Lola Marandel

France 🎾 Tennis Players

Lola Marandel is doing something quietly revolutionary in professional tennis — she's competing at a high level while also being completely herself online, building a fanbase that loves the athlete and the person in roughly equal measure. The French tennis player has been developing her game on the WTA circuit while simultaneously cultivating a social media presence that's made her one of the more recognizable young French athletes regardless of sport. In a tennis world that still sometimes treats personality as a distraction from performance, Marandel's willingness to be visible and engaging off the court makes her a more complete professional rather than a less focused one. France has always produced interesting tennis talent; Lola Marandel is a new kind of interesting. With 75 images in her library and a profile that keeps growing, she represents a generation of athletes who understand that the sport is the career but the brand is the infrastructure.