If Roger Federer were a carpenter, his serve would be a saw, the handiest tool in the kit. But his forehand? That would be the wood itself. It’s the very essence of his game. Federer, 41, announced his retirement last week, marking the end of 24 years of professional tennis in which he played more […]
Seventeen years ago, a sculpted Spaniard tore through the French Open draw. Rafael Nadal was only 19 in 2005 when, wearing his sleeveless green top and capri-length pants, he won the first of his 13 French Open titles. But might this be the year the King of Clay is finally unseated at Roland-Garros by a […]
Great Britain’s Emma Raducanu stunned the world when she won the 2021 U.S. Open. At 18, she became the first singles qualifier since the Open Era began in 1968 to win a major championship. But less than two weeks later, Raducanu fired her coach. The teenager, who had played in only four tour-level events, said […]
Rafael Nadal has unearthed a valuable cache of points hidden in the red dust of Roland Garros. The 13-time French Open champion dominates a specialized statistical category that may unlock a formula for how he wins on clay: the third shot of a rally. When Nadal strikes the third shot in a back-and-forth with an […]
For the first time since 1945, there will be no Wimbledon this year. And there’s no guarantee that the coronavirus pandemic won’t yet cancel the U.S. Open, scheduled to start in late August, and the French Open, which was postponed from May to September. If the rest of the 2020 tennis season is abandoned altogether, […]