“I was once Ireland’s No 1 player, and tried for years to climb the global ranks. But life at the bottom of the top can be brutal.”
Tennis
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Unbearable Greatness of Djokovic
“Novak Djokovic may be the greatest tennis player ever—and I can’t stand him.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Game, Set, Fix
“As gambling on tennis exploded into a $50 billion industry, he had infiltrated the sport, paying pros more to lose … than they could make by winning tournaments.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Andy Roddick’s Open Era
“Twenty years after winning the US Open, Andy Roddick has thrown away his trophies and moved on with his life. But in a rare interview, the last American man to win a grand slam reflects on that historic triumph—and all the pressure, fame, failure, love, and loss that came after.”
Posted inCuration, Nonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend stories by Carla Ciccone, Lex Pryor, Bhavya Dore, Michelle Cyca, and Casey Lyons.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Serena Williams Refused to Bend. She Bent Tennis Instead.
A stunner of an ode to Serena, who came into the game on the heels of her older sister, but leaves it having changed it irrevocably. An exacting portrait of an unprecedented competitor. Part of Serena’s genius—competitively, personally—is that she never can quite be anything but herself when she’s desperate. And she’s desperate every time […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Serena Williams Poses Unretouched
To accompany her unretouched cover photo on the August, 2019 issue of Harper’s Bazaar, tennis star Serena Williams writes a moving personal essay about the harsh, sexist way she was penalized at the 2018 U.S. Open for defending herself to a judge, the apology she sent to her opponent that day, Naomi Osaka, and why […]
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Sports, Story, Uncategorized
An Audience of Athletes: The Rise and Fall of Feminist Sports
Billie Jean King once tried to find a sustainable business model for feminist sports coverage. Then women’s fitness tried to revive the swimsuit model.