Game, set, lunch: a luxe new way to watch the tennis in Joburg

There is a particular pleasure to watching a tennis match with other people. The collective groan when a favourite double-faults. The sounds of a long rally and crowd clapping lulling everyone into a momentary calm. The acquaintance who suddenly becomes your closest confidante because you are both willing a player to break serve.

This weekend, a new Joburg event is attempting to bottle that feeling, while adding excellent food, a top-end venue and a touch of Parisian chic (albeit the winter kind).

The Deuce Experience will screen the Roland-Garros women’s and men’s singles finals at Luxx Venue in Sandhurst on June 6 and 7, before returning for the Wimbledon finals at the Wits Club on July 11 and 12. Critically, this is not a sports-bar situation. Think generous hospitality, a large-format broadcast via partner SuperSport, live entertainment, good company and the chance to make an afternoon of it.

The idea came to founder Connie Motshumi during those tense, fragmented conversations that tennis fans tend to have while watching matches from their own homes. She would be messaging one friend, then another: “Did you see that?” “I’m switching off.” “I can’t take it.” “How did she miss that shot?”

“We realised that it would have been so much fun if we were together in the same place watching,” she says. “There was a need for like-minded professionals and friends to come together and share the frustration of sport, because that’s what it does. It gives you the anxiety, and then excitement in spades.”

Grand Slam culture, South Africa-style

Motshumi is tennis-mad, yes, but she is no enthusiastic amateur when it comes to the machinery around sport. She spent more than 25 years working across strategic communications, stakeholder relations, corporate partnerships and reputation management, including a long run as head of stakeholder relations and communications at the Premier Soccer League. She has also served as chair of the South African Red Cross Society.

With Deuce, she is aiming to create a polished local version of the culture that surrounds the major Grand Slams. South Africans may watch tennis, but we do not yet congregate around it in the way we do for rugby, cricket or football. Motshumi thinks there is room for something more intimate and elevated: less mass fan park, more lovely winter afternoon out with a small but great crowd.

The numbers suggest that the audience is there. According to research from Nielsen Sports SA, interest in tennis in South Africa increased 8% over the three years to 2025, while more than 3-million people watched some form of tennis broadcast on SuperSport channels last year.

Roland-Garros and Wimbledon are particularly well suited to local audiences, not least because they screen at civilised hours. The Australian Open, fabulous as it is, requires a rather more committed relationship with one’s alarm clock.

A very fine afternoon

At Luxx, guests will arrive for food and drinks by local catering legend Vicky Crease, before settling in for the match, with lunch and snacks served through the afternoon. Quoin Rock is the official wine partner, while Chai Society and Copa Habana will handle tea and coffee. There will be live entertainment before the tennis and a DJ afterwards.

It thrilled me to hear that there’s going to be an old-school coat check (a small but pleasing detail in a Joburg winter). Motshumi says some guests have asked whether they should arrive in tennis kit. Her answer is firm: “I keep reminding people: you’re not players. You’re not on the court.” So dress-wise think Roland Garros crowd, just in 15-degree weather.

Everyone attending Deuce is a VIP. There are no irritating wristband hierarchies and no performative social media influencer spirit. Tickets cost R5,500 per person per day or R10,000 for the weekend, and the point is to create an all-access experience that is refined from beginning to end.

Motshumi is already thinking beyond a good lunch and a thrilling final. Her own favourites have been knocked out of the men’s competition, but she’s still rooting for Coco Gauff in the women’s tournament. She concedes that half the excitement this year is that there have been so many upsets in the competition.

Come the weekend, get your good togs on and join us as two sets of brilliant players battle it out on the red clay of Paris, surrounded by people who also believe that a weekend spent eating and drinking well and shouting at a screen can be a rather excellent use of one’s time.

Currency is a media partner of the Deuce Experience. Tickets are available from Howler.

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_{Top image: Coco Gauff at Roland Garros Grand Slam Tournament on May 30 2026, in Paris, France. Picture: Robert Szaniszlo/NurPhoto via Getty Images.}