LONDON—“What’s so special about Baron’s Court then?” That’s what the man with the gray ponytail in the ticket booth wanted to know. It was a fair question: I was at the Southwark tube station here, and I'd just told him that I needed to get to the Baron’s Court stop

Has a tennis player ever said that he likes the fact that Wimbledon follows so hard on the heels of the French Open? For decades, pros and fans and supporters of sane scheduling have wished for more than two paltry weeks between these very different major tournaments. Yet as soon

Oudin Every year at the Open there’s a day that calls out to be spent on the Grandstand. This is the third and most compact show court at Flushing Meadows, as well as the most civilized. You, if you arrive early enough, can sit in the shade all afternoon here,

The greatest bulls of all are the Spanish bulls, and among the Spanish bulls the greatest bulls are Miura bulls, which are bred in Sevilla, and among the Miura bulls, the greatest bull of all was Islero. It was Islero who killed the adored matadors, Monolete and Esparto, Islero's ferocity

INDIAN WELLS, CALIF.—Last spring, as they gained momentum through the clay season, I began to refer to Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova together as the Persistents. That trait, which they obviously share, paid off in Roland Garros titles for both of them. But it didn’t pay off forever. Neither would

LONDON—There’s always a new order being established, isn't there? There’s always a changing of the guard. It’s forever the end of an era—half the time, the era seems to be over before you knew it had begun. Every tournament with a new winner foretells the immediate demise of the player

Pic by Pete Bodo NEW YORK—It was a bright, beautiful morning; dazzling white clouds sailed through an azure sky, and the polyester strings in Donald Young's racket glittering like reflections of afternoon sunlight on the sea. A glorious day for tennis, especially after the two we've just endured. But you

*90577269 by Pete Bodo They were like two youngsters shaken awake from an afternoon nap: each of them was thinking, What day is it? Where am I? Who am I? The answers were: Thursday, Sept. 10th, 2009, they were in Arthur Ashe Stadium, and they were Travis Parrott and Carly

It is always there: a monolithic presence, like some giant blue and gray Lego piece, or a Mayan ruin turned upside down, the right angles of all those steps, blown out of a concrete mold, fanning out to make the structure broader as you go higher, until you hit the

WATCH: Tennis Channel Live make their men's and women's singles picks for Roland Garros.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of TENNIS Magazine's founding in 1965. To commemorate the occasion, we'll look back each Thursday at one of the 50 moments that have defined the last half-century in our sport. “It’s eerie what the tiebreakers do,” Arthur Ashe said at the 1970 U.S. Open.

This week in the Rally, Richard Pagliaro and I discuss the recent resurgence of the one-handed backhand on the men's side, and its potential ramifications down the road. ** Richard, Stan Wawrinka’s win in Australia was, among other things, the capstone on a year-long resurgence of the one-handed backhand among

LONDON—You might think that Manic Monday at Wimbledon would be just that, a manic, sweaty scramble from court to court and epic to epic; a dream day, in other words, for any tennis-loving journalist or fan. And it did seem like a wild ride for at least one reporter in

*101641983 by Pete Bodo It was 3-2 in the tiebreaker, mini-break to Francesca Schiavone, when she felt the surge of energy flooding her entire being. It was that primal gift that sometimes goes by the name "killer instinct," but in polite company is more likely to be called "focus," or

NEW YORK -- Right from the start, Roger Federer looked very little like, well, the Roger Federer who routinely reached the final weekend at Grand Slam tournaments. In the opening game of his fourth-round match at the U.S. Open, the owner of 17 major titles got passed at the net

NEW YORK—Howdy. The second week of the final Grand Slam event of 2012 is underway, so it’s a good time to cherry-pick some of the comments and thoughts that were expressed as the first week came to a close. Let’s start with the great Russian patriot Maria Sharpaova, the No.

Before autumn's arrival on Saturday, we'll relive one of tennis' most memorable summers. The 1977 season was one of the most colorful and enduringly significant in the game's history. Over the next three days, we’ll celebrate the 40th anniversary of that most memorable of sporting summers. Guillermo Vilas pawed at

Here's part two of my talk with Kamakshi Tandon on Grace Lichtenstein's book A Long Way, Baby, about the women's tennis tours of 1973. You can see part one here.

Early last year, Bianca Andreescu traveled to The Netherlands to play a Fed Cup tie for her native Canada. At the time, she was a tour neophyte who had just cracked the Top 100. But a month earlier she had beaten Venus Williams and Caroline Wozniacki on her way to

Hi Steve, This is remarkable, but as the second week of Roland Garros gets underway, the news is similar to what happened at the start of the first week: A big name has withdrawn. Roger Federer has stated all along that he had no chance to win Roland Garros this