Tag: Tennis

An obscure character was a stand-in for the creator of Peanuts when he fell in love with tennis during the sport’s boom in the 1970s.

Thessaly La Force hangs out with the lonesome, racquet-smashing Frenchman.

Much is being written about the contentious U.S. Open women’s final match, but this moment belongs to Naomi Osaka.

Dining out with courtsiders, a rogue, impish species in the tennis ecosystem.

German tennis player Andrea Petkovic meets the band.

Perfumers evoke the elegance of an imagined tennis game, not the stench of a real one.

Did taking melodonium actually do anything for Maria Sharapova? Caitlin Thompson decided to take some to find out.

Williams plans to defend her Australian Open title just three months after giving birth.

In a sport that demands individualism, the Zverevs roll deep.

In tennis, smashing a racket can be an easy way to vent your frustrations, but it also comes with consequences.

Rafa Nadal won his 11th French Open title on Sunday. A look back at his career.

On the longevity of Maria Sharapova, who has built a brand beyond the bounds of her tennis stardom that has made her incredibly wealthy, but still striving for more.

It’s always polarizing when you’re trying to designate a single athlete as the “Greatest of All Time.”

In 1996, David Foster Wallace profiled tennis player Michael Joyce in one of the most celebrated pieces of sports writing ever published. Who has he become since?

The sportsmen’s lives read as a conversation on what it means to be American.

What does a victorious or defeated black woman’s body in a historically white space look like? Serena and her big sister Venus Williams brought to mind Zora Neale Hurston’s “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.” This appropriated line, stenciled on canvas by Glenn Ligon, who used plastic letter […]

During matches, Federer changes racquets each time the balls are changed, which happens after the first seven games and then every nine games thereafter. Nine racquets would be more than sufficient to see him through his opening match. The already strung rackets were arranged in a row against a dresser. Each had a small piece […]

It’s better for us not to know the kinds of sacrifices the professional-grade athlete has made to get so very good at one particular thing. Oh, we’ll invoke lush clichés about the lonely heroism of Olympic athletes, the pain and analgesia of football, the early rising and hours of practice and restricted diets, the preflight […]

David Foster Wallace saw clear lines between journalists and novelists who write nonfiction, and he wrestled throughout his career with whether a different set of rules applied to the latter category.

The Match Maker Don Van Natta Jr. | ESPN | August 2013 | 34 minutes (8,461 words)   Don Van Natta Jr. (@DVNJr) is a senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine. My story, The Match Maker, was online at ESPN.com only a few hours on Aug. 25 when I heard from a California […]

Venus and Serena Williams, living as adults, free of their parents, and still America’s biggest tennis superstars.

Two of the world’s best tennis players meet for a match 1912, just weeks after they both survived the Titanic disaster:  Now consider a scenario in which two of the survivors were dashing, world-class athletes in the same sport, destined to face off against each other many times. The hype surrounding those matches would be […]