Serena Williams described her desire to be “perfect.” “I know perfect doesn’t exist,” she wrote in Vogue earlier this month, announcing her plans to leave professional tennis. “But whatever my perfect was, I never wanted to stop until I got it right.” Williams’s serve — the most elementally sound component of her game — might […]
When Iga Świątek won her second French Open this month, she also won her 35th consecutive match, tying Venus Williams’s run in 2000. This week, Świątek will aim to keep her streak going at Wimbledon, where she is the top seed. Świątek is enjoying one of the best runs in WTA history. Earlier this year, […]
First, we discuss Naomi Osaka’s abrupt withdrawal from the French Open, following her announcement that she was refusing to attend the mandatory post-match press conferences for reasons of mental health. It’s a tricky issue. Player agency and mental health struggles are beginning to be treated with the seriousness that they deserve, and the post-match conferences […]
Playing the Australian Open at age 39, Serena Williams is trying again to lock down one of the last puzzle pieces of her magnificent career. Widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players ever, Williams’s only remaining snag is the Grand Slam record of a troublesome Margaret Court, who played in an era with […]
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, […]