Jannik Sinner: Italy’s Ice-Cool Prodigy and the Global Gladiator Games By our Special Correspondent in the Cheap Seats When Jannik Sinner hoisted the Australian Open trophy at 3:14 a.m. Melbourne time, the rest of the planet was busy doom-scrolling through wars, recessions, and whatever fresh hell Elon Musk had tweeted that day. Yet for one…
The Sinner and the Saint: How One Italian Tennis Prodigy Became a Global Parable of Moral Relativism Dave’s Locker International, 7 April 2024 ROME—At 4:37 a.m. CET, the ATP press release slid into inboxes like a confession whispered through a confessional grille: Jannik Sinner, the polite South Tyrolean who hits a tennis ball as if…
Lorenzo Musetti: The Last Italian Romantic in an Age of Algorithmic Tennis By our correspondent in Rome, still waiting for the espresso machine to be fixed since 2019 If tennis were still governed by Renaissance patronage, Lorenzo Musetti would already have a ceiling somewhere—probably the Sistine Chapel gift shop, between Michelangelo’s self-checkout kiosk and a…
Pam Shriver: The Accidental Oracle of a World That Forgot How to Volley By Our Correspondent, Somewhere Over the International Date Line You know the world is in dire straits when a retired American doubles specialist becomes the most coherent voice in global sport. Yet here we are, watching Pam Shriver—she of the 1980s teased…
Amanda Anisimova and the Absurd Ballet of Modern Fame By Dave’s Far-Flung Correspondent, nursing jet-lag in three time zones The world first noticed Amanda Anisimova in Paris, 2019, when she cannonballed into the French Open semifinals at seventeen, an age when most of us were still perfecting the art of missing curfew. She beat the…
Anisimova: The Name the World Suddenly Can’t Spell but Won’t Stop Saying By our correspondent in a hotel bar that still thinks fax machines are avant-garde PARIS—Somewhere between the third espresso and the fourth police barricade, it became clear that “Anisimova” had transcended its bearer and become a global Rorschach test. To the French, it…
WARSAW, 1 a.m. local time—While most of the planet was doom-scrolling through another evening of geopolitical whack-a-mole, a solitary 23-year-old from Raszyn was busy re-negotiating the price of immortality. Iga Świątek’s three-set demolition of Aryna Sabalenka in the Madrid final did more than add another bauble to Poland’s trophy cabinet; it quietly redrew a few…
PARIS—Somewhere between the Basque barricades and the manicured lawns of Roland-Garros, a 27-year-old Californian-Moroccan-Filipina with a passport thicker than a Michelin guide has become tennis’s latest geopolitical Rorschach test. Nina Ghaibi doesn’t just hit balls; she ricochets through the fault lines of identity politics, oligarchic sponsorship, and the eternal human urge to package diaspora trauma…
Felix Auger-Aliassime: The Maple-Leaf Messiah Who Forgot to Read the Script By *Dave’s Senior Correspondent for Existential Tennis Meltdowns* PARIS—Somewhere between the first and second espresso this morning, the global tennis-industrial complex realized it has been stood up at the altar again. Felix Auger-Aliassime—Canada’s polite, 6-foot-4 answer to the question “What if a royal guard…
