0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/17/2014
The following list is sure to raise some pointed questions and spirited disagreements, but it is based on the simple contention that a significant match and a great match aren’t one and the same thing. Many far greater and more memorable matches have been staged at Wimbledon, but only a few other men’s matches can […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/9/2014
The four major tournaments do a lot to redefine the sport of tennis. Yes, these two-week events affirm many of pre-existing truths — Rafael Nadal’s a tolerably good tennis player on clay; Maria Sharapova is no longer a cow on ice when it comes to crushed red brick — but it’s always particularly fascinating to […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
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 […]
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 […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/22/2014
It’s an old trick when you’re doing a list of five, but this is an occasion in which a fifth-place tie really is needed to put six matches on the short list of the most significant encounters ever staged at France’s major tennis tournament. Go through this list. Just exactly which match doesn’t drip with […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/19/2014
“You can have Rome — I’ll take Paris.” It’s a statement the French would readily agree with, but it’s also something tennis players would agree with as well. Winning the ATP Masters 1000 stop or the WTA Premier 5 event in Rome is certainly a nice prize to have, but it doesn’t hold a candle […]
