What young Russians want now is something like Andrey Rublev’s face: his overall ginger, his abundant hair and impish smile, his sexy somewhere in between the genders when compared with the manly past. His huge forehand, too, his entire body hurled into each shot he hits. If they could throw themselves into life like that. […]
Revered on the tennis court like no one else. Reviled like the Sodomites in Dante’s Inferno. The first male superstar of tennis. (Gay, too, but no one would dare say it. The crowds were too great.) Ranked #1 for six straight years: 1920-1925. Bill Tilden’s got game, style, charisma. Got strategy, too, a thinking man’s […]
Four Amish children killed by a gunman. The Amish forgive him. That’s what they recite and teach and repeat in sacred words each day. “Hit the ball as hard as you can.” That’s what Mary’s father said. Situps, pushups, weights, running. Bruises on the arms. Verbal and physical abuse. Mary stays longer and longer in […]
Definition #1: In Tennis, the space between the service line and the baselineDefinition #2: In WWI, the space between the trenches of opposing armies You hurt your opponent with a deep shot into the corner. You need to move into no man’s land, anticipate the weak return, steal their time before they steal yours. No […]