0 comments by Matt Zemek on 8/11/2014
A weekend in Canada, a change of sceneWas the most I bargained forAnd then I discovered you, and in your eyesI found the love that I couldn’t ignore. — Canadian Sunset, 1956 * Norman Gimbel, the lyricist for a song that’s almost 60 years old, knew what a weekend in Canada could do for the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 7/5/2014
One of the most influential figures in the history of modern tennis, Billie Jean King, has uttered one of the most succinctly profound truths about competitive athletics: “Pressure is a privilege.” If you’re feeling the butterflies that accompany a Wimbledon singles final or any other championship match, you’re enduring the pressure every tennis player wants […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 7/2/2014
Novak Djokovic, pictured above, is the odd man out in Friday’s Wimbledon gentlemen’s singles semifinals. At age 27, Djokovic is neither the old man Roger Federer is, nor is he part of the “young gun” generation led by Grigor Dimitrov and Milos Raonic. For the most part, Wednesday’s quarterfinals at Wimbledon — which followed victories […]
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 […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/8/2014
Major-tournament finals are played on the same tennis rectangles used for first-round matches and fourth-round matches, but they advance the story of tennis in ways the preliminaries rarely if ever do. When a 13-time major champion takes on a man who has made nine of the past 12 major finals (not including the 2013 Roland […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/7/2014
Sports are often cruel and contradictory. They frequently force the human person to do that which is so utterly essential in matters far more important than playing a game: Hold competing, counterintuitive, coexisting truths in tension with each other. Walking in the present-moment reality of complexity, ambiguity, pressure, and conflict — this is what the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/6/2014
We told you. We told you in our Roland Garros viewer’s guide nearly two weeks ago: The Eastern time zone was the only time zone that could reasonably expect to see the second French Open men’s singles semifinal live on NBC. This was a possibility for the Central time zone, yes, but never a certainty. […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/26/2014
In an attempt to describe the experience of playing left field at Yankee Stadium during the World Series and its October afternoons, Yogi Berra said, “It gets late early out there.” For Stanislas Wawrinka, this was no October afternoon, but a late May evening in Paris during the longest days of the year. It was […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/25/2014
American fans will tell you that tennis is treated much more poorly on U.S. television than other major sports, including and especially golf, the other main solo-athlete sport in this country. What are the moments (not industry realities, but live on-air occurrences) that have stayed in the minds of American tennis viewers? 5 – THE […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/23/2014
The Roland Garros men’s draw is out. Here’s the top quarter of the draw, featuring Rafael Nadal. Click on the other three quarters of the draw to pop them up on your computer. Here are five initial impressions of the draw. This year, the draw is newsworthy precisely because… well… no fan base of a […]
Sticking with a first-round Roger Federer blowout (6-1, 6-1, 6-3) while other, more compelling matches are going on? That’s the kind of superstar treatment major-tournament tennis does NOT need on TV — not during week one of a two-week event.
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/19/2014
When tennis tournaments are previewed, a “B.C. and A.D.” time-split exists: before the draw, and after the draw. The Friday announcement of the Roland Garros bracket will bring forth its own questions, but here are five players that will carry their own question marks to Paris, regardless of where they fall in this 128-player event: […]
