australianopen - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Coco Gauff-Aryna Sabalenka is tennis' best rivalryWomen’s tennis hasn’t had a great rivalry in some time. The tour was dominated by Serena Williams for so long and no one could have managed to look her in the eye for very long. The closest was her sister Venus, yet matches between the two regularly and mostly were hard on the eyes, because both see...

Taking the Daniil Medvedev ride at the Australian OpenMost of my life, I have found tennis very easy and yet very hard to watch. It’s easy in that it’s a beautiful sport to gaze upon, the players’ ballet-like movements and the steady rhythm of the sound of the ball hitting the racket and then the court over and over can lull one into a lovely state of ...

Novak Djokovic was the boulder, Taylor Fritz was SisyphusIt has to be hard enough to work through the mental gymnastics it takes to take the court against Novak Djokovic, convinced you can win. That’s what professional athletes do, of course, it’s part of the job. But they’re also still human, and it gets hard to shut out the list that makes Djokovic the ...

In the headlines: History for Michigan sports; Jim Dolan sex assault case; Insanity at Australian Open

Sports are about numbers, and that isn’t just because scores are kept. A player’s height and weight matter, they’re ages, too. But the best moments are when things occur that haven’t happened in a long time, as sports are also a marker of time. We just witnessed the best seven days that a place with...

This year’s Australian Open is drunk

The Australian Open is already kind of geared for weirdos, at least on these shores, given that you have to sacrifice sleep and any usefulness the next day to enjoy it. But this year’s edition has been off the rails, making it even more worth it for those of us who are prepared to throw ourselves of...

Ben Shelton feels limitless

There’s been a lament, until recently, that on the men’s side American tennis just had a ceiling. And that ceiling wasn’t anywhere close to winning a Grand Slam. Which is a little unfair to Andy Roddick, who without the existence of Roger Federer would have been a multi-Wimbledon champion and probab...

History has its eyes on Carlos Alcaraz and his early quest to become tennis’ GOAT

Tennis is undergoing its Steph Curry moment. The way Carlos Alcaraz controls the country club sport through his racket is unlike anything we’ve seen before. Nearly a decade after Curry’s rise to superstardom, every high school sophomore thinks swishing a 40-footer is routine. It’s not, and every air...

So you’re telling me there’s a chance!

Tommy Paul didn’t play collegiate tennis. Instead, he came up through the junior circuit and turned pro in 2015. He’s one of the rare Americans who plays best on clay, yet his career breakthrough has come on the hardcourt of the Australian Open. Paul took down fellow American Ben Shelton on Wednesda...