0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/6/2015
It’s all so deliciously historic, spiced with the flavor of recent tennis years at Roland Garros. Sunday in Paris, Novak Djokovic will play for a piece of immortality in the sport he has mastered so fully. The world No. 1 will get a chance to complete the career Grand Slam because he typically steeled himself […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/3/2015
The toughest thing to do in tennis is to win the calendar Grand Slam, of course, so if you wanted to be really nitpicky about this conversation, fine — what’s about to be said is not 100 percent accurate. However, for all intents and purposes, the toughest thing to do in men’s tennis over the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/2/2015
When any high-profile person fails on a public stage, people talk. A palpable buzz rolls through the community most affected by the episode. Sometimes that community is a small neighborhood rocked by an unexpected scandal from a supposed pillar of the town council, revealed to have led a double life. Sometimes that community is as big […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/26/2015
No earth-shaking upsets occurred in the first round of the 2015 French Open, but on Tuesday, two players who left a noticeably positive imprint on the 2014 tennis season were quickly dismissed from Paris. In the men’s tournament, Grigor Dimitrov was swept out of France by Jack Sock, 7-6 (7), 6-2, 6-3, while in the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/11/2015
Every year (since 2011), the chatter builds before the French Open: This is Novak Djokovic’s year. This is the year Rafael Nadal fails to win Roland Garros. Every year, Nadal gathers himself and his resources — no matter how many setbacks he suffers in the month of May — and conquers Paris in early June. […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/10/2015
The 2015 Mutua Madrid Open — like the ones before it — is a point of intrigue and fascination, because this tournament has an inconsistent relationship with Roland Garros, the crown jewel of the clay-court season each year. On one hand, Madrid’s higher elevation lends itself to a more aggressive style, one in which quality […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 4/5/2015
The Miami Open — formerly the Sony Open and casually known as just “Miami” or “Key Biscayne” — has long been a sixth finger or toe on the tennis tour. This is not a commentary in any way on the spicy and alluring Miami area or the many people who work hard to put together […]
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 6/29/2014
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 […]
