For at least four decades, I have been wearing the Stan Smith model of the Adidas tennis shoe. Going back to my early days in college. Perhaps you know the Stan Smith. The tennis shoe. (As opposed to the tennis player, for which the shoe was named, a world No. 1 in 1972 and a […]

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Ahmed Rizvi is the tennis guy of The National staff, and in doing a meaty story on Serena Williams ahead of the start of Wimbledon tomorrow he illuminated some trends I had not noticed. She goes to the All England Club having won the past three major championships, the U.S. Open, the Australian Open and […]

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This is not a pair I would have chosen for purposes of “compare and contrast”. It was our colleague, Osman Samiuddin who did it for me. Novak Djokovic and Ned Flanders. In a comment piece that will appear in the Tuesday editions of The National, Osman suggests the two personalities — one real, one a […]

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A fairly significat chunk of what sports journalists do is cover scheduled events. Games. Press conference. Interviews. Unscheduled news generally sets off some scrambling. A hiring, a firing, a change in policy, a violent opinion — we expect that sort of unexpected, but it requires extra effort. What we do not expect is scheduled events […]

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The weather in the UAE is dependably pleasant from December through March — but particularly in January and February. What’s more, there are things to do. Outside. Interesting concepts. Sports. Concerts. Lazing at the beach. Enormous family groups barbecuing at the parks. We decided to join some of that today, a day when Everyone Seemed […]

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Tennis fans in Asia have been hearing a lot about a bold, innovative, breakthrough approach to presenting tennis. Which has been done before. Nothing new under the sun, indeed. But not if you listen to the people around the International Premier Tennis League. In fact, it is nothing more than a revival (and tweak) of […]

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On the surface, it seemed about as conventional as a major final could be. Serena Williams vs. Caroline Wozniacki in the U.S. Open women’s final. The world No. 1 and winner of 17 major championships, against the former world No. 1. Both of them regular subjects of tennis chat. In fact, the final had at […]

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This is my favorite time of the tennis season. July and the first half of August. When the tournament are numerous, not particularly important, often located in exotic lands and liable to produce random winners. Jonathan Raymond of The National’s sports staff addressed that topic today. People named Leonardo Mayer and Mona Barthel won tournament […]

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A lot of sports editors around the world today weren’t exactly surprised that, with the end of the World Cup, not a whole lot is going on … but it still represents an unpleasant reality. A limited number of scheduled events in the near future. It is the case in the UAE, and it is […]

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Some of us are getting old waiting for Roger Federer to live up to our declarations of his imminent tennis demise. The man will be 33 in August, which (historically) has been too old to accomplish much, in tennis. And since the days of his absolute domination of the men’s game in the middle of […]

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