What Will the New Decade Hold for American Tennis?
From Pete Sampras’ win in the 1990 U.S. Open to Andre Agassi’s win in New York in 1999, American men won 21 of the 40 Grand Slams of the decade. The following ten-year stretch started strong, with Sampras, Aggasi and Andy Roddick combining for six more through September 2003. However, since Roddick’s U.S. Open win seven years ago, only Andy has come [...]
James! — Blake Falls in Yet Another Heartbreaker
I feel like I’ve been watching James Blake lose tough matches all of my life, from the five-set defeat to Lleyton Hewitt in the 2001 U.S. Open to the brilliant fifth-set tiebreaker agaisnt Agassi in 2005 to his defeat to Fernando Gonzalez in Bejing that cost him an 2008 Olympic medal to early this morning in [...]
2009: The American Tennis Year That Almost Was
There’s a Flatlanders song in which Joe Ely sings: “I thought I had died and gone to heaven/in fact, I had lived and gone to hell.” That might describe the five days that passed for fans of American men’s tennis from the point where Andy Roddick almost took a two-sets-to-none lead over Roger Federer in [...]
The Alliteration of Jack Kramer — The Racket and the Man
My very first tennis racket circa 1971 or so when I was about four years old was a Wilson Jack Kramer with the handle sawed off to make it short enough for me to use. I can vividly remember the delicious feel of the Kramer sweet spot when a shot hit right in the center and the wood [...]
“How I Met Your Mother” The Cause of a Rushed Ceremony
Dick Enberg tried to cut off Juan Martin Del Potro from speaking in Spanish so America could rush to watch one of two episodes of “How I Met Your Mother.” Way to go, CBS!
“Vamos, Del Po!”
“Vamos, Del Po!” says Bill Tilden’s ghost. “My record of six in a row will live for 100 years and more.”
What’s More Important to CBS: The U.S. Open or “How I Met Your Mother”?
It’s two episodes of “How I Met Your Mother,” of course, set for 8 p.m. ET The U.S. Open men’s final will be telecast at 4 p.m. ET today, at a time that many like me with a job, can’t see it.
The networks in this country should go ahead and cede the tennis coverage to [...]
Bill Tilden’s Record of Six Wins on the Shoulder of a Tall Argentine
Roger Federer broke Pete Sampras’ record of 14 grand slams this summer, but today has the chance to tie a major American tennis landmark if he wins his sixth straight U.S. Open. William T. “Big Bill” Tilden II won the U.S. Championships six straight years, three times at Forest Hills in 1920, ‘24 and ‘25, [...]
U.S. Open Ratings Soar — Could John McEnroe Get Another Talk Show?
ESPN is touting excellent ratings, about 2.3 million viewers last night. That’s good for tennis, proving that the sport is strong enough to overcome Mary Carrillo’s idiocy and the constant babble of the McEnroe brothers.
John basically says two things about players during matches — they need to come to net more, and they need to show [...]
Another New Low for American Men’s Tennis at the U.S. Open
Last year’s failure of any U.S. player to reach the men’s semifinal marked the first time in the history of the tournament that no American reached the semis for two years in a row. This year makes it three. Even worse, no American has reached the quarterfinals for the first time in the long U.S. Open/Championships history, dating [...]
