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Novak Djokovic practicing at Arthur Ashe Stadium on the US Open’s Media Day, Friday, Aug. 22. *Photographs by Georgette Gouveia.*

'The third guy' -- Novak Djokovic and what might've been

September 5, 2025

So Friday, Sept. 5, Novak Djokovic will play Carlos Alcaraz in the first semifinal of the US Open men’s singles championship — a match that virtually everyone sees as a fruitless quest to win his 25th Slam singles title and thus break the record he holds with Margaret Court.

Even if by some miracle Djokovic could beat the magnetic, mercurial Alcaraz, he undoubtedly would have to play the flawless, flawlessly robotic Jannik Sinner on Sunday, Sept. 7. It’s the kind of back-to-back challenge that Djokovic faced and met many times in the last decade. Now 38, however, it seems an unattainable double bill, even though this will be his fourth Slam semifinal appearance this year — a not-too-shabby achievement in a career of not-too-shabby achievements — one that has brought him full circle.

Members of the National Transportation Safety Board on the scene Saturday, Feb. 1, of the mid-air collision between a Black Hawk helicopter and a an American Airlines jet over the Potomac River at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. *Courtesy NTSB.*

Losing my voice to find it in the Trump era

February 2, 2025

How are we to respond to the times in which we find ourselves? Should we retreat, understanding that they are beyond our control? Or should we, knowing they are beyond our control, respond Stoically — with courage and calm, understanding, in the words of Rev. Sydney Smith, that “it is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing, because you could only do a little.”

As I pondered this over the Christmas break and into January — the so-called “wellness month” — I got very sick and lost my voice, an apt metaphor for losing the inner voice that has always been my North Star.

In the end, I concluded that reticence — even when you cannot physically “speak” — is a kind of cowardice, and that it is incumbent upon us all to speak out.

Rafael Nadal at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, in 2013. *Photograph by* *Gilad Rom.*

Fab: The long twilight of tennis' 'Big Four'

November 25, 2024

“The truth is forced upon us, very quickly, by a foe,” the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes wrote, and that was perhaps never truer than of tennis’ “Big Four” — Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. They were, strictly speaking, not foes — which implies an element of enemies, along with cross and double-cross — but rather opponents and especially rivals in the glorious first three decades of this century, when they won 69 Slam titles and three of the last four gold medals in men’s singles at the Summer Olympics (Nadal in 2008, Murray in ’12 and ’16 and Djokovic this year).

People talk about Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz and their contrasting temperaments and talents — Apollonian ice versus Dionysian fire respectively — which may ultimately eclipse the four. But I predict that when the history of tennis is finished, fans will look back at the Big Four as the likes of which we never saw again.

Eugène Thirion’s “Joan of Arc Listening to the Voices” (1876, oil on canvas). Joan heeded the voices of St. Michael the Archangel, pictured with her here, St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Margaret to rally the French against the British during the Hundred Years’ War of the Late Middle Ages. Burned as a heretic in 1431, she was canonized in 1920 and is revered today by the French, the Roman Catholic Church and feminists alike as a woman who remained true to her beliefs.

Transcending in the new Trump era

November 10, 2024

I’ve been thinking a lot about transcendence in sports and politics — two fields in which the quantitative and the qualitative collide.

A plaster cast of Eduardo Barrón's "Nero and Seneca" (1904). Seneca, the Roman Stoic philosopher and historian who tutored and advised the emperor Nero, had a lot to say about leading a meaningful life. His ended when the narcissistic Nero forced him to commit suicide. *Courtesy Museo del Prado.*

High profile leave-takings ask -- when and how to go?

October 13, 2024

Recently, The Museum of Modern Art director Glenn D. Lowry, a man I interviewed several times in my career as a cultural writer, announced that he will step down from his post after 30 years in September of 2025.

As much as his counterpart Philippe de Montebello at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, who left that post in 2008 after more than 30 years as its longest-serving director, Lowry really shaped the New York City cultural scene at the twilight of the 20th century and the dawn of the 21st. He could’ve stayed on.

But he told The New York Times: “I didn’t want to be the person who stayed too long.”

In that, however, Lowry is a rare bird.

Thoughts on the US Open

September 9, 2024

The US Open began on a brilliant August day (the 26th) that hinted at autumn and ended on a brilliant September day (the 8th) that delivered it.

In between, there were upsets — women’s No. 1 Iga Swiatek, last year’s women’s winner Coco Gauff, last year’s men’s winner Novak Djokovic and the No. 3 Carlos Alcaraz — and some insightful tennis as Taylor Fritz and Francis Tiafoe squared off in a semifinal that gave hope to American fans of a possible U.S. champion.

But only false hope. I saw men’s No. 1 Jannik Sinner practice with Paris bronze medalist Lorenzo Musetti on Media Day — Friday, Aug. 25 — and thought Sinner would win the men’s final, which he did, beating Fritz in straight sets 6-3. 6-4. 7-5.

NBC, the Olympics and American exceptionalism

August 6, 2024

The Olympics were just getting underway July 27 when the American swim team was reminded of how Australian swimmer Cate Campbell reveled in her country having had more gold medals than the United States (13 to seven) at the 2023 World Swimming Championships.

There has long been an intense rivalry between the swim teams that has spilled over into trash talk, but Campbell really went off on the cowbells in the stands that support Americans in the pool and even the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” If nothing succeeds like success, nothing irks like it either.

While the National Anthem comment seems petty, Campbell may have a point when you consider NBC’s cheerleading coverage of the Paris Games as we roll through the second week of competition….