When 2007 turned into 2008, in Long Beach, California, I had no idea I would experience New Year’s Eve outside the U.S. for the next four years. Way outside the U.S. The first in Hong Kong. The next three in the United Arab Emirates. I don’t quite yet consider myself an expatriate, but the evidence […]

[Read more →]

For most of a decade, Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal have been the best tennis players in the world. From Wimbledon 2003 through the French Open this year, they won 26 of 33 grand-slam championships. It seemed as if the only times they lost … were to each other. Even here at the end of […]

[Read more →]

Spent a whole day today covering tennis (and not just writing about it; see yesterday’s entry), and this is what I took from it: I am jealous of tennis writers. It’s very easy to explain, too.

[Read more →]

By the end of the day, I had written something like 2,300 words for The National about the Mubadala World Tennis Championship here in Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE. And no one had even struck a ball in anger. But that sort of production is what comes from 1) the day before the biggest […]

[Read more →]

I have written tennis. I covered the entirety of Wimbledon in 1985 and 1986. The first year, some German kid named Boris Becker won. The second year, he won again. Tennis is fairly far down the list of sports I know best … and sports I like. But when the staffing situation at the paper […]

[Read more →]

I can’t believe I’m writing a blog post with the “Kardashian” name in the headline. But this is about sports. Really. A news item last week revealed that Kris Humphries is the most-disliked player in the NBA, according to recent surveys of the American public. Fifty percent of all respondents identified Kris Humphries as an […]

[Read more →]

I didn’t really plan to watch the Lakers in their season-opener on Christmas Day. The game didn’t start until 2:30 p.m. in Los Angeles (which was early December 26 here in the UAE), and I prefer my sports-from-the-other-side-of-the-world to end about that time. Not start. But the night kinda dragged on, and when I got […]

[Read more →]

I live on an island, but I rarely think about the beaches that line long stretches of the south end and west end of it. Until this time of year, when going to the Corniche is as good a way as any to spend a day off on December 24. What to do when you […]

[Read more →]

The world of professional football (international variety) seems enormous. Countries you couldn’t find on a map have professional leagues. Countries you’ve never heard of have leagues. Countries like England and Germany have about 28 tiers of leagues. I’ve been writing from the UAE for more than two years and, admit it, most of you have […]

[Read more →]

Eight months of the year, the idea that regular guys and kids might go outside for a kick-about, as the Brits call it, would seem exotic. It’s too hot, and by the time it’s not quite so hot it’s midnight, and even in a country that tends to be nocturnal in the summer, that’s too […]

[Read more →]