Deuces Riled

Roger Federer is one of the best things to happen for tennis media outlets and the people who work within the tennis journalism or tennis content industries. That is a problem... but it's not in any way Federer's fault. After a Wimbledon which was controlled by Federer on the court, an unavoidable talking point in the global tennis community is how much deference Federer is given off the court -- by tournament organizers, by individual reporters and writers, and by television networks. The people who cover -- or organize -- tennis events for a living give Federer so much primacy that fans of other star players are understandably, legitimately, upset when their favorites aren't given the same treatment. To a certain extent, this is innocent and inconsequential. Tennis is still tennis on No. 1 Court at Wimbledon. It's not an alien version of what is played on Centre Court. Players win matches. Stadia do not. A line gets crossed, however, when the somewhat (though

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