Tennis Page 74 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
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...
Kellogg's Sues Tennis Player Over Special K Nickname
Cereal giant Kellogg’s is suing tennis player Thanasi Kokkinakis over his use of the nickname Special K in his native Australia....
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...
John McEnroe Slams Margaret Court's Bigoted Comment On Number Of Lesbians In Tennis: "Who Gives A Fuck?"
John McEnroe has shared a video of himself condemning Margaret Court’s homophobic bullshit from last week, though he stopped short of joining those asking for the arena that bears her name to be given a new moniker. ...
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...
Alexander Zverev And Jo-Wilfried Tsonga Go Down In Big Upsets
Both the superstars in utero—Alexander Zverev, fresh off his first Masters title, and Nick Kyrgios, dealing with a hurt hip—drew tough first-round matchups. One flamed out while the other sailed through in straights, but the results reversed expectations: if you couldn’t identify the very frustrated...
Rafael Nadal's Second-Round Opponent Didn't Stand A Chance
Robin Haase, a Dutch professional tennis player ranked No. 46 in the world, drew Rafael Nadal in the second round of the French Open on Tuesday, ending things at 6-1, 6-4, 6-3. He was 30....
Enough With The Boob-Throwing Celebration, Djokovic
Last year, the great though recently slumping Novak Djokovic started doing a unique post-match celebration: He beckons the ball kids to his side, turns to the crowd, and then, in sync, they all do a shoveling motion which has been repeatedly and aptly described as throwing their boobs into the stand...
