tennis

Novak Djokovic came into the Wimbledon final against Roger Federer as the defending champion. He had won three of the past four Slams. He is the No. 1 player in the world. The distance in ranking points between him and the No. 2 player,…

Megan Rapinoe, the co-captain of the champion U.S. women’s soccer team, is confidently and casually everyone’s current favorite athlete, leader, and lesbian. As I watched her take the podium at the ticker-tape parade in New York on…

In the summer of 2002, before the U.S. Open, Pete Sampras, slowing and struggling and contemplating retirement, at age thirty-one, brought back his old coach Paul Annacone. Then Sampras, who was seeded seventeenth, went on to win the…

When Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal walked onto Centre Court at Wimbledon on Friday, the sight was at once familiar and strange—strange, in part, for seeming so familiar. The two men were meeting for the fortieth time, the fourteenth at…

For much of the first set in her fourth-round match at Wimbledon, against Simona Halep, Cori (Coco) Gauff held her own. That, in itself, was impressive: Gauff is fifteen years old and came into Wimbledon ranked three hundred and…

Nick Kyrgios was struggling to stay in character. The interview room was jammed with reporters on Thursday evening, unusual for a press conference after a second-round match, but that wasn’t it. Kyrgios requires the tennis media, plays…

Inflection points in the history of a sport, as in the history of anything, are seen clearly only in retrospect. Still, sometimes, you can feel in the moment that something is happening—a sense of import in the lead-up to the event, and…

There is no more difficult challenge in sport than to defeat Rafael Nadal on Court Philippe Chatrier, the main show court of the French Open. It is, for all relevant purposes, his home, his house, the place where he wins and wins and…

There is a picture of Ashleigh Barty from when she was a child, wearing a little tennis dress and holding a tiny trophy. Her round face has chipmunk cheeks, and the racquet held over her shoulder is four or five times the size of her…

On Wednesday, during the first set of his second-round match at Roland Garros, Roger Federer bounced the ball and began his graceful, fluid service motion. He and his opponent, Oscar Otte, had each won four games so far. Otte floated…