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 [...]

When I was young and watched Wimbledon in the seventies and early eighties, I knew Bud Collins as only the man in the unbelievably loud clothes with a garrulous and colorful broadcasting style to match. I remember John McEnroe derisively beginning an interview with him circa 1982 or so with a comment along the lines [...]

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. [...]

When Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal step onto the red clay of Court Phillippe Chatrier on Sunday, Federer’s claim to be the greatest of all time—the GOAT, as Peter Bodo calls it—hangs in the balance. Because while this debate is one that will never have a definitive answer, I believe a player can only claim [...]

The battle for the world’s number two ranking between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, and a fired-up Frenchman vying to claim his country’s first men’s singles title since Yannick Noah in 1983, will take to the red clay stage of the French Open on Friday. If Djokovic can beat Nadal, he will move into [...]

I sometimes poke fun at America’s top-ranked player here on my blog (see Travis Bickle’s haircut or Monte Carlo), but I must be honest about part of the motivation behind my occasional needling of Andy Roddick: It is envy — he is the son my mother never had.
He has been her favorite player since he [...]

I sometimes poke fun at America’s top-ranked player here on my blog (see Travis Bickle’s haircut or Monte Carlo), but I must be honest about part of the motivation behind my occasional needling of Andy Roddick: It is envy — he is the son my mother never had.
He has been her favorite player since he [...]

While the Romans rebuild the Italian Open stadium, this year’s feature matches will be played on the smaller Nicola Pietrangeli Court, the scenic arena of all-marble steps surrounded by Michelangelo-esque statues that Mussolini ordered built in 1928.
L. Jon Wertheim has an excellent piece about the court that once was called the Pallacorda in his [...]

While the Romans rebuild the Italian Open stadium, this year’s feature matches will be played on the smaller Nicola Pietrangeli Court, the scenic arena of all-marble steps surrounded by Michelangelo-esque statues that Mussolini ordered built in 1928.
L. Jon Wertheim has an excellent piece about the court that once was called the Pallacorda in his [...]

I don’t have much to say about the story of Andy Roddick’s mohawk other than: “Are you talking to me? I said, are you talking to me?” (Click headline to see the photos.)