PARIS—This is the first morning in Paris that bright sun hasn’t come blasting through my hotel window. It’s cloudy today, and there’s a rush-hour traffic jam on the highway nearby. Which reminds me t...
PARIS—What was Sloane Stephens saying to herself as she kept piling up points and games today out on Court 5 against fellow American Bethanie Mattek-Sands? It was a big moment for the 19-year-old Flo...
PARIS—The French Open has not one but two Kids’ Days. The first is held the Saturday before the tournament began; the second is today, on the opening Wednesday. It doesn’t take long, as you approach ...
PARIS—I woke up to two thoughts this morning. First, I remembered that Virginie Razzano has to play a second-round match at some point; after one of the biggest upsets of all time, I hope she doesn’t...
PARIS—Until approximately 6:30 P.M. today, the first Tuesday of the 2012 French Open was widely being described as the dullest in memory at a Grand Slam. Right around that time, Serena Williams, up a...
PARIS—Late yesterday I looked up and saw that Alexandr Dolgopolov, the mercurial Ukrainian magician, was about to begin on Court 14. Too bad, I thought, that I had a lot of writing to do at that mome...
PARIS—These are the long days, the ones that start at 8 A.M. and finish at 11:30 P.M., the ones where the U.S. press, with our latest of all deadlines, has to wake up the security guards to let us ou...
PARIS—Brian Baker, 27 but looking a few years older and perhaps a little bit wiser than his age, headed back to the baseline after the coin toss with his baseball cap set low on his forehead. He walk...
PARIS—After one of her 60 unforced errors today, Victoria Azarenka stood with her hands on her hips and stared at the clay. She turned her palms up in despair after another. She let out a shriek when...
PARIS—Most of what you see around Roland Garros looks good. The courts, the shops, the trees, the players, the fans, the staff: It’s rare to find something that you might call . . . hideous. But that...
PARIS—Roland Garros is nothing if not unique. Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the Aussie Open are all, despite their many obvious differences, Anglo derived. As recently as 1974, all three were played ...
PARIS—It’s 11:00 A.M. and this city’s Sunday church bells are in full echo, but there’s no time for peace and quiet at Roland Garros. It’s 80 degrees and humid, and Melanie Oudin and Johanna Larsson ...
PARIS—The Grand Slam Grounds Pass tradition will, provided my alarm continues to work, return each morning from Roland Garros. As play begins, I’ll try to mix news stories, observations from the cour...
PARIS—No matter how many times this American comes here, the city remains something of an alternate universe. Everything is the same in the big picture, but the little things all seem to be turned on...
PARIS—With the French Open set to begin, the Fan Club returns with a conversation about Frances Nicolas Mahut, who opens against Andy Roddick on Sunday. Im talking with Cotton Jack, a regular poster ...
PARIS—Old guard vs. new, that’s been the theme of 2012 on the women’s side. The kids got off to a good start when 22-year-old Victoria Azarenka throttled Maria Sharapova in the Australian Open and In...
PARIS—This year’s men’s event at Roland Garros feels like the culmination of seven clay-court seasons past. Not the culmination, perhaps, but a peak moment nonetheless. Since spring 2005, when Rafael...
Im heading to Paris tomorrow, and its been an action-packed couple of weeks in Europe, so this seems like a good time to open the mailbag. Ill probably be back with Roland Garros previews on Friday. ...
“What you did this year is probably impossible to repeat,” Rafael Nadal said to Novak Djokovic after losing to the Serb at the U.S. Open in 2011. These words of hard-won realism—Nadal knew from exper...
So far the Rome Masters has lived up to the nickname of its host city—some things about the tournament really are eternal. The blank-eyed Mussolini-era statues are still comically creepy. The sunken ...
I never thought Id be writing the words, “Before Andreas Seppi, there was…” But after today, and Seppi’s second straight dramatic, three-set win in front of a delirious home audience in Rome, I reall...
Kamakshi Tandon is one of the few North American journalists in Rome this week. Shes making her first trip to the Foro Italico, so were going to trade a few thoughts on the city and the event here. Y...
Seeing Italian tennis fans slouch in their comfortably nonchalant way at the Foro Italico wouldn’t seem like the stuff of memories, but it has been for me every spring since 2007. That was the first ...
When it comes to making predictions, it doesn’t hurt to preview a tournament four days after it begins. Especially a tournament that involves Petra Kvitova. At least you know that the always unpredic...
One thing you can say for Ion Tiriac, he helped heat things up early this clay season. There’s agitation all around as we leave Madrid, and the divide between, in this case, the Federer and Nadal/Djo...
The Mutua Madrid Open, after a downer of a week, closed on a couple of up notes on Sunday. Roger Federer and Serena Williams, the active Grand Slam leaders on each tour, came to Ion Tiriac’s rescue w...
Has the tennis world been complaining about the wrong thing this week in Madrid? While fans and press and (mostly male) players have been staring angrily at the blue clay, we’ve havent been paying a ...
Ion Tiriac had been dreaming of this moment for months. Finally, vindication was at hand, and all of the haters and whiners and traditionalist nitwits could stuff it. A left-handed Spanish star was o...
Only Serena Williams could make a 1-6, 6-3, 6-2 comeback win over Caroline Wozniacki look like a routine performance. But her third-round victory in Madrid today had all of the Serena hallmarks, begi...
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