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

The tennis season takes 11 months, but the end goes by in a blur. The women wrapped everything up in October, and this year the men finished with a whirlwind three-week trip through Paris, London, and now Belgrade for the Davis Cup final. Novak Djokovic, who won in Bercy and

The U.S. Open is not an easy event. You learn that from the first two announcements you hear at the National Tennis Center after you’ve made the long trek across the boardwalk from the No. 7 train. As you approach the gates, someone with a bullhorn reassures you, “Relax, you’re

“If you’re Dominic Thiem,” ESPN’s Brad Gilbert said near the end of the championship match at the Nitto ATP Finals on Sunday, “you’re scratching your head, thinking, ‘What’s this guy going to do next?’” “This guy” was Daniil Medvedev, and Gilbert was right: Over the course of his 4-6, 7-6

INDIAN WELLS, CALIF.—Yesterday I wrote about a tournament publication that comes to us daily, the Order of Play. Today I’ll move on to one that, if you’re on site as a member of the media, you receive at least a dozen times each day: the interview transcript. Each player’s post-match

A weekly (in theory) list of opinions, links, hobbies, DVDs, unearthed records, and potentially more. 1.Pat McEnroe fills in on PTI. Sitting in the hot seat and coming up with a witty opinion about everything on the planet doesn’t look like an easy gig, but PMac held his own. He

NEW YORK—What do you get when you pack 22,000 Roger Federer fans together and let them tailgate through a rain delay for three hours? One very loud tennis crowd. Just how loud it was going to get inside Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sunday night was obvious from the moment that

MELBOURNE—Just before his match with Rafael Nadal began today, Grigor Dimitrov took a last-second trip to bathroom, thus making the world No. 1 wait to walk down the tunnel into Rod Laver Arena. A minute or so later, Dimitrov made Rafa wait again, this time at the net before the

LONDON—“How big a deal is it for you to defeat Andy Murray today?” This was the first question Sam Querrey was asked after his 3-6, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-1, 6-1 win over the world No. 1 on Wednesday. Querrey answered the only way a kid from Southern California could. “I

It’s 9:05 A.M. Monday morning. A deeply tan and muscular woman, 6-foot-tall, her face concealed beneath a black visor, is hitting volleys on Stadium 3. There’s no one in the stands or in the vicinity other than myself, until a father and his two young sons walk up to peek

Tennis has been transformed over the last five decades by TV, money, technology, equipment, fashion and politics. But through all of that, the players have remained at the heart of the game. As part of our golden anniversary celebration of the Open era, Tennis.com presents its list of 50 best

No, that’s not how anyone described last week’s WTA Championships, though it was supposed to feature the eight best women in the world. Rather, that’s how, with an awkward twirl of her arm, Lindsay Davenport described the glorious high-rise hotels of Dubai a few hundred times over the last few

TOKYO (AP) — Naomi Osaka is back playing, still winning, and also talking to the media again. The Japanese superstar who lit the Olympic cauldron defeated 52nd-ranked Zheng Saisai of China 6-1, 6-4 on Sunday in her first match in nearly two months. Osaka hadn't played since she withdrew from

The Latest on Wimbledon (all times local): 6:35 p.m. Play at Wimbledon has been halted because of rain. Roger Federer was playing Lorenzo Sonego on Centre Court with their fourth-round match level 5-5 in the first set when play was stopped. Alexander Zverev was in the fifth set against Felix

MONTREAL—When two players in the upper regions of the game meet for the first time, it's always intriguing to discover if the matchup favors one player or the other. Daniil Medvedev walked on court for his Rogers Cup final round skirmish with Rafael Nadal determined to impose himself, to set