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Maria Sharapova: to the very end, a happy contradiction

To the very end of her illustrious career as a professional tennis player, Maria Sharapova remained a pleasing and positive puzzle, one the sports world had a hard time solving. Sharapova’s retirement on Monday, announced before her 29th birthday in April, offered one last revealing glimpse into an athlete who was easy to judge from […]

Seeds of discontent and the search for identity in tennis

A few weeks ago, the global tennis community left Canada dazed and exhausted after a ridiculously absurd yet entertaining week crammed with surprises and plot twists. One of the basic themes of that week, however — lurking beneath headline-grabbing events from the likes of Nick Kyrgios, Belinda Bencic, and Andy Murray — was that the […]

Aug 23, 2015; Cincinnati, OH, USA; Serena Williams (USA) holds the Rookwood Cup after defeating Simona Halep (not pictured) in the finals during the Western and Southern Open tennis tournament at the Linder Family Tennis Center. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

Federer and Serena Win Cincinnati, But There’s More To The Stories

Before telling you about tennis over the past few weeks in North America, take just two minutes to appreciate the site of Roger Federer’s and Serena Williams’s victories on Sunday afternoon. * Cincinnati, for the international readers in the crowd, is an American sports city starving for a professional sports success story. The Reds are […]

Serena’s still alive, Maria’s gone, and everything is possible in Paris

For the men at Roland Garros, the end of play on Monday evening marks the calm before the storm of four blockbuster quarterfinals. For the women competing for a major championship in Paris, everything is possible… despite what you might think about the hollowed-out nature of the bracket. In 2013, Serena Williams fended off Maria […]

Australian Open Affirmations: Nadal And Sharapova Do What They Do Best

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 […]

Australian Open Women’s Draw Analysis

The draws are out for the 2015 Australian Open. In both the women’s and men’s events, the first few days of the tournament offer the promise of a few main-event matches, which is not always something you get at a major. It can take time to stumble upon the kind of centerpiece which pushes other […]

WTA Finals: Serena Wins, Halep Takes Her Place, And Wozniacki Steals The Show

The Women’s Tennis Association moved its end-of-the-year showcase event from Istanbul to Singapore this year. The time difference put a lot of matches on American television in the middle of the night. The sport is bigger than one country or continent, and Li Na — who retired before the 2014 WTA Finals began — had […]

The Constant Star

The U.S. Open’s trophy presentation ceremonies are usually the tackiest in tennis, even worse than the Australian Open’s prolonged affairs. The U.S. Open ceremony becomes something of a game show, with the CBS emcee rattling off the prizes and money totals for the champion and runner-up. This time, though, the U.S. Open ended with an […]

When you beat Maria Sharapova in three sets, you’ve done something significant and rare in women’s tennis. When you do so at the U.S. Open and in nasty, punishing weather conditions, you’ve done something far more impressive. Wozniacki enjoyed a favorable draw in the quarterfinals and semifinals before running into Serena Williams in the final. However, Wozniacki’s win over Sharapova was the trial the Danish star had to endure, the hurdle she had to clear on the way to her second major final.

Out Of The Darkness

When an athlete drinks in one of the great moments of her career, it’s natural to want the perfect setting for such an occasion. However, at the very moment Caroline Wozniacki defeated Maria Sharapova on Sunday at the U.S. Open, dark storm clouds loomed not too far away. Those very clouds soon poured down rain, […]

Cincinnati ATP & WTA Recap: Steel Beneath The Velvet

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 […]

Photo courtesy of the Associated Press

55 Magnificent Minutes

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 […]

Wimbledon’s Weakness: Middle Sunday Madness

There’s so much about Wimbledon that’s right, more than the other three major tournaments and, for that matter, any other major sporting event in the world. No overt commercialism. Hushed, respectful crowds. A sense of reverence for the sport. An awareness of the importance of tradition. Clean, white clothing, free of loudness or attitude. A […]

Wet Day, Dry Well

The day was a wet one at Wimbledon, with rain persisting long enough to force all non-Centre Court matches to early-evening or nighttime conclusions. Some matches didn’t even finish, creating a backlog that will disrupt the second-week schedule at the All-England Club. (More will be said on that subset of problems in a separate piece […]

Wimbledon Women’s Draw Analysis

The Wimbledon ladies’ singles draw was announced Friday morning. Click on each quarter of the draw to see the full 128-player bracket, with 32 players in each quarter. What stands out in the WTA portion of the 2014 Wimbledon bracket? As is the case with Novak Djokovic’s quarter in the men’s draw, it is as […]

Roland Garros: The Top 5 Stories

The year’s clay-court major is over, but the memories from Paris are fresh and demand an overview. What were the biggest (though not always the best) headlines from the past two weeks of tennis on terre battue? Without further ado: 5 – IVANOVIC’S AGONY The upsets of Serena Williams and Li Na were notable, to […]

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