Andy Murray surving at the 2015 Australian Open. Photograph by Brendan Dennis.
News that tennis star Andy Murray plans to retire this summer after the Paris Olympics and that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to become a backbencher has brought me back to a very bad summer day two years ago and thoughts of what it really means to let go of a a career — and your ego.
Read MoreThe admission by tennis star Maria Sharapova that she has tested positive for the banned drug meldonium offers its share of ironies.
Sharapova – the world’s most financially successful female athlete – has always benefited both by her talent and her looks.
But what looks good on the outside is not necessarily healthy on the inside. Sharapova – a Russian who trains in the U.S. – has a history of irregular EKGs and a family history of diabetes. There are conflicting reports about whether the drug, also known as mildronate, can actually alleviate those conditions. Its reputation as a performance enhancer stems from its ability to increase blood flow. ...
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Pope Francis’ celebration of Mass at Madison Square Garden tonight prompted my friend, sports publicist and blogger John Cirillo, to email me a post on his favorite Garden moments, which got me thinking about my own.
But first, a little history. The Garden, named for President James Madison, really was once a garden – a rooftop garden that was part of an elaborate Moorish-style complex designed by architect Stanford White, who was shot there in 1906 by a crazed Harry Thaw over Thaw’s wife (and White’s former mistress) chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit. (She figures in both E.L. Doctorow’s novel “Ragtime” and the movie “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing.”) ...
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An unsettling, if not upsetting, sports days with trade rumors swirling about the San Francisco 49ers sending quarterback Colin Kaepernick to the Philadelphia Eagles or the Chicago Bears or the Martians. General Manager Trent Baalke was quick to deny it, so you know it must have some validity.
More about this in a minute but first, What would The New York Times do without Roger Federer? Last year, The Times couldn’t bother writing about World Tennis Day at Madison Square Garden, which was too bad, because Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray put on quite a show. This year, however, Feddy Bear and Grigor “Baby Fed” Dimitrov are slated to square off March 10, and I predicted there would be a huge article in The Times to advance it. Christopher Clarey didn’t disappoint with the kind of piece that could’ve been written by Mirka, Feddy’s wife. The article was long on how the Feds travel the world with two sets of twins and – surprise, surprise – several nannies. But not even the cleverest of journalists can turn a subject into something he is not. One of the great pleasures of any Fed article is his blithe unawareness of his own self-centeredness. (Though it would seem counterintuitive, self-centered people never understand how others see them, or they wouldn’t be self-centered. It’s what makes pseudofedblog.com so funny.)
Anyway, here’s Fed on traveling the world en famille:
“The girls enjoy it, and I love being with my family, and so does Mirka. She loves being with me….”
I’m sure she does. ...
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The United States may be the sole superpower but as far as tennis is concerned, we might as well still be Britain’s backwater colony.
We’re out of the Davis Cup, and let’s face it, we Yanks will always be knocked out in the first round as long as we have to play the Brits (by which I mean Andy Murray). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: You can say what you want about Andy as a low-rent Hamlet always bemoaning his existential fate, usually in the middle of a match. (Remember the time he was playing Nole at the Aussie Open and got distracted by a feather?) But Andy’s been dandy in Davis Cup, especially against us.
While we do have the No. 1 doubles team in twins Bob and Mike Bryan, they’ll never be enough without marquee singles players. And we’re a long way from John McEnroe and Andre Agassi. ...
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Nick Bollettieri’s new book, “Changing the Game”, is dedicated to Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King. “Most people build buildings. They tore down barriers.”
There are teachers and then there are teachers – Aristotle, who taught Alexander the Great; Annie Sullivan, who unlocked the brilliance of Helen Keller; Jelena Gencic, who taught Novak Djokovic poetry and classical music along with groundstrokes.
Nick Bollettieri is a teacher. Watch him talking to kids who’ve been practicing tennis on one of the 10 indoor courts in the gorgeous new Lifetime Athletic in White Plains, N.Y. He doesn’t just autograph his new book, “Changing the Game” (New Chapter Publisher, 319 pages, $26.95), for them. He takes the time to explain the fine points of the game – their game. And the kids, hardly bigger than the tennis bags they are carrying, really listen.
Even his inscription in my copy is a teacher’s admonition: “You have studied the game. But remember it’s people that you must know in order to give more precise information.”
To Nick, that’s what makes a great coach – the ability to know the individual student to help him become the most he can be.
Nick grew up in Pelham, N.Y., playing football and thinking tennis was a sissy’s game. But then an uncle who belonged to the New Rochelle Tennis Club invited him to join him there and, well, football’s loss was tennis’ gain.
Nick has coached 10 world No. 1s, including the Williams sisters, Maria Sharapova, Andre Agassi and Monica Seles. It was Seles who surprised him at Madison Square Garden on World Tennis Day March 3 to introduce him as one of this summer’s inductees into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
I’m smart enough not to ask who his favorite is and instead ask who is the best he ever coached. He answers the question by turning it around.
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Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in – to borrow from Michael Corleone.
Just when I thought I could take a night off from blogging about men’s tennis, there’s big news:
Andy and Ivan the Terrible are splitsville.
Yes, Andy Murray and his coach, Ivan Lendl, have announced an amicable breakup. It says a lot about tennis – a sport in which “love” means nothing – that players and coaches announce their breakups as if they were married. No Lendl fan here – you can’t be a McEnroe fan and root for the dour, robotic Ivan – but give the guy credit. He was the Annie Sullivan to Andy’s Helen Keller. And by that I mean he did what great teachers/coaches do. He helped Andy unlock himself and cross the threshold.
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