0 comments by Matt Zemek on 8/27/2015
The U.S. Open men’s draw is out. Here’s your bracket sheet. * See the cover image above? That’s the new look this year for Arthur Ashe Stadium. The roof which will cover the court in future years is not in place, but the outer portion of the structure has been erected. This points to the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/26/2015
The gentlemen’s singles draw for Wimbledon 2015 has been released, with seeded players in white: Here are the items of foremost importance after the revelation of the brackets: The biggest question in the men’s draw, in terms of pointing the path to the eventual champion, was whether Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer (the top two […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/1/2015
Every tournament takes on a life of its own, in any sport. Some tournaments become interesting from the very start and stay that way. Others start brightly but then slow down and descend into dullsville, with a predictable forced-march of a denouement giving fans and pundits very little to chew on. Still other tournaments gain […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/22/2015
The men’s draw for the 2015 French Open has been announced. A one-word summary of the draw: KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! The doomsday scenario arrived for legions of Spaniards and Serbs on Friday in Paris. Rafael Nadal, seeded sixth at this tournament due to his struggles over the past few months, was slotted to play Novak Djokovic, the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/21/2015
In the Southwestern United States, Cox Communications has been running a series of commercials for a number of years. The point is rather simple: Cox guarantees its products in ways that competitors are prohibited from making certain statements: This is what a lot of tennis journalists and commentators (though not all of them) are doing […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 1/29/2015
It’s how major titles are won. It’s how high-level success is built and sustained. It’s how a lofty place in a sport’s pantheon is established. Backing up results — not just being good on one day, but the next day, and the day after that — separates the hot player on a feel-good run from […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 11/17/2014
In reviewing a full year of men’s tennis, there’s no need to cover new ground — it’s been covered. You know the major stories. The time spent looking back at 2014 on the ATP World Tour is best used in the service of perspective and, in spots, appreciation for what’s happened since early January. The […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 11/16/2014
The ATP’s season-ending championship (before the International Tennis Federation puts the capper on the tennis year with the Davis Cup Final) is called the World Tour Finals. The acronym for the event, as you can plainly see, is WTF. This year in London, “WTF” was the universal reaction to the showcase singles tournament held in […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 11/2/2014
The BNP Paribas Masters — informally known as “Bercy,” distinguishing this Parisian event from the major championship held at Roland Garros every spring — represent the last stop on the road to London, the site of the ATP World Tour Finals. With 1,000 points being awarded to the winner and stacks of points in play […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 10/12/2014
It’s a common occurrence in sports: During a tournament, a season, a series, any kind of competition, an elite team or athlete gets away with a bad day at the office or a frustrating series of events, barely scraping through to live another day. Given a reprieve, that athlete or team regains form and focus, […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 9/6/2014
We kept waiting. We, the global community of tennis reporters, bloggers and fans alike, kept waiting for the moment when Novak Djokovic — tired, listless, dragging, generally lacking answers — would do what he’s done dozens upon dozens of times in the past, including and especially in the U.S. Open men’s singles semifinals. In the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 8/21/2014
Bracketed tournaments — in basketball, soccer, tennis, water polo, and anything else under the sun — always elicit certain kinds of conversations when the brackets are first revealed. Some people are bracket zealots, in that they think the draws mean everything. Other people, tired of the bracket zealots, think that draws mean absolutely nothing, or […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 8/18/2014
We’ve seen two utterly fascinating weeks of North American hardcourt tennis since the world’s best (minus Rafael Nadal, Juan Martin del Potro, and Li Na, among others) came to Canada in early August. Tour action continues this week in New Haven (Connecticut) and Winston-Salem (North Carolina). Moreover, a few of the big names on the WTA […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/26/2014
To the uneducated observer, tennis is a simple sport — just whack the ball and keep it within the painted white lines. Thock! Thock! Thock! Thock! The sport is easily pigeonholed as a genteel pursuit in which fans seated on the sides of a stadium turn their heads — left, right, left, right — as […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/20/2014
The Wimbledon men’s singles draw is out. Click on each quarter of the draw to scan the full 128-player field. * If there’s a single theme which looms over the 2014 Wimbledon men’s tournament, it is that the first week can no longer be seen as an easy, breezy prelude to the second week. This statement […]
