  We investigate tensor mesons as quark-antiquark bound states in a fully
covariant Bethe-Salpeter equation. As a first concrete step we report results
for masses of J^{PC}=2^{++} mesons from the chiral limit up to bottomonium and
sketch a comparison to experimental data. All covariant structures of the
fermion-antifermion system are taken into account and their roles and
importance discussed in two different bases. We also present the general
construction principle for covariant Bethe-Salpeter amplitudes of mesons with
any spin and find eight covariant structures for any J>0.
