It's never too late in the season to read the readers, and write back. If you have a question or comment for this column, email me at stignor@tennismagazine.com.

“People who watch tennis are knowledgeable and passionate. They aren’t afraid to let us know what they think.” These are phrases you hear a lot when you talk to people who do tennis programming at ESPN. By which they really mean: “Tennis fans are a tough crowd.” It’s true. Give

Tennis is a game of personality, we’ve been told. But you have to look hard for it. A good player in the middle of a match won’t show you much; he can't afford to. I can remember being 13 years old and watching an important 16-and-under sectional junior tournament. I

Doping, match-fixing, appearance fees straight through the roof: When you think about it, tennis isn’t all that bad today. You should have seen it in the 1980s, when there seemed to be no cure for an even more dangerous disease: the exhibition. At a certain point, Ivan Lendl, world No.

Just in time for Easter: Our weekly resurrection of Reading the Readers. If you have a question or a comment for a future edition of this column, please email me at stignor@tennismagazine.com.

Friday at the Australian Open was billed as a clash of generations in Rod Laver Arena: Two top male players in their 30s were going up against two promising players in their 20s. If you’ve followed tennis in any way, shape, or form for the last 10 years—or if you’ve

NEW YORK—“I don’t know what’s happening right now.” These were Stan Wawrinka’s first words to the audience in Arthur Ashe Stadium after his 6-7 (1), 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 win over Novak Djokovic for the U.S. Open title on Sunday night. On the one hand, you could forgive Wawrinka’s bewilderment. The

NEW YORK—”Well, I always try to fight every, every point, and sometimes it’s difficult when you have in front of you a warrior, you know. He’s a very, very good player.” Juan Martin del Potro had a baseball hat pulled low over his head as he said these words to

The Rally returns with a weekend edition. Today and tomorrow I'll be talking about the 2012 season—what's behind and what's ahead—with freelance writer Kamakshi Tandon. Kamakshi, Are you ready for the fall season? I guess you have no choice, since it’s well upon us by now. I have to say

WIMBLEDON, ENGLAND—If you flip through the record books, it’s possible to find a few Wimbledon finals that featured a performance like the one Petra Kvitova gave us on Saturday. Billie Jean King’s swan-song, 6-0, 6-1 drubbing of Evonne Goolagong at age 31 in 1975, and Pete Sampras’s three-set blitz of

That was the warning we read in a thousand tweets on Friday, after Nadal announced that he was withdrawing from the French Open with a wrist injury and joining his old rival, Federer, on the sidelines. With that, the Golden Era’s sun seemed to sink a little lower in the

Novak Djokovic has been showing off his soccer skills. Roger Federer has been seen spiking a few volleyballs. Andy Murray is set to hit and giggle with Andy Roddick In Miami. Caroline Wozniacki has become a temporary golf groupie/reporter. For Rafael Nadal, though, the off-season has meant getting back to

For a long time I wondered why I liked watching tennis on clay so much, and why it looked so different, so much more flowing, than it does on hard courts. Finally a friend clued me in: “I think it’s the sliding.” Oh right, the sliding. That was it. Why

On the surface, it looks like everything went as planned in the Davis Cup semifinals this weekend. In Prague, the two-man team from the Czech Republic swept an injury-battered Argentina. In Belgrade, the Serbs had a tougher time with a tenacious Canadian squad, but ultimately made it through unharmed. Both

We’ve seen four Grand Slams, seven Masters events, the Fed Cup, and every Davis Cup tie but one. Now only one thing remains for 2006. It’s time for everyone’s favorite whipping boy, that part of the year when tennis' pointless schedule and most bizarre trophy designs are on full display:

IlAt 9:00 A.M., before keyboards start clicking and gossip starts twisting up and down the rows of desks, two sounds can be heard outside an empty Indian Wells press room. First, you hear birds singing, likely asking each other when all of these humans—players, coaches, ushers, writers—are going to leave

MELBOURNE—There’s shock and sadness around the tennis world today, after the announcement that ATP chief Brad Drewett, 54, has ALS (known as Lou Gehrig’s or Charles Mingus’s disease to Americans) and will be leaving his job. It’s doubly sad because Drewett had been on the job for only a year,

The men’s semis are set in Key Biscayne, as you know: Murray-Del Potro, Federer-Djokovic. DP’s win over Rafael Nadal yesterday was a minor, messy epic, complete with an Argentine contingent roaring against Rafa—isn’t that some kind of tennis sacrilege? Nadal didn’t have it from the beginning; he couldn’t get much

NEW YORK—“You gotta show me something!” Brad Gilbert yelled at Kevin Anderson during their post-match interview in Louis Armstrong Stadium on Monday. The ESPN commentator demanded that the South African turned Floridian, who had just beaten Andy Murray to reach his first Grand Slam quarterfinal at age 29, rip his

“I just didn’t play well. I did too many unforced errors. She played her basic game and didn’t have to do much.” That was Svetlana Kuznetsova’s post-match assessment of how her opponent, Caroline Wozniacki, beat her on Sunday in the Dubai final. Three-fourths of that statement is indisputably true. Kuznetsova