With a crisply hit backhand down the line, the crowd erupts and Serena Williams throws her arms up in the air, clinching both fists. She takes a deep breath in and exhales out what seems like years of tension around whether she would win another title. Serena's 2020 triumph in

The good news was that Australia’s players ruled the world. Rod Laver had closed out the 1960s by winning all four majors. Margaret Court had her own calendar-year sweep in 1970—the same year John Newcombe captured the first of two straight Wimbledon titles, and the ageless Ken Rosewall won the

Can a loss unfairly overshadow a win? In the case of Simona Halep’s stunningly rapid 6-0, 6-4 defeat at the hands of Elina Svitolina in the Rome women’s final on Sunday, the answer would seem to be yes. Throughout the 19-minute first set, the talk on TV and Twitter, and

HIGHLIGHTS: Medvedev overcomes Zverev in Turin

WATCH: Medvedev is yet to drop a set at Roland Garros, starting from his first round against Facundo Bagnis.

A pair of American Top 10 players stormed through a rainy Monday in Paris as Coco Gauff and Danielle Collins each claimed straight-sets victories to kick off their respective Roland Garros campaigns. Gauff, the No. 3 seed and 2022 runner-up, breezed past qualifier Julia Avdeeva, 6-1, 6-3 in 53 minutes

“You find something new each time.” This is a phrase that’s used—not very often—to describe a favorite movie or book or record or painting or TV series. At first glance, the work in question seems simple and straightforward. It’s only later, when you think back on it or revisit it,

After a week of hearing about it, imagining it and predicting it, tennis fans got their first look at the vaunted Quarter of Death in Indian Wells on Tuesday. All of the famed slayers—Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Juan Martin del Potro, Nick Kyrgios, Alexander Zverev—were still present and

In 1982, Jim Valvano and his North Carolina Wolfpack basketball team coined the slogan “survive and advance” to describe their strategy for winning that year’s NCAA tournament. When the underdog group hung on through a series of nail-biters and buzzer-beaters—they made it through the basketball equivalent of four fifth-set tiebreakers—to

The first match I watched from this week’s Shanghai Masters was the opening-rounder between Tommy Haas and Nicolas Almagro. This was, at least on paper, about as entertaining as early tournament contests get. You had two guys with stylish one-handed backhands and Top 10 talent. You had the unlikely story

We’ve had women’s majors where it felt like anyone could win. We’ve had others that felt as if they were sewn up by the top player before they began. Right now, though, coming into the Aussie Open, the women’s game feels like it’s in flux. Not transition, or anything so

“The sky’s the limit,” Jennifer Brady told her coach, Michael Geserer of Germany, after her 6-3, 6-4 win over Jill Teichmann in the Top Seed Open final on Sunday. “So let’s keep going.” Brady wasn’t blowing smoke or falling back on a cliché. Neither of those things are this straight-shooting

So you must have a little extra time on your hands right now. You don’t have to watch tennis, read about tennis, follow any live scores, comment on my predictions, wonder whatever happened to Yanina Wickmayer, or keep your knives sharpened for those obnoxious and diabolical Federer or Nadal fans

When it comes to surfaces, I’m a player in exile. I grew up on the often-cracked hard courts of Central Pennsylvania, where the ball tends to get to you in a hurry, and sliding more than a few centimeters will earn you a quick ticket to the emergency room. Those

WATCH—Wrapping up the women’s US Open final:

There are two ways to talk about American tennis these days. The first is to lament its decline from the heights of the Pete and Andre and Jim and Michael era, and wonder when the country’s next generation of stars is going to man up and do some winning. The

“Sometimes you don’t feel your soul at 7 P.M.” These were the words of Sly Stone, singer, bandleader, and, for the last three decades or so, MIA drug casualty. He made that pronouncement in the early 1970s, to explain, in his own cryptic way, why he had begun to be

So far, 2015 has been the year of the coaching carousel in women's tennis. While that merry-go-round is always spinning in the pro game, it has kicked into overdrive of late. Over the last four months: —Simona Halep has split with the man who helped her reach the Top 10,

“She is the sole author of her own misfortune.” This may sound like the last line of a tragic Victorian novel, but it’s actually how the ITF summed up its 33-page decision, handed down on Wednesday, to suspend Maria Sharapova for a stiffer-than-expected two years for a doping violation. As

Steve, I may have flown several thousands of miles, but I still just witnessed a good old-fashioned NYC street mugging. Poor Tim Henman stood in front of his entire nation and got completely undressed by Roger Federer. I watched the mismatch with the legions of Henman supporters that blanketed “Henman