Tennis Page 76 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Heaven And Heck Prevail
Congratulations to junior tennis players Zion Heaven and Hunter Heck, semifinalists at the Copa Badia....
Grigor Dimitrov And Dominic Thiem Played The Best Tennis Of The Week And It Was Infuriating
For the better part of this week, it looked like Grigor Dimitrov was ready to shake himself out of his stupor—he’d lost his opening match at the last three tournaments, c’mon man—and make these frenzied blogs look a little less stupid. He started this Madrid Open looking like a whole player again, b...
Borna Coric, Lucky Loser, Puts Slumping No. 1 Andy Murray To Bed
It’s been an extremely Andy Murray series of events. The ornery Scot played blisteringly good, 28-wins-straight tennis to finally claim the No. 1 spot for the first time in his career, but has since looked much easier to topple, taking losses to names you wouldn’t immediately recognize: older broth...
Novak Djokovic Is Flying Solo And Looks No Steadier
Playing his first match after firing his whole coaching staff, Novak Djokovic struggled. Today, in the second round of the Madrid Open, he squared up against world No. 76 Nicolas Almagro—a player he had defeated in all four previous matches, losing only one set in a tiebreak—and teetered on the brin...
Sometimes You Don't Even Have To Hit It Over The Net
The net, you’d think, is an unavoidable fact of tennis. As a ball approaches you, there are many interesting decisions you are free to make—where to play it, what kind of spin to apply, how hard to strike—but one decision is already made for you: you have to hit it over the damn net....
Maria Sharapova Loses To Her Biggest Hater, Exchanges Awkward "Handshake"
Returning from a 15-month doping ban, Maria Sharapova faced some harsh critics, but none harsher than fellow WTA player Eugenie Bouchard, who suggested that she never should have been allowed back at all:...
Finally, Some More Shit-Talking In Tennis
Alexander Zverev, one of tennis’s two juvenile prodigies, claimed a tough win over Jan-Lennard Struff today and left the court on a pungent note. After beating his fellow German in this Munich Open quarterfinal, Zverev gestured at the clay and said, unmistakably, “This is my fucking court.” By the s...
Novak Djokovic, Looking For "Shock Therapy," Fires Entire Coaching Staff
Novak Djokovic’s odd year continues. After parting ways with head coach Boris Becker in December and struggling in the first quarter of 2017, he dismissed the rest of his coaching staff today, some of whom have been in his camp for over a decade: coach Marian Vajda, fitness coach Gebhard Phil Gritsc...
Roger Federer Went To The Met Ball In A Sweet-Ass Cobra Tuxedo
Rafael Nadal kept himself busy in April, regaining his form on clay and raising trophies at Monte Carlo and Barcelona—freakishly, his 10th time winning each. What has his rival Roger Federer been up to in the meantime? Playing corny charity matches with Bill Gates and the guitarist from Pearl Jam, a...
What's Wrong With Novak Djokovic?
This time last year, Novak Djokovic was about to complete his fourth consecutive Grand Slam win—as dominant a run as the tour has ever seen. But this year, since the first week of January, he has yet to get further than the quarterfinals of any tournament at all....
Maria Sharapova Is Almost Certainly Going To Get A French Open Wild Card
The French Open has a dilemma: Do tournament organizers grant two-time French Open winner, five-time Grand Slam champion, and recently returned doper Maria Sharapova a wild card into the main draw, ensuing she’s part of the tournament when the first round begins on May 28? Should she receive a wild ...
What The Hell Did Rafael Nadal Do To This Ball?
Allow me to remove my foot from my mouth: Rafael Nadal is still the King of Clay, fine. He claimed his 10th title at Monte Carlo last week, and looks set to take his 10th Barcelona Open title too, unless Andy Murray snaps out of his daze or Dominic Thiem manages the upset. Maybe his 10th French Open...
Andy Murray Is Out Here Breaking Ankles
Andy Murray, who’s looked sloppy and out of sorts in today’s Barcelona Open quarterfinal, broke Albert Ramos-Vinolas’s ankles on this point in the final set, and it may have even saved his match. As the chuckling commentators note, this is tennis’s equivalent of a crossover. ...
Report: Maria Sharapova Won't Get A Wild Card For The French Open
How will women’s tennis welcome back Maria Sharapova—formerly its richest star, if not its most successful—after her 15-month ban for breaking its doping rules, however absurd those might be? Her return was bound to be messy. Because all of Sharapova’s ranking points dissolved during her absence fro...
Maria Sharapova Is An Annoying Brand, Not A Vile Cheater
Maria Sharapova is set to return to competition on Wednesday at the Porsche Grand Prix in Stuttgart after receiving a wild card entry to the tournament. It will be her first tournament since she was banned from tennis for 15 months after testing positive for a banned substance last January. While th...
Hall Of Famer Ilie Nastase Suspended From Tennis For Sexist And Racist Comments
Ilie Nastase is best known as a former world No. 1 who won the U.S. Open in 1972 and rolled through the 1973 French Open without dropping a set, becoming the first man to complete that feat. He is now the captain of Romania’s Fed Cup team, and made some much uglier additions to his résumé at a compe...
Maria Sharapova's Agent Blasts Players Criticizing Her Wild-Card Return
Following a two-year ban for doping, which was reduced to 15 months on appeal, Maria Sharapova is set to return to competition next week after she received a wild-card entry in Stuttgart. She was also given wild cards to Madrid and Rome. A handful of prominent players have questioned Sharapova recei...
Here Are Gorgeous Photos Of The Monte-Carlo Masters
The Monte-Carlo Masters in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France, is perhaps the most photogenic and least accessible of all tennis tournaments. Live vicariously through these shots of elite athletes competing in a place where rich people go to lose enormous sums....
The Sun Set On Novak Djokovic
If you make a living standing outside and hurling a small yellow sphere up above your head so you can hit it down, sometimes an enormous yellow sphere is right behind it, and you just have to find a way to cope. Novak Djokovic, squinting and awash in light, couldn’t, as he lost to David Goffin 6-2, ...
I'm Jealous Of This Photographer's Situation
This towel-draped snowbird, posted up on the clay courts of Monte Carlo snapping photos of some of the world’s best tennis players, is my new hero. If you know who she is, please tell me so I can follow her life’s path. ...