Robin Soderling has been deep into the zone for a week now, overcoming the heretofore unbeatable on clay Rafael Nadal, and yesterday coming back from the near dead to beat Fernando Gonzalez.  The surly Swede next plays legend-bound Roger Federer, a player who has been in a zone all his own for five years, reaching 20 [...]

Once again one of the greatest days annually in the sport of tennis is being carried in America on tape delay. If you are watching Soderling-Gonzalez on NBC right now (11:24 a.m. ET) the match is already over, but on TV you are led to believe it is near the end of the third set.  [...]

Roger Federer, pictured here after the Australian Open final, is clearly not, but Rafael Nadal, talking with the last man to complete a Grand Slam, Rod Laver, is poised to win all four majors this year.  Nadal has already won in Melbourne, is a heavy favorite to win the French, proved last year that he can win [...]

The new tennis book A Terrible Splendor was favorably reviewed by Jay Jennings in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal, and sounds like it is definitely worth checking out for those interested in tennis and Davis Cup history.  Definitely worth a read is the marvelous literary tennis anthology Jennings put together in 1995 called Tennis and the Meaning [...]

            If you’ve spent any time around tennis courts populated by serious competitors, you’ve seen it happen:  A player misses a shot and lets loose with a hellacious yell, perhaps a stream of scandalous curses, and slings their racket, sometimes end over end, other times skidding along the hardcourt or clay, into the fence or [...]

    The ultimate year-end showdown of the best eight male tennis players in the world starts Sunday with the Masters Cup in Shanghai—make that the best players ranked two through nine.  World No. 1 Rafael Nadal pulled out due to injury and the need to rest before Spain travels to Argentina for the Davis Cup [...]

     Spain triumphed over the U.S. Davis Cup team last month in a historic Madrid bullring packed with more than 20,000 flag-waving fans — a Hemingwayesque scene that made for a fierce home-court advantage.
     The United States Tennis Association (USTA) needs to break out of its predictable Davis Cup hosting rut and also do something dramatic March 6-8 when Switzerland, and most likely Roger Federer, come calling in the first [...]

It seems harsh to say, but it is an indisputable fact: the current generation of American men has turned in the most disappointing collective singles performance in the long history of the nation’s marquee tennis tournament. Andy Roddick’s quarterfinal loss Thursday night marks the first time in the 127-year history of the U.S. Open (known [...]

There once was a time when the NCCA singles champion was invited to play in the U.S. Open, but those days are long gone, especially for international players.
Somdev Devvarman, the University of Virginia star who has won consecutive NCAA tennis singles championships the past two years, was denied both a wildcard and a bid to [...]

In the 1920s, Bill Tilden’s fame was on par with that of Babe Ruth and Bobby Jones. He won seven U.S. Nationals (now the U.S. Open), but today he is mostly forgotten. I went in search of his small Philadelphia grave, and wrote an essay about him that is appearing in the September/U.S. Open issue [...]