I don’t recognise the setter’s pseudonym so it is either a new contributor or a rebranding of an existing one for the purpose of this tennis related puzzle.
Nothing particularly difficult today though I was held up briefly by having initially entered ‘tennis court’ at 9d (for a change I decided to tackle the clues in reverse order so didn’t have any checked letters and hadn’t seen 5d).
Across
7 EMERSON REME (engineers) reversed SON (lad) – Roy Emerson, Australian tennis player from the ’60s
8 SOLOMON SOLO (alone) MON (early in the week)
10 BASELINE BASE (camp) LINE (actor’s words)
11 DEFEND DEF[ected] END (finish, homophone of Finnish)
12 BLEAT L (a number) in BEAT (thrash)
13 STEEL BAND homophone of ‘steal’ (nick) ‘banned’ (can’t join the group)
16 DOUBLE-FAULT cd
19 SENSATION *(AS TENSION)
20 SPARK SPAR (pole) K[rakow]
22 INDIAN *(DIN) IAN (a Scotsman)
24 REPORTER RE (about) PORTER (beer)
25 ATHLETE *(THE LATE)
26 ALSO RAN hidden in ‘terminAL SO RANk’
Down
1 AMIABLE AM I ABLE (can I)
2 FREEMASONS *(RANSOM FEES)
3 TOPIC OP (operation) in TIC (nervous twitch)
4 GOLD MEDAL cd
5 ROOF cd
6 JOINING IN IN (double in) in JOG (trot)
9 CENTRE COURT cd
14 BALL PERSON cd
15 OBSTINATE *(SOB) TIN (metal) ATE (consumed)
17 KEYNOTE KEY (a minor, for example) NOTE (write)
18 ARSENAL AR[e] LANES (streets) reversed
21 APPLE A PP (very quiet) LE (the, in French)
23 IDLE hidden in ‘morbID LEthargy’
I think the Courtier Puzzle has become an annual event. Certainly it appeared last year.
Indeed it did, on the 24th June 2008 to be precise. Could it be the FT Crossword editor? Just a thought.