One of the quirks of this blog is that I have been doing it long enough that I often don’t remember when I have previously addressed a topic. Sometimes that stops me in my tracks. Most of the time it leaves me convinced some new look at a previously touched-upon sports event from my professional […]

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I do not appreciate Roger Federer as much as the generic tennis fan should. I know for certain that I rooted against him throughout the Aughties, mostly because I was sick of him winning everything — which is pretty much what he did for years at a time, back then. From 2004 through 2007 Federer […]

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Caroline Wozniacki is a veteran tennis player with lots of fans and  accomplishments. As far as I can tell, she has always been polite, honest and modest, which we like in our athletes (and increasingly do not get). Wozniacki is not the sort of athlete who complains about fan behavior or who snaps at journalists […]

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It is an exhibition, not a tournament. Something just north of hitting on a practice court. No matter. Serena Williams‘s return to a tennis court with an elite opponent on the other side of the net, with paying fans in the stands and someone keeping score … may be the biggest sports story in UAE […]

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It was Abu Dhabi’s idea, and not a bad one. Take the tennis-free final weekend of the year and jam into it a three-day, six-player competition grandiosely titled “World Tennis Championship”. Target the highest-ranked players in the world by offering fat appearance fees for a few days of action in the Gulf sun, with another […]

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If Vin Scully had not followed the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles … Dick Enberg would be the best-known sports broadcaster in the history of Southern California. Rather than “the other really good guy in L.A., after Vinny.” This came to mind today after hearing that Enberg died in La Jolla at age 82.

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In conversations with journalists, over the years, I have found a common denominator: A significant percentage of them were thinking about journalism — and even practicing it — at a young age. This comes to mind after seeing a call from officials of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship, later this month in Abu Dhabi, for […]

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For all I know, journalists covering major sports events these days have an ID chip in their arms. Nobody gets into the media areas unless the sensor picks up your biometric data. At minimum, credentials for an Olympics or World Cup  or French Open, over the past decade or two, have featured increasingly sophisticated and […]

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Complimenting Roger Federer is as easy as rolling out of bed and hitting the floor. So skilled! So classy! So durable! So clever! So reliable! So eternally youthful — in that he does not seem to have gained or lost a pound since he took over the men’s game in 2003 and still has (nearly […]

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Venus Williams. Hell of a career. Seven major tennis championships. Five Wimbledon championships. Former world No. 1. Playing professionally since age 14, in 1994. And Wimbledon finalist today at the age of 37, with a chance to become the oldest women’s singles champion at the All England Club. She had an opportunity to pull a […]

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