0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/10/2015
(NOTE: A story on Novak Djokovic’s 2015 season was originally posted here after Mr. Djokovic won the 2015 ATP World Tour Finals in late November, days before the Davis Cup. It was accidentally deleted and unable to be retrieved. It was not scrubbed or purposefully removed. Life just happened. What follows is therefore not a […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 9/12/2015
Serena Williams did not achieve the calendar Grand Slam in 2015. She was denied by Roberta Vinci on Friday at the U.S. Open, leaving her with a major-tournament record of “only” 26-1 this year. Serena, of course, did win the “Serena Slam,” referring to her ability to win all four major tournaments in succession. She […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 8/28/2015
The Super Saturday format used at the United States Open tennis championships was officially retired in 2013. That year’s tournament marked the end of the United States Tennis Association’s decision (in partnership with CBS television) to put two men’s semifinals and the women’s final on the same order of play. Yet, in reality, the possibilities […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 7/11/2015
Purely in a chronological sense, Serena Williams stands in the autumn of her career. If her career could be likened to a 12-month calendar year, she’s in late September as opposed to early April. More years are behind her than in front of her as a transcendent tennis player. Her first major title came 16 […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 7/9/2015
As a Spanish woman, Garbine Muguruza, prepares for a Wimbledon singles final on Saturday, the pages of tennis history turn. Back in 1974, 39-year-old Ken Rosewall contested the Wimbledon men’s final against 21-year-old Jimmy Connors. That’s a college freshman’s lifespan between the two competitors. In the annals of Wimbledon women’s finals with large age disparities […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/21/2015
It is a basic reality of any bracketed tournament: It’s generally best to wait until the draw comes out to make more finite assessments of what’s at stake, who has a profound opportunity to create a lifelong memory, and which performers are uniquely vulnerable. With this in mind, we don’t yet need to delve into […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 1/31/2015
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” The above quote is an inscription on the James Farley Post Office in New York City, a proclamation of the mindset postal carriers must bring to their work. If Serena Jameka Williams had been […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 8/20/2014
Attacking The Net did it for Roland Garros. ATN did it for Wimbledon. Now, ATN offers a list of the 10 most significant U.S. Open women’s matches of all time. Reminder number one: This is not a list of the best matches, only the most significant. Reminder number two: See reminder number one. Reminder number […]
Photo courtesy of the Associated Press
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 7/5/2014
For the casual sports fan — in America but also in other nations — the final weekend of Wimbledon is much like Christmas or Easter Mass for the fallen-away or secularized Catholic. You watch. You go. It’s an event. You might even catch a moment of inspiration and walk out of the cathedral with a new […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/16/2014
The All-England Club is where history lives and breathes more fully in tennis. So many of the sport’s important dramas and contentious rivalries have come alive in its most tradition-soaked setting. Keeping in mind that this list is not a measurement of pure quality or drama, here are the 10 most significant women’s matches of […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/21/2014
We’ll look at this topic from the men’s side tomorrow, but we’ll get started with the history of women’s tennis at Roland Garros. These are not the five best women’s matches in Roland Garros history, though some of the entries on the list would certainly qualify as such. There’s something different about the most significant […]
