federer Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Coco Gauff-Aryna Sabalenka is tennis' best rivalry
Women’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 Open
Most 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 Sisyphus
It 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 ...
Novak Djokovic is tennis' unquestioned GOAT. Is there anyone who could catch up to him?
It isn’t a question as to who the male tennis GOAT is anymore. In recent years Novak Djokovic’s almost-robotic dominance as he continues to age has pushed him ahead of his contemporaries and predecessors. One of Djokovic’s greatest challengers to the crown conceded the throne recently when Rafael Na...
Djokovic and Gauff were machines at the US Open
There are a lot of ways to win in tennis. Novak Djokovic has found all of them. Coco Gauff may yet one day, though she found the one for this US Open. While Djokovic has had to vary his game at various points to overcome various challenges, at the base of it all remains the same truth as the day he ...
Coco Gauff will write her own story
When Coco Gauff beat Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2019, a flood of expectations followed considering she was 15, American, Black, and had just ousted tennis royalty. The talent and potential was obvious enough, yet there are too many variables and unknowns to account for that calling anything a fo...
Ben Shelton's moment has arrived
I went to the US Open last night. First time inside Arthur Ashe Stadium and on the grounds in Flushing. It was also my first professional tennis event since attending the semifinals of the 2003 Legg Mason Tennis Classic and watching Andre Agassi lose in a third-set tiebreaker. The US Open dangles be...
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...
Spanish FA President Luis Rubiales is a creep
Update Aug. 24: According to multiple reports, Luis Rubiales plans to resign....
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...
Carlos Alcaraz out-Djokovic’d Novak Djokovic
There is a vision of how to beat Novak Djokovic at a major, especially at Wimbledon, and even more especially at Centre Court, where he hadn’t lost in 10 years. It’s only a vision, because so few have ever achieved it. Only Rafa Nadal and Daniil Medvedev had managed to beat Djokovic in a major in th...
Tomorrow is going to have to wait on Novak Djokovic
Eras don’t end on schedules. There wasn’t an assigned time when Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal exited the royal hall of the ATP Tour, it was just sort of a nebulous “time.” Federer’s knee eventually gave out, it might be that Nadal’s hip has done so as well. It would appear that Novak Djokovic is not...
French Open fans are the best
It was never a secret that Novak Djokovic was the third wheel to Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Yet the Serbian planted himself into the conversation in two ways. First, a machine-like greatness over the past 12 years — 21 of his 22 Grand Slams have come since 2011, which is a period of condensed d...
Life after greatness: What happens when a sport loses its GOAT?
There’s no denying that GOATs are great for a sport when they’re still active. Michael Jordan, Tony Hawk, and other best-to-ever-do-its pushed their sports to popularity not seen since, but led to fans coming down off a trip so perfect that they were left fiending for the next fix of greatness perso...
Rafael Nadal’s body finally waves the white flag
It feels like tennis fans have been talking about when men’s tennis will enter its new era for forever now, simply because Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic had been carrying the brilliance longer than anyone ever had, longer than anyone could have anticipated. Guys don’t win majors in...
What Serena Williams, all the athletes at the Met Gala wore
Unless you’ve been living off the grid or seriously eschew social media (without lurking, in which case you’re a better person than the rest of us), you probably know that last night was the Met Gala. On the one hand, the Met Gala is an elitist snobfest that this year honored iconic designer Karl La...
Andy Murray can’t help himself
Andy Murray must really love tennis. At least he’d better, considering what he puts himself through every match in the past few years and over his whole career. It’s like he can’t get off the court when there have definitely been times he should get off the court, both in making his wins easier and ...
Once again, we’re left to ask the big question about Rafael Nadal
No one gets the Pete Sampras, except for Pete Sampras, obviously. It’s so rare to see a tennis player walk off the court for the final time having just won a Grand Slam, still capable of more but sated with what was already accomplished and unable to ignore the poetry of that particular signoff. The...
What were the best and worst sports trends in 2022?
As 2023 approaches, it gives media outlets opportunities to do wrap-ups, year-end lists, and rank anything else in the timeframe of the past 12 months. It’s really the only upside of time being arbitrary and a construct of people in power to make sure the plebeians arrive at the salt mines at 9 a.m....