Wins and Losses: 14 grand slam doubles titles together in just five years. After a big loss, they might dance and wrestle and splash in the water like kids. After a big win, they might gleefully rip off their tops, reveal the first sports bra to the world. Natasha: I imagine Natasha reading Anna Karenina, […]
In the autumn of life, I wanted to be a tournament tennis player. The shot I wanted most was a good slice backhand “as repeatable, as simple, as breath itself.” A slice backhand that was “easy on the body, the mind.” That’s what I wrote of Ken Rosewall’s backhand. That was Larry Turville’s slice backhand, […]
A top Chinese tennis player makes allegations of sexual coercion against a top Communist official. “Why did you pressure me to have sex with you?” Now I feel like “a walking corpse.” A two-time Grand Slam doubles champion, Peng knows what will happen next: “like an egg cracking against a rock.” Peng disappears. Her social […]
Some called him Count Dracula out of Gothic lore. Others called him the Brasov Bulldozer. A dual sport athlete at the highest levels: Ice Hockey Olympian and top 10 tennis player. A businessman as cunning as the Medici. He bet big on Boris Becker when he was just 15 and made him into a global […]
Thought Experiment: In Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral,” the narrator tries to describe a Gothic Cathedral to a blind man. Inspired by Carver’s story, I try to describe the tennis game of Carlos Alcaraz to a blind man. The US Open was on television. The commentators went on and on: “Oh, Stop it,” “Oh, No […]