The announcement of a Rafanole exhibition in Saudi Arabia. Will the show go on?
A journalist, a tennis player and the president of the United States walk into a bar….
No, it’s not the setup for a joke. Indeed, it’s no laughing matter.
Tennis stars Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic – the No. 1- and No. 2-ranked players on the men’s tour – find themselves in the midst of an international crisis not of their making….
Read MoreThe Blues Brothers: Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic bow as a doubles team at the Laver Cup. Photograph by Clive Brunskill for Getty Images North America
“You’re only as good as your opponent makes you play,” Martina Navratilova observes in “Strokes of Genius.” It’s a documentary about Rafael Nadal’s hard-fought triumph over Roger Federer in the 2008 Wimbledon final, which Jon Wertheim describes in his book of the same name as the greatest tennis match to date….
Read MoreBanner for Novak Djokovic at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center proclaiming his 2015 US Open championship. This year’s winner, Djokovic found himself caught up in the Serena Williams-Carlos Ramos controversy at the Open, like everyone else. Photograph by the author.
: Hot, hot, hot Stefanos Tsitsipas – who became the youngest man to beat four top 10 players in a row earlier this summer at the Canadian Open – lost to the heat and Daniil Medvedev Wednesday at the US Open. Photograph by Getty Images.
The US Open – the last of the Grand Slam tournaments, celebrating its golden jubilee this season – is one of sports’ greatest events and one of its most challenging.
For fans, that is due in part to the difficulty in getting into the USTA Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens. Then once inside, members of the New York City Police Department, along with the Open’s security and ushers, have a poor sense of what’s where. (We ourselves were dropped off on Northern Boulevard, which we surmised correctly would be the shortest walk to the Media Center.)
So unless you have the directional skills of a Lewis and Clark, it can be tough going. Equally daunting for fans but especially the players this year has been the soaring heat and humidity….
Read MoreThe continuing Revolving Door Policy of the Trump Administration has thrown the systemic failure of Alexandrian leadership – leadership from the front – into sharp relief.
President Donald J. Trumpet has surrounded himself with Trumpettes – yes-men and, to a lesser extent, yes-women – and distanced himself from the No, No, Nanettes. Which is odd, considering his professed love of chaos. Wouldn’t you want some tension, some conflict? ...
Read More
As spring approaches, everyone is abuzz at the prospect of a thaw in relations between the “my button is bigger than your button” guys – President Donald J. Trumpet and L’il Kim Jong-un.
It was South Korea that actually announced the rapprochement on the White House lawn Thursday and, if you think that was unusual (having an intermediary make an announcement of a major foreign policy step involving the American people that has thus far included no actual address to the American people), well, you have to remember that nothing is usual with the act unilaterally (he wishes) Trump. ...
Read More
Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. The Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte. Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Russia’s Vladimir Putin. China’s Xi Jinping. And, of course, our own Donald J. Trump.
The world is in the grips of the strongman – tough, reactionary and taking no prisoners. Part of this is a response to the terrible, fascinating transition in which we find ourselves – a backlash to the global, multicultural, digital age to which so-called “feminine” energies (communications skills, sensitivity, a sense of service) are better suited. Part of this is the envy, rage and resentment, particularly in this country, of white, blue-collar males, who lacked the courage, intelligence, industry and imagination to confront their greedy employers and, failing that, reinvent themselves when manufacturing jobs began to dry up in the 1970s. ...
Read More
