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Jack Sock Gets Messy
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. 13...
A Tennis Player Seized His Last-Minute Chance To Play In The French Open, Drove 10 Hours To Paris, And Won<em></em><em></em>
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 t...
And Now, Back To Your Regularly Scheduled Federer-Nadal Show<em></em>
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 2...
No One Will Ever Do What Rafael Nadal Has Done
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 sui...
Rafael Nadal Cruises To Record 10th French Open Title
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 Rola...
Jelena Ostapenko Wins French Open For First WTA Tour Win Ever<em></em>
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....
Rafael Nadal Took A Gifted Youth's Lunch Money, And His Will To Live
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,...
Root For Stan Wawrinka, The Artful Troll
At his peak, Stan Wawrinka might be the best tennis player alive, but that peak is hard to find. Sometimes—right after winning his third major and reaching his career-high ranking, say—he’s just a bed-headed lump, tumbling out of the first round of tournaments courtesy of the world No. 91 or 72. Thi...
Meet Jelena Ostapenko, The Birthday Girl Who Could Win The French Open Out Of Nowhere<em></em>
Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko had quite the day, and quite the last two weeks. The unseeded world No. 47 has booked a spot in the French Open final with a three-set win over Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland—oh, and she turned 20 years old today. Led by the on-court presenter, the crowd serenaded her with...
Rafael Nadal Is Two Wins From The French Open
Pablo Carreño Busta offered the only blip of diversity in a quarterfinals that was otherwise purely chalk: seeds No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 were all still in play. As nice as it was to see one of those three-name clay courters edge past No. 5 Milos Raonic in five sets and make his way into this rar...
With Her Attitude Adjusted, Simona Halep Makes Incredible Comeback To Reach French Open <em></em>Semis
Simona Halep, the world No. 4 whose participation in the French Open was questionable right up until the start of the tournament due to an ankle injury, played the match of her life against Elena Svitolina in the quarterfinals, coming back from a huge deficit to win in three sets....
Novak Djokovic Got Wrecked
Dominic Thiem has been the second-best player on this clay season, with the realest credential around: the only player to beat Rafael Nadal. During that run, Thiem’s worst loss came not at the hands of Rafa, but Novak Djokovic, who offered a brief flashback to the world-beating Novak of one year ag...
Gael Monfils Laid It All Out There
Gael Monfils and Stan Wawrinka are genuine late-bloomers—perhaps the only two pros to ever find their best tennis on the cusp of 30—and very good friends, too. Somehow, before today’s round of 16 match at the French Open, they had gone six years on the tour without playing one another. That fact bog...
Novak Djokovic Got Into It With A Fussy Chair Ump
Novak Djokovic’s skills were tested by the diminutive Diego Schwartzman in their third-round match at the French Open, and his patience was tested by the chair umpire, who hit him with a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct. Here’s the conduct in question:...
Rafael Nadal Removed A Man's Soul From His Body
This may surprise the casual tennis observer: Even after a straight-sets win that, on paper, resembles a blowout, the loser has often won almost as many points as the winner. The loser just didn’t win them in the right sequence. That’s a quirk of tennis’s scoring system, which bundles points into ga...
David Goffin Retires From French Open Match After Tarp Fucks Up His Ankle
Belgian David Goffin played an excellent clay court season, beating Novak Djokovic in Monte Carlo and pushing Rafael Nadal to a tiebreak in Madrid, and earned the 10-seed at the French Open. He looked poised to at least challenge Nadal in a potential semifinal matchup, but today this tarp got in the...
Ons Jabeur Is The First Arab Woman To Make It This Far Into A Grand Slam
Ons Jabeur, ranked No. 114 in the world, slipped into the French Open as a “lucky loser”—a player who lost in qualifying rounds but nevertheless lucked into a spot vacated by another player’s withdrawal. Before this tournament, the 22-year-old Tunisian had played only two other Grand Slam matches in...
Nick Kyrgios Combusts, Stays Dead
Here’s a recipe for a classic Nick Kyrgios implosion:...
Juan Martin Del Potro Comforts Sobbing Opponent Who Had To Retire During Match
Nicolás Almagro, a 31-year-old, former top-10 tennis player from Spain, sobbed on the court after he was forced to retire from his second-round French Open match today against Juan Martin del Potro due to a knee injury—the same injury that caused him to withdraw from a match against Rafael Nadal la...
Margaret Court Says "Tennis Is Full Of Lesbians" And A Whole Bunch Of Bigoted Shit
Less than a week after Australian tennis champion turned preacher Margaret Court threatened to boycott Qantas airlines because its CEO supports same-sex marriage, she gave an interview to Vision Christian radio station in which she spewed a whole mess of other homophobic and transphobic shit includi...