Tennis, everyone

August 24, 2017

The qualifying rounds of the US Open are underway at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens. The actual tournament – the last of the four Slams – begins with first-round play Monday, Aug. 28. In the meantime, enjoy the game’s stars in a lighter mood at Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day on Saturday, Aug. 26.

On the tournament’s infrastructure front, the big news is the temporary Louie (as in Louis Armstrong Stadium) while the United States Tennis Association readies the new Louie for its Big Apple Bow next year. On the personnel front, a number of big names will be missing this year. ...

Grief as reinvention: Jackie and ‘Jackie’

December 8, 2016

"Behind every great man is a great woman”: It’s an adage that’s been brought home to in our postfeminist age. Witness the apotheosis of Michelle Obama on the cover of the current Vogue and the new “Jackie,” with Natalie Portman transcendent as the tragic former first lady.

Indeed, her Jacqueline B. Kennedy and Jackie herself are better than director Pablo Larrain’s “Jackie.” For one thing, the movie’s music, no doubt intended to strike a discordant note, is merely jarring. It underscores other false notes. Why is the boy who plays John F. Kennedy Jr. a blond? And why does Peter Sarsgaard’s Robert F. Kennedy fail to speak with his distinctive broad Boston cadence, particularly when Portman’s Jackie speaks in her signature breathy New Yorkese? And why do we see her not once but twice in a red gown when she mainly favored white and pastel formal wear?

Perhaps this is quibbling. What “Jackie” and Portman’s Jackie do very well is locate her grief and then show us how she cycles through it, reinventing her husband, his presidency – and, thus, herself – in what remains in some ways a pyrrhic victory. ...

Nick Kyrgios – more than black and white

September 11, 2015

With the US Open drawing to a close this weekend, we turn our attention to the resumption of the Davis Cup competition with several stars, including Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal, in play for their respective countries.

One star on the sidelines for Australia is trash-talking, break-taking, umpire-arguing, racket-throwing, crowd-criticizing, sock-changing Nick Kyrgios, who’s been left off his country’s Davis Cup team to work on “personal development.” Translation: He’s been sent to the time out corner. Indeed such is his status as tennis’ reigning bad boy that former reigning bad boy Bernard Tomic – he of the motorcycles, lap dances and fistfights – has been pressed into service for the saucy Aussies. ...

Borna and Nole – in Vogue

August 23, 2015

Well, once again the gazillion-page (actually only 832-page) September Vogue is out, and, once again, the big issue for me is not the cover or the fashion but whom editrix Anna Wintour has anointed among male tennis players for the ritual dressing (and undressing).

This year, tennis-crazed Anna, the sly minx, is offering a kind of two-for-one and her own version of doubles. In the “People Are Talking About” section, rising star and teen dream Borna “Identity” Ćorić looks like he’s headed off to Harvard, standing at the net in a gray and white Canali sweater with gray J. Crew sweats. Coach Brad Gilbert has given the 18-year-old Croat the nickname but the question is, “Whose identity?” ...

American Pharoah spurs Vogue ‘Horse and Rider’ exhibit

July 28, 2015

With the appearance of American Pharoah in Vogue, the magazine considers the relationship of “Horse and Rider” in the inaugural exhibit of the online Vogue’s Gallery, a subject that dates from ancient times and that may see a resurgence with the Pharoah’s success.

Among my favorite horse-and-rider works are those involving Alexander the Great and his faithful steed Bucephalus – or “Ox-head,” for the white, ox-shaped marking on his forehead -- whom he tamed when he was just a boy. (Alexander noticed that the big, black stallion was afraid of his shadow and so turned his head toward the sun so he couldn’t see it. The story sounds like a legend, but many historians agree that it’s probably true. Bucephalus and Alexander were a team for many years until the horse died at age 26 in modern-day Pakistan, where he is said to be buried in a town named for him.) ...

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American Pharoah – Inside the Vogue cover shoot (and the cover-up)

June 16, 2015

Apparently, American Pharoah was more than ready for his close-up when Vogue came calling to his home-away-from-his-Southern-California-home at Churchill Downs in Kentucky recently for the cover of its August issue, out July 23.

The coverboy – who can always check the box labeled “plays well with others” – was a perfect gentleman outside trainer Bob Baffert’s barn as he was spritzed, festooned with a garland of red roses from Susan’s Florist and snapped by Alex Lockett. The only time he went off cue was to nibble the roses’ greens. (Don’t they feed those Vogue models?) ...

Cover me: American Pharoah and the search for authenticity

June 11, 2015

What Anna wants, Anna gets – particularly when it comes to a sleek, gorgeous, well-muscled male.

And what Anna Wintour, Condé Nast creative director and Vogue editor, wants right now is American Pharoah.

Ahmed Zayat, who has pledged that the Pharoah will belong to the American people, has told Bloodhorse, which covers the Thoroughbred industry, that AP will grace the cover of the next issue of the fashion bible.

"We are breaking new territory," Zayat, who operates his family's Zayat Stables, said June 10 in a podcast interview with Bloodhorse.com.

I’ll say. Anna has featured some studs in her day – Tim Tebow (shirtless), Colin Kaepernick, her fave Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic (Speedo), Ryan Lochte (cover, with Serena Williams and Hope Solo at the beach). Now she has a soon-to-be real stud. ...