You are browsing the archives of features.

It’s about time the USTA amps up the U.S. Open Series with a real tennis town — Hotlanta.  Good to see Atlanta joined by L.A., Washington and San Diego on there too.  One day we’ll quit making the ATP tour pass through Indianapolis and Cincinnati, towns known more for farm shows and fast cars than [...]

Last year, two American juniors bound for the pro circuit — Devin Britton and Jordan Cox — played an epic three-set semifinal in the boys singles.  Cox, then 17, won 6-3, 6-7 (5), 16-14, the final set lasting 83 minutes (which in the pre-Isner/Mahut days seemed liked a long time). Cox lost in the finals (pictured [...]

6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68.
Epic. Unbelievable.  Amazing.  Classy.  Gracious. 
Aces 112 to 103.
Eleven hours, five minutes.

“Even the scoreboard has died,” the announcer on Radio Wimbledon said at 47-games all.  Later, the internet digital scoreboard I was following online flaked out too, unable to post a five in the column that rarely sees a digit, so at 50-50 the score read 0-0.   Ultimately, Georgia Bulldog alum John Isner and Frenchman Nicholas Mahut played to the outrageous score of 59-59  in [...]

After Andy Roddick’s heartbreaking loss last year to Roger Federer at Wimbledon, an anxious U.S. Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe visited the London house where Roddick’s camp mourned.  He asked Roddick about playing in the U.S. team’s quarterfinal match with Croatia the next weekend, a grueling task on red clay. Roddick, “hemmed and hawed,” and McEnroe knew [...]

I’ve been updating this blog more infrequently than I’d like over the past few months, in part because of a new job but also due to the distraction of a major renovation of our row house in Philadelphia.  I didn’t think this project — tearing down and rebuilding the brick three-story front of a 103-year-old row [...]

Jim Courier often does not get his due when American tennis players are discussed, but  he is the only one to win two French Opens (‘91, ‘92) since pros started playing Grand Slams 42 years ago.  And he is one of only three Americans in history to win the tournament twice (the others being Frank [...]

On mornings the past few weeks before work I’ve flipped on the Tennis Channel with breakfast, watching the ATP matches on red clay from Monte Carlo, Barcelona and this past week Rome, perhaps the best time of year for the tennis tour as long as you don’t mind that there aren’t any American competitors deep in [...]

First there was the prime-time feature on 60 Minutes last month, and this week a full-length profile by L. Jon Wertheim in Sports Illustrated.  It’s great to see the soon-to-be-best doubles team in the history of tennis getting some recognition.  It has been long overdue, as the media’s attention to doubles has been relatively non-existent.

Peter Bodo of Tennis magazine thinks so.  “I believe he’s going to do it, if not this year, then the next. If not then, then sometime,” Bodo writes on his blog. Roddick is coming off one of his best months ever, winning the Sony Ericsson and finishing second in Indian Wells.  He had not reached a Masters [...]