In recent years, older athletes have held a grip on tennis like never before in the Open era. When younger players do break through, it’s big news — and speculation always runs rampant as to which up-and-comer will supplant one of the old guard. But the side of the sport familiar to most viewers isn’t […]
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 […]
Spare a thought for the younger contenders trying to stop Novak Djokovic from winning the men’s calendar-year Grand Slam at the U.S. Open, which started Monday in New York. The 34-year-old Serbian is one of the greatest tennis players ever to grip a racket. By winning this year’s tournament in Flushing Meadows, Queens, he would […]
Félix Auger-Aliassime, who opens his Wimbledon campaign on Tuesday, is the youngest player in the top 20 of men’s professional tennis. The 20-year-old Canadian is poised to lead the sport once the Big Three of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer eventually retire. As a teenager, he was already following in their footsteps, becoming […]
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 […]