0 comments by Joe Webb on 2/14/2015
Wimbledon is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely considered to be the biggest and the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three majors being the Australian Open, French Open and US Open. Wimbledon […]
0 comments by Joe Webb on 2/13/2015
One tournament easily comes to mind when discussing prestige and manicured tennis lawns. If you need hints after that, we can discuss the all white attire. If you don’t know what we’re talking about at this point, you cannot call yourself a tennis fan. Wimbledon, the oldest tennis tournament in the world, is back June […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 2/3/2015
The Australian Open is done, and so is daily coverage of tennis at Attacking The Net… for now. This is still a major-tournament-focused blog. We hope to branch out in the coming months, but at the present time, our resources only enable us to cover the majors in full. We will provide Sunday or Monday […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 2/1/2015
On Friday, our assessment of Novak Djokovic’s semifinal victory over Stan Wawrinka at the 2015 Australian Open contained the central thesis that Wawrinka lost the match more than Djokovic won it. That happens in sports. Sometimes, you win because you excel. Other times, you win because your opponent falters. Sometimes, you lose because you stunk […]
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 1/30/2015
Anyone who appreciates tennis knows there are many ways to win a match. You can play great offense or great defense. You can play first-strike tennis or grind from the baseline. You can play with pace or take pace away. You can hit hard and flat or use lots of topspin or slice. All the […]
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
It is easy to focus on certain details, certain individuals, certain contexts, to the exclusion of others. Thursday afternoon in Melbourne, Australia, it was so easy to look at Madison Keys — all of 19 years old — crushing a tennis ball with a smooth and relaxed stroke, and conclude that “the future of women’s […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 1/28/2015
At the 2015 Australian Open, the quarterfinals went quickly, with seven of eight matches (four for both genders) concluding in straight sets. Boring, right? Well, not exactly. Not exclusively. Not even close. Yes, on Tuesday, the women’s quarterfinals fell flat when Simona Halep and then Eugenie Bouchard both had “one of those days” at the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 1/27/2015
It is one of the most famous quotes in tennis history. After beating Jimmy Connors in 1980, Vitas Gerulaitis — who had lost his previous 16 matches to Jimbo — said, “Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row!” Never mind the fact that Bjorn Borg had won 20 matches against Gerulaitis without a […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 1/26/2015
Monday in Melbourne, the host nation for the Australian Open celebrated its foremost national holiday. In the past, Australia Day has marked the day during the Australian Open when play would be interrupted during the night session for a fireworks display. This has been the source of great controversy and angst, given the reality that […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 1/25/2015
Sports psychologists will tell their clients — or any athletes they might have the chance to speak to in a professional context — that anger must be channeled into more positive emotions. Anger cannot consume. It cannot be nurtured or protected or perpetuated. It will eventually swallow up concentration, devour energy, and hijack the peak […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 1/23/2015
Andreas Seppi, one of those players who constantly flies below the radar at major tournaments, seemed consigned to a career in which he’d never be able to remember a match on tennis’s biggest stage for all the right reasons. Seppi took a two-set lead on Novak Djokovic at Roland Garros in 2012, but he couldn’t […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 1/22/2015
The Australian Open isn’t just the first major tournament (the first important event) of the tennis calendar. It is the one major tournament which exists far removed from the other three. The Australian Open really does exist on an island, an appropriate reality for a country which is in fact geographically isolated from other continents. […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 1/21/2015
If a single theme can be gleaned from the first three days of the 2015 Australian Open, it is this: For anyone who has played professional tennis for an appreciable length of time, the cauldron of major-tournament pressure reveals the essence of that player — not always in a career-long context, but often enough to […]
