Every once in a while an athlete will just make you eat your words and your low expectations. Typically they’ll do this by winning; on Tuesday night, Dominic Thiem did it while losing his U.S. Open quarterfinal, pyrotechnically.
This gripe will be all too familiar to anyone who has followed men’s tennis, but the sport doesn’t have any gosh-darned kids. A cabal of 30-something legends still run the show, coming in and out of injury and picking up where they left off, stomping flat a whole generation of hopefuls. The No. 2 player in the world…
A fatless and notably tall-headed man going by the name “Novak Djokovic” spent a lot of his time on tennis courts over the last 18-odd months, and succeeded even in being granted entry to some important professional tournaments. There he beat some solid tennis players, even though, off the court, his emotional world…
Back by popular demand, Various Tall Men have thrived once again at the Wimbledon Championships: Kevin Anderson and John Isner will face off in a men’s semifinal. The universe is stupid and cruel, so it is not possible to rule out the outcome that Isner will win that match, then serve 120-something aces to win…
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.
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…
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…
Assume by default that Rafael Nadal wins any big event on clay. Take it as a given that his teeth are pressing into the trophy well before the first match gets underway. This has been true for many long swaths of the last decade, but it has maybe never been truer than right now, with Rafa still bull-strong at 31, his…
Rafael Nadal’s incomprehensible streak of consecutive sets won on clay has ended at 50. And it was ended by the last person to have scraped a set off him on the surface, a full 51 weeks ago: Dominic Thiem. The upset demanded huge hitting from the world No. 7, who has had a somewhat uninspired week in Madrid, and had…
Does Rafael Nadal live in clay? He may. Is it where he likes to play? Yea—he has owned it for his entire career, and that dominance was made even clearer two weeks ago when he finally took the record for most consecutive sets won on clay. Today he claimed his 21st straight victim on the red stuff, and with it, another…
Rafael Nadal is roughly midway through his clay-court rampage, having lengthened his consecutive set streak to a record 46, and just had some time off between tournaments in Barcelona and Madrid. He spent some of that precious downtime watching soccer, which he loves deeply.
Today, playing at the Barcelona Open, a tournament he has won 10 times, on a court officially named “Pista Rafa Nadal,” Rafael Nadal won his 39th and 40th consecutive sets on clay. This extends an Open Era–record for consecutive sets on clay courts, per the ATP, that Nadal first set last Sunday in the Monte Carlo…
Enter Dominic Thiem, the dull boy who is good on dirt. For all his fits elsewhere, the Austrian has mastered clay, a surface that slows things down enough for his deep court positioning, thumping strokes, and one-track mind. He’s the only player who can justifiably hold any ember of hope when facing Rafael Nadal on…
The U.S. Open is getting strict about the time allowed between points, saying that there will be a “serve clock” of 25 seconds during the matches at this year’s event, according to the New York Times.
Subtract Rafael Nadal from any given tennis tournament, and boom—the participants collectively give 10,000 percent less of a shit about winning. He treasures every point of every match in every tournament. The man who won 16 Slams, including two last year, reportedly cried for two hours straight after pulling out of…
Fresh off winning his second-straight Australian Open, Roger Federer has taken a wild card to play Rotterdam next week. In his old age/late empire, Federer has opted for a light tournament schedule, and he hasn’t played this particular 500-level event since 2012. But he lost just two sets at the Australian Open,…
Apologies if you expected the channel to change after the two greatest split the year’s four majors evenly between themselves. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s enduring dominance, and the inconsistency of their most dangerous threats, have frozen everything in place. The hypothetical Next Generation of men’s tennis…
How was your weekend? I got myself a nice bowl of pasta but some new mosquito bites. Nick Kyrgios, too, had both good and bad times.
