2011 U.S. Open: Thoughts on the Women’s Draw During the Middle Weekend
We’ve arrived midway through the U.S. Open, and the draws are slowly being whittled away in Flushing Meadows. I’ve been sitting on the opposite side of the country, catching snippets of coverage in between the day job and covering college football over the weekend. Labor Day presented a day away from work, with nothing else dominating the sports calendar, and CBS and ESPN combined for a full day of coverage from all the courts of the Billie... Read More
Previewing the 2011 French Open: Women’s Edition
The women’s game is in an absolute state of flux heading into the French Open, with many of its top draws absent or ailing or slumping. Nobody seems to have that killer instinct that would have her grab the sport by the ears and pull it up to her level of play. Even the #1 player in the world still carries the stigma of earning her top-dog status without even a single Grand Slam to her name. The two sisters that have redefined women’s... Read More
Momentous Moments from Melbourne
Australian tennis fans would have loved nothing more than to see one of their own win their Grand Slam. It has been thirty-three years since the host nation saw a compatriot hoist the trophy in triumph, since Chris O’Neil concluded that last great era that introduced other greats such as Evonne Goolagong Cawley and Margaret Court and Kerry Melville Reid on the tennis world. It has been even longer for the gentlemen, Mark Edmondson concluding the... Read More
Previewing the 2010 Australian Open: Women’s Edition
We’re mere hours from the start of the 2011 Australian Open. The preview is coming late, and this is the first time in four years that I’m not linked into cable television for the tournament. (For all my gripes about television, the main one is the cost — yet somehow it ended up that my wife and I were plugged at that moment in three different domiciles in three consecutive years.) I’m also without internet at the house still, over a month... Read More
2010 U.S. Open – Day 5 Musings…
We’re getting deeper into the tournament now, as the women began third-round play today and the men settled out their field for the third round. The doubles tournaments are all coming up on their Round 0f 16, things settling out quickly with the smaller fields (64 teams in the men’s and women’s draws, 32 for the mixed pairs) and working toward a frenzied second week. So let’s do something a little different today. Before the... Read More
