Good Lord, These Moody Man-Children Can Play Tennis

Nick Kyrgios’s win over Alexander Zverev in Miami Thursday was one of my favorite men’s matches this year, but the whole thing felt like a devil’s bargain: for every point of absolute gold, the public was taxed one drawn-out tantrum. A frustrating proposal for some—definitely for the chair ump and linesmen, who were…

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Two Of Tennis's Best Young Guns Dismantled A Pair Of Hard-Serving Robots

Both Nick Kyrgios and Alexander Zverev, the two most promising players aged 21 or under, survived their third-round tests yesterday against two aging serve-bots. Neither win came easy. When your competition moves around the court with the grace of a mannequin but can still regularly whoop 130 mph aces right by you,…

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The Quarter Of Death Is Shaping Up At Indian Wells

INDIAN WELLS, Calif.—Juan Martin del Potro is a teddy bear with a heavy brow and a shotgun forehand, and when he gets mad in public, apparently, he hugs whoever happens to be around. Because he is a professional tennis player that person is usually a line judge. That’s what he did in a fit of rage three years ago, and…

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The Indian Wells Men's Draw Is One Big Clusterfuck

Today, out in the Coachella Valley, the Indian Wells Masters will begin. It’s the highest-profile tennis tournament in the world after the four Grand Slams, dropping a fat bounty of 1000 ranking points on its winners. Everyone in the tennis universe should be excited, except for Serena Williams and all her fans, after…

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When Nick Kyrgios Gives A Shit, He's The Future Of Tennis

Bless Nick Kyrgios for doing so much without ever really seeming to care. I’m not referring to those especially dumb, fringe cases—the forehands sliced for no reason, or the shameless tweeners during high-tension rallies—although he does plenty of that. I just mean just the way he hits the average ball.

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Even You, Wasting Time At Your Job Right Now, Are Not Phoning It In As Badly As This Tennis Player

Bernard Tomic is the second-best prospect from Australia and now, miraculously, the first-best at not giving a shit. That’s quite an accomplishment given the oeuvre of his close friend and compatriot Nick Kyrgios, who tanked his way to a $25,000 fine and hit a tweener at the climax of a fifth-set collapse at the…

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After All That, Nick Kyrgios Isn't In The NBA All-Star Celebrity Game

Last fall, tennis’s rowdiest underperformer Nick Kyrgios said he was pulling out of the Rotterdam Open, an ATP 500 tournament that begins in four days, so he could compete in the NBA’s Celebrity Game during All-Star Weekend. This struck me as wise for a few reasons. First, late in last year’s season, when Kyrgios…

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Nick Kyrgios Stopped Giving A Shit And Crashed Out Of The Australian Open

Lots of choice words spill out of Nick Kyrgios’s mouth—many of them amusing, wounded, self-righteous—but you don’t need to hear a single one to understand how he feels about the game at a particular moment in time. You can see that spelled out on the court, in the way he chooses to swing his racket at the ball. On the…

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