When it comes to Davis Cup, it’s possible for a tennis fan to turn virtually any negative into a positive. That includes the competition’s oft-derided, stop-and-start schedule. Yes, staging the Cup on four separate weekends over the course of 10 months makes it more difficult to attract top players for

Pippa's in the Club today to see Murray the Ruthless Moaner, and the London papers are all over it. And her. And her brother James. According to the Telegraph, Pippa looked “relaxed, despite a barrage of attention”—that's a relief—though her brother unfortunately appeared to be "warm in a blue suit

Angelique Kerber had a word for what happened in Rod Laver Arena on Saturday night. “It’s really crazy,” she told the audience in the stadium. “It just sounds so crazy,” she said to Chris Evert in the ESPN booth a few minutes later. “I have so many emotions, it’s like

Four singles matches came and went in Rome on Saturday, but there was one character in the day’s drama who never left: The court. The clay in the main stadium at the Foro Italico has been a subject of much frustrated discussion—as well as a fair amount of slipping, sliding,

There’s only one thing that never changes at Wimbledon: The myth that it never changes. It’s hard to think of another event in any sport that has mastered the art of updating and renewing itself, while continuing to appear as if it takes no notice of the outside world at

This was the type of day the ATP had in mind when it created the mandatory Super 9 series—later to be renamed the Masters—two decades ago. In those days, the top players were often scattered to the four corners of the earth, chasing appearance fees and avoiding each other for

“Make sure you move your feet when you’re nervous,” read one of the notes that Andy Murray wrote to himself before his 6-4, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (2) win over Milos Raonic in the Wimbledon final on Sunday. Whatever Ivan Lendl, his super-coach, told him in the 40 hours leading up

Serving it out. It’s a uniquely pressurized situation, equaled perhaps only by holing out at 18 when you’re one up in a golf tournament or nailing down the last strike of a close baseball game. In those two situations, the extra pressure comes from knowing that while you have the

At 11:00 Sunday morning two men entered the grounds at Melbourne Park holding the men’s and women’s championship trophies. They brought them in by hand, right out in the open for everyone to see. Not surprisingly, they were head-turners. Every straggling fan who walked past them stopped and looked back

MELBOURNE—There’s one thing, maybe only one thing, that you can say for sure about Bernard Tomic: He never stops confounding. Anyway you take the 19-year-old Aussie, he turns conventional wisdom on its head and makes it work for him. Even that isn’t quite true, though. Sometimes his unorthodox style utterly

"Vamo . . . vamo . . . vamo," goes the lazy, one-man chant from the corner of the Stadium 2 bleachers. In the distance, a motorcycle guns down an unseen road. Moths make erratic loops around the court's towering lighting fixtures before suddenly dropping to the court. Juan-Martin del

The tough thing about watching sports is how much movement it requires—it can be exhausting. Yesterday a friend and fellow Philadelphia Eagles fan (yes, I’m going to talk football to start, as a man must do on Mondays; skip to the next paragraph for tennis) came over to watch our

Is there a sport other than tennis that contains so many different versions of itself, so many different worlds, within its small universe? These worlds are created, literally, at the surface level: Clay, grass, and hard courts each come with their own playing styles, their own champions and specialists, their

It’s another measure of how good Rafael Nadal’s season was that, even as he took home three majors and three Masters and finished No. 1 for the second time, he did it without having to survive one of the drawn-out, see-saw, viciously physical nail-biters we’ve come to expect from him.

WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Roger Federer knows, naturally, that this Wimbledon marks his last Grand Slam tournament before turning 40. He knows, too, that he hadn't played a third-round match at a major in nearly 1 1/2 years. And, truthfully, he knows he can't possibly know how many more he

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP)—Justine Henin’s run at the Australian Open finished in the third round Friday, losing 6-4, 7-6 (8) to Svetlana Kuznetsova just a year after reaching the final in her comeback to Grand Slam tennis. It was Henin’s first loss in a major to Kuznetsova, the former French and

MASON, Ohio (AP)—A weary Rafael Nadal and an off-target Roger Federer got knocked out of the quarterfinals of the Western & Southern Open on Friday. No. 1 Novak Djokovic had to scuffle to avoid an upset, too. Playing a day after he spent five hours on court, Nadal faded in

SAN DIEGO, Calif.—Clyde the Sea Lion barked, grimaced, bared his teeth and, finally, smiled and flirted with CoCo Vandeweghe. His whiskers tickled Vandeweghe’s cheek, provoking a nervous giggle and slight pull back. Minutes earlier, U.S. Fed Cup captain Mary Joe Fernandez made the surprise announcement at San Diego’s famed Sea

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)—Andy Roddick believes there’s a conversation ahead among pro tennis players to consider whether forming a union would be the best way to tackle the sport’s issues with a collective voice. Prompted by weather issues that played havoc with the U.S. Open this month, Roddick suggested that the

PARIS (AP)—Rafael Nadal excelled when he needed to most, winning the final two sets against John Isner on Tuesday to advance to the second round at the French Open with a 6-4, 6-7 (2), 6-7 (2), 6-2, 6-4 victory. The five-time champion, who improved to 39-1 at Roland Garros, played