz”) added greatly to my knowledge of and admiration for Jim, the man. 

Florida Tennis has flourished under Jim Martz and his talented team since 1992, and I’m sure this indispensable, authoritative magazine -- with the expert, experienced Matt Pressman as its new publisher -- will flourish for decades to come.