Category Archives: Grand Slams

As intimated earlier in the week, one of the more fascinating battles going on this week has been waged not between players, but between the media and the English language. This has entailed an exhaustive quest for original ways to … Continue reading →

Australian Open, Days 1 -3 The persistent theme through the first three days of the 2014 Australian Open was heat, evident in the desperate struggles of all players to complete their assigned matches, and the even mightier struggle of the … Continue reading →

Kooyong, Day One Australian Open Qualifying, Day One ‘Thompson is once again on the precipice of a magical moment in Australian tennis.’ Jordan Thompson twice came within a point of defeating Richard Gasquet at Kooyong’s AAMI Classic today, a magical … Continue reading →

US Open, Semifinals ‘He’s gone medieval!’ The medieval moment came as Stanislas Wawrinka finally caved into mounting pressure, having been broken early in the fourth set of his US Open semifinal against Novak Djokovic. Momentarily lost to frustration, Wawrinka twice … Continue reading →

US Open, Quarterfinals The US Open, an entity which I contend possesses not only impish sentience but an eye for proportion, thoughtfully balanced a pair of men’s quarterfinals that more or less lived down to expectations with two others that … Continue reading →

US Open, Fourth Round A brief survey of the men’s quarterfinalists for this year’s US Open is revealing. For starters all eight men are Europeans, of whom three, naturally, are Spanish. Unsurprisingly, one of them is Swiss. Three of these … Continue reading →

US Open, Third Round There were several certainties heading into tonight’s third round match between Tommy Haas and Mikhail Youzhny, or, to render it in the brain-scrambling terminology made famous by Donald Rumsfeld, a number of known knowns. Firstly, it … Continue reading →

US Open, Second Round The second round of this year’s US Open is now complete, which, until the very last moment, was about all that usefully could be said about it. There was plenty being said, of course, but little … Continue reading →

US Open, First Round Two days of the 2013 US Open are now complete, with the usual result that the first round remains incomplete and everyone is already anxious about the weather. To these outcomes I suppose we can add … Continue reading →