Rafael Nadal won the French Open on Sunday, and there’s little new to say that wasn’t already said after last year’s title. After the preposterousness of 10, 11 doesn’t feel so different. But even into the double-digits, it’s worth remembering that the points are fucking absurd.
Simona Halep, by age 26—something like the physical prime in modern tennis—had it all, almost. There was still a void at the center of everything. It wasn’t money: She’s made over $26 million in her career and played this French Open in full swoosh gear, hinting at a recent off-court windfall. It wasn’t ranking: She’s…
If you missed the men’s French Open final yesterday, you missed three quick sets of Rafael Nadal being Rafael Nadal and winning his 11th French Open trophy. But you also missed the trophy presenter, former Grand Slam winner Ken Rosewall, providing some unusually honest, slightly unfair analysis of Nadal’s opponent…
Dominic Thiem and Rafael Nadal will play each other in the French Open final on Sunday. Only one outcome has ever resulted from a French Open final involving Rafa. For a reality check, pinch yourself and say aloud, “Rafael Nadal has won 10 French Opens.” There is only the slimmest chance that Thiem will topple that…
A year after she blew a one-set lead in the French Open final to allow unseeded Jeļena Ostapenko to claim victory on the clay, Simona Halep bounced back from losing the first set to defeat Sloane Stephens and seize the first Grand Slam title of her career, 3–6, 6–4, 6-1.
Tennis, particularly the men’s side, has fallen into a certain rhythm, and if you’re a certain kind of old-school clay-court fogey, this rhythm might be boring. Boom, boom, boom, boom. The serve is the most powerful offensive tool in the game. It is the only shot in the game completely within a player’s control: Throw…
Marco Cecchinato is 25 years old. Until this week, he had never won a match at a major—first-round losses in all four tries. Until last month, his biggest splash on tour might have been a 2016 suspension for match-fixing, later overturned on appeal. At No. 72 in the world, he has become the lowest-ranked man to make…
Serena Williams withdrew from her fourth-round French Open match today against Maria Sharapova with a right pectoral injury that she said prevents her from serving. The decision was announced just before the match between the two rivals was slated to begin.
After winning their second-round French Open doubles match in straight sets today, Venus and Serena Williams, who laugh and joke during most of their matches together, were asked what it’s like to play on the same side of the net. For someone talking about her and her sister’s sheer domination in the sport, Serena…
During his third-round French Open match today against Alexander Zverev, Bosnian tennis player Damir Džumhur inadvertently wrecked a ball kid as he tried to catch an errant shot out of the air. The boy was shaken up, and Džumhur tried to comfort him with hugs, which was somehow even more awkward than when he just…
Momentum shifts in tennis are common, often slight, and always tenuous. Good tennis players capitalize on these tiny shifts—an unlucky bounce, an untimely double fault, a net cord. Great players, though, force the change themselves. That’s what Serena Williams did in her second-round French Open match against…
American Jared Donaldson had an incredible performance in today’s second-round French Open match against the fourth-seeded Grigor Dimitrov, pushing the Bulgarian to the brink in the fifth set, before fatigue was the ultimate decider. Donaldson resorted to trickery to get around his cramping, but it only went so far.
The fan experience of tennis has become exponentially richer with the advent of streaming. When a draw has 128 entrants, like the singles events at all four Grand Slams, its early days are stuffed with matches, and no single live broadcast can depict all the action worth watching. It’s an obsolete model, a total…
Jack Sock, who just a few months ago was hoisting the coolest-looking trophy in tennis and leaping to a career-high No. 8 ranking, has doddered through the 2018 season. It’s late May and the American has yet to log two consecutive wins. Sock lost at the French Open today in five sets to world No. 136 Jürgen Zopp; his…
In a series of events that sounds more like a TV comedy than real life, Argentine tennis player Marco Trungelliti—who had returned home to Barcelona after losing in the French Open qualifiers last week—learned that he had an opportunity to play in the main draw after a spate of players withdrew at the last minute.…
Rewind the tape all the way back to—sheesh—April 2, the date of Roger Federer’s last professional tennis match, a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Rafael Nadal to win the Miami Open. Afterwards he reportedly told his rival that he, Nadal, would “destroy” the clay court season, and Rafa delivered, piling up a 24-1 record and four…
Predictions about whether a feat can or cannot be replicated have always struck me as naive. Earth will be around for a while and, at least until we write ourselves out of its story, will host billions and billions more humans, shaped and sized in novel ways, some of which make them particularly suited to specific…
Rafael Nadal won a record 10th French Open title today by making quick work of Stan Wawrinka, 6-2, 6-3, 6-1. Nadal faced one break point all day, and saved it. It was a brutal, dominating performance, and of a guy who just took out world number one Andy Murray, and notched a title of his own at Roland Garros, in 2015.…
Jelena Ostapenko earned her first WTA tour win in a big way: by dispatching Simona Halep 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 today in the French Open final. The Latvian is the first unseeded French Open women’s champion since 1933.
Towards the tail end of the clay season, even this skeptic had cast aside old doubts: 23-year-old Dominic Thiem is the future. Particularly on the dirt. But as of right now, the future still feels impossibly far away. Rafael Nadal, 31 years old and the best clay court tennis player past and present, confronted the…