Deuces Riled

In a piece on Marin Cilic -- written after his loss to Roger Federer in the Wimbledon men's final -- I compared sports fans who watch tennis only at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open (specifically the semifinals and finals) to Catholics who attend worship only at Christmas or Easter each year. I reference that comparison because Wimbledon -- in many ways the Vatican of tennis, with Centre Court being its great cathedral -- has a liturgy which has lost its relevance in modern times. This puts the tournament in the same basic position as the Catholic Church, which is shrinking in most of the world, growing only in the less developed global South, particularly Africa. To put a finer point on this comparison, the liturgy -- a public expression of communal faith -- is not the same thing as the faith itself. Yes, people who attend a liturgy will get the impression that Mass reflects something about the faith of the community, but it is only a surface-level product. Layers below that one pa

Aside from the appalling way Wimbledon treated Novak Djokovic and Adrian Mannarino, Manic Monday 2017 was normal... but with a twist. While the Djokovic decision was terrible, the larger overall scheduling flow of the day was better and fairer than in the past. Here's the explanation: Since the Wimbledon women's quarterfinals are played on Tuesday, and the men get a day of rest for Wednesday (except Djokovic and Mannarino this year...), it is imperative that Wimbledon's Manic Monday schedule put all the WTA matches on early, so that every winning player has sufficient rest for the next day's quarterfinals. On Monday, the final women's round-of-16 match (Victoria Azarenka-Simona Halep) concluded before 4 p.m. local time. That's very good. In the past, Wimbledon had put men's matches on court first -- Roger Federer or Andy Murray or another big ATP star would go on Centre Court at 1 p.m. This meant a women's match on Centre Court (or No. 1 Court) w

It is so easy for fans in any sport to say that their team or their athlete gets the short end of the calls made by officials, or the unlucky bounces of the ball, or the especially bad luck in terms of scheduling and logistics, or the preponderance of negative bias on the part of journalists and commentators. A good 98 percent of the time, these claims are nothing more than venting. All athletes get bad calls or unlucky bounces. Most get bad scheduling. Journalists ARE biased on a broad level... sometimes in an unprofessional way, but usually in an innocent and reasonable way. (Translation: Every person has a story, a background, and a lens through which s/he sees the world. Modern journalism education has embraced the idea that a lack of bias is a myth. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. Human beings have biases -- the important point is to acknowledge them and be up front about them, so that they can be corrected. A journalist or commentator who claims lack of bias but c

I'm not good with graphics, but this isn't too complicated, Five spaces across, five spaces down -- that's how a BINGO card works. The Fed Hater's BINGO card, everyone, with numbers 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, and 21-25, going across your screen/card: 1 Doesn't hush crowds -- 2 Talks down other players -- 3 The 15 JACKET -- 4 Anna Wintour -- 5 2010 Davydenko Australian Open bathroom break * 6 The finger wag -- 7 "SHUT UUUUUP!" -- 8 Disliking Hawkeye -- 9 His reaction to The Shot -- 10 Patronizing victory speeches * 11 Crying after 2009 Australian Open final -- 12 "Be quiet!" -- 13 FREE SPACE -- 14 Tiger Woods -- 15 DARTH FEDERER * 16 Remarks after losing to Berdych in 2010 at Wimbledon -- 17 Arrogant -- 18 Hypocritical (using tactical MTOs at 2017 Australian Open) -- 19 Couldn't beat Rafa at the French -- 20 Rose to power in a weak era * 21 Doesn't use his power and clout nearly as much as he should -- 22 Gets way too muc

By Tripp Andre [@arandomgamer02 on #TennisTwitter] What exactly  is  a network executive? For people not in the business, like myself, we see the network executive as persnickety, greedy, ignorant, dull, and generally mediocre, because we only look behind the camera when we are unhappy.  M any network executives   have overseen fabulous content  and generated  enormous revenue s . A network executive’s job is to drive content, create numbers, and make money for the company, and the job can be done in a variety of ways  ranging  from hard journalism to sensationalism. Hard-nosed reporting in the Trump era is now selling  subscriptions . On the flip side, Colin Cowherd wasn’t rating in  Washington,  D.C., so he started ragging on John Wall – problem solved. If the people are consuming your product, good or bad, the network executive has done  his or her   job.   We must be respectful when singling out an individual for criticism.  Network executives are in  fact human, as sh