0 comments by Matt Zemek on 7/3/2014
In tennis, the hammer — the weapon that can take the racquet out of an opponent’s hand — is the serve. In the face of a hammer, it is up to the opponent to show enough steel to get serves back and create attritional baseline tennis with extended rallies that wear down the quick-strike artist. […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/20/2014
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 […]
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 6/7/2014
Maria Sharapova’s 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-4 win over Simona Halep in the Roland Garros women’s singles final on Saturday was, before and beyond anything else, a magnificent three-hour feast of generally great tennis, spiced with maximum drama and enough plot twists to fill a 400-page novel. Sharapova’s victory showcased not just everything that’s great about […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 6/6/2014
Want to start a good, old-fashioned war among tennis fans? Label players. Ball-basher. A defensive wall. A pusher. Retriever. Servebot (aka, John Isner or Milos Raonic). Fighter. Shotmaker. Showman. The above terms have many connotations, some of them good, most of them bad, especially “ball-basher,” “wall,” “pusher,” and “servebot.” Tennis players come in many forms, […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/31/2014
It’s inside baseball for the tennis diehard, but for the casual American sports fan, the reference needs explaining: There are two “Vic-es” (or “vitches,” take your pick) in women’s tennis. Who (or what) are they? They’re the two best WTA players from Serbia: Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic. One of them is still alive at […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/23/2014
The Roland Garros women’s draw is out. You can look at it here. If you’re new to the art of bracket-scanning, realize that you are looking at one quarter of the draw and can click on the other three quarters to bring them up on your screen. Take your time – the first ball won’t be struck […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/19/2014
This is a pre-draw assessment of the uncertainties that will greet the 2014 Roland Garros women’s tournament. When the draw is announced this Friday morning in Paris, the process of “tennis bracketology” can begin. For now, though, one can only look at a few players irrespective of the draw and ask questions about what they’ll […]
