0 comments by Matt Zemek on 9/6/2014
We kept waiting. We, the global community of tennis reporters, bloggers and fans alike, kept waiting for the moment when Novak Djokovic — tired, listless, dragging, generally lacking answers — would do what he’s done dozens upon dozens of times in the past, including and especially in the U.S. Open men’s singles semifinals. In the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 9/5/2014
One match didn’t even last two whole sets. The other match felt over well before two whole sets had been completed, and although it tightened up, it ended without an abundance of suspense. Yet, the U.S. Open women’s semifinals on Friday afternoon at the Billie Jean King USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, N.Y., […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Every single human person brings his or her perspective to an event he or she covers. It is true that when a person’s job is to provide a straightforward match recap (which is not what this or any Bloguin site is meant to do — not centrally, anyway), there’s less room for commentary, so in […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 9/4/2014
One of the subtle nuances of sportswriting — a nuance that is hard to grasp from the outside, if you’re not used to the process of churning out content after watching yet another sporting event — is that wins and losses are not created equal. Some clusters of successes and failures can be thrown into […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 9/3/2014
Tuesday — not counting the 2:26 a.m. finish from Monday’s order of play between Kei Nishikori and Milos Raonic, written about here by Juan Jose Vallejo for Rolling Stone magazine — was not an exciting day at the U.S. Open. Three men’s fourth-round matches were decided in straight sets. The fourth match was a drawn-out […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 9/2/2014
On Labor Day at the 2014 United States Open, the men finally decided to join the women in producing compelling tennis. Without any weather delays, the night session at Arthur Ashe Stadium lasted until 2:26 a.m., tying the mark for the latest night-session close in tournament history and making Todd Martin jealous. This night session started […]
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.
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 9/1/2014
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, […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 8/31/2014
Sometimes, it’s hard to tell whether the women or the men are carrying the run of play at a major tennis tournament. Not this time. Not in New York. Not at the 2014 United States Open. The women have ruled the Big Apple in the first of the two weeks at the Billie Jean King […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 8/28/2014
The biggest story from day three of the U.S. Open emerged in the women’s singles event, as Agnieszka Radwanska, the No. 4 seed in the draw and a player given a more-than-reasonable path to the semifinals, crashed out in the second round to Peng Shuai. The relatively meek 3-and-4 loss won’t eliminate the satisfaction Radwanska […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 8/27/2014
Who knew that the big story of day two at the United States Open — which was not as boisterous and complicated as day one, but still provided some teasing, twisting matches such as Victoria Azarenka’s three-set escape against Misaki Doi — would come from a player who would refuse prize money in order to […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 8/21/2014
Bracketed tournaments — in basketball, soccer, tennis, water polo, and anything else under the sun — always elicit certain kinds of conversations when the brackets are first revealed. Some people are bracket zealots, in that they think the draws mean everything. Other people, tired of the bracket zealots, think that draws mean absolutely nothing, or […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
You saw this same list (shortened) before the French Open. You saw it before Wimbledon. Now, you get to see it before the U.S. Open. Just so I don’t get any hate mail or hate tweets, this is not a list of the greatest U.S. Open matches of all time. Significance and greatness certainly intersect […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 8/20/2014
Attacking The Net did it for Roland Garros. ATN did it for Wimbledon. Now, ATN offers a list of the 10 most significant U.S. Open women’s matches of all time. Reminder number one: This is not a list of the best matches, only the most significant. Reminder number two: See reminder number one. Reminder number […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 5/26/2014
Tennis coverage on American television was so much worse several years ago. The rise of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal created ample demand for the product itself, but the quality of the product didn’t always meet the standards of tennis fans new and old. In recent years, however, a number of problems have been solved. […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Tennis has endured some rough live TV moments on American airwaves in recent years, but those embarrassments are exceeded in severity by the more structural problems tennis faces on the tube in this country. Five lingering deficiencies – pertaining to industry realities, not individual match broadcasts – continue to prevent this sport from being presented […]
