Disliked a French tree hiding middle of court (9)
I believe the answer is:
unpopular
'disliked' is the definition.
(similar in meaning)
'a french tree hiding middle of court' is the wordplay.
'a french' becomes 'un' ('a' in French).
'tree' becomes 'poplar' (poplar tree is a kind of tree).
'hiding' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'middle of' says to take the centre.
The central letter of 'court' is 'u'.
'poplar' going around 'u' is 'popular'.
'un'+'popular'='UNPOPULAR'
(Other definitions for unpopular that I've seen before include "not favoured" , "Not generally liked or enjoyed" , "unlike 27 [IN FAVOUR]" , "Lacking appeal" , "Generally disliked by people" .)