All hail the Pharoah.
American Pharoah has been named Sports Illustrated readers’ “Sportsman of the Year.” The SI staff’s choice will be announced tomorrow on SI.com and NBC’s “Today” show.
AP received 47 percent of the vote. The World Series’ winning Kansas City Royals garnered 29 percent, while soccer star Lionel Messi earned 6 percent. Tennis No. 1 Novak Djokovic finished ninth. ...
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Great Britain has won the Davis Cup, defeating Belgium.
More accurately, Andy Murray has won the Davis Cup.
Any Cup championship is, first and foremost, about teamwork, with the country of the winning team getting the honors. Sports are forever entwined in politics as I illustrate in “Water Music,” the first novel in my series, “The Games Men Play.”
But tennis, like swimming, is also among the most individualistic of sports, and the tension between the individual and the team in these sports– another theme of “Water Music” – is part of their flavor. ...
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Well, there was no Rafael Nadal appendectomy this year or contretemps between Stan Wawrinka and Roger Federer’s wife, Mirka, or controversy over whether or not Feddy bailed in the final to lead Switzerland to the Davis Cup.
But the result was the same: Novak Djokovic was the last man standing, winning the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals Sunday, Nov. 22, for the fourth time, capping a year in which he became the first player to win $20 million in prize money. Nole and tennis have come a long way.
Of course, given the lack of drama in this year’s tournament… or was there? Methinks I detected just a whiff of passive-aggressive gamesmanship in the press conferences. ...
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Whatever happens at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London – where Novak Djokovic is scheduled to play Roger Federer Tuesday, Nov. 17 as part of the round-robin format – Nole has had one helluva season. Three Slam titles, again. Six Masters 1000 titles (the first man to do so in a season.) No. 1, again. ATP Player of the Year, again. A nomination for Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, again.
Now it appears that others outside the tennis community are taking notice of a year that surpasses his dream season of 2011. Christopher Clarey’s “Novak Djokovic Ascends Ever Higher, With No Clear Landing in Sight” appeared Nov. 13 online in The New York Times, also known as the Roger Federer Gazette. Ah, that must’ve hurt. But Nole’s “relentless perfection,” as former Fed and Pete Sampras coach Paul Annacone described it in the article, can no longer be denied. ...
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The racing world is a-flutter – and so am I: American Pharoah is up for Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year. As is Novak Djokovic once again.
OK, Nole – who hasn’t lost a tournament since the Ice Age – is never going to win. I’m assuming that when posters say they haven’t heard of some of the nominees, they mean him. And when they point out the year fellow nominee Serena Williams had, I know they don’t know what they’re talking about. No disrespect to Serena, but she won three Slams, lost in the semifinals of the fourth and then basically retired for the rest of the season. ...
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Nothing like the BNP Paribas Masters final in Paris between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray to bring out the haters and the opinionaters – as well as a few wits – on the Internet.
Nole won 6-2, 6-4, which left plenty of people unhappy about oh, gee, just about everything – Nole dominating tennis, Andy’s service problems, Nole’s supposedly “robotic” play, Andy’s seemingly fatal attraction to the net, Nole’s shouting, Andy’s cursing, their “boring” baseline rivalry, even the winner’s trophy, which looked like a small metal tree that could take out a few eyeballs. (More on that in a bit.)
For the haters, Andy is British and not Fred Perry. Nole is, well, Nole and not Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. The Net’s cloak of anonymity allows posters to voice opinions that in another era would’ve been defamatory and libelous, to say nothing of vicious. Wishing Nole would break an ankle or implying that he owes his success to steroids without any proof is stupid, mean and downright unbalanced. ...
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No sooner had The New York Times announced in a brief that Roger Federer had moved into the third round of the Paris Masters with a dazzling attacking display than, oops, he lost in the third round to John Isner and his 27 aces.
Ah, those Federinas. They always live in the hope that each Fed win will spell the return of the king – until, of course, the moment when he’s tripped up by someone who’s a one-trick pony. The truth is Isner is a big guy (6 feet, 10 inches) with a big serve. Period. When he’s on, though, he’s tough to beat, as Feddy Bear himself acknowledged in his delightfully solipsistic manner. ...
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