What Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka Need to Do to Win

Serena Willams vs Naomi Osaka: This Could be a Classic Serena Williams has won 23 majors and played in hundreds of big matches because she does something better than nearly anyone else.  Serena’s transitions from offense to defense and from defense to offense trouble her opponents. Serena has the best serve on the WTA Tour…

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Tennis Abides – 7th Anniversary: State of the Site Address

Changes as Tennis Abides Turns 7 Dear Readers, I started writing about tennis for various websites in part due to being taken with the high level of play I saw at Masters Cincinnati 2002.  I recall watching Carlos Moya up close on day 1 and thinking he would have a nice run.  Little did I…

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Nick Kyrgios and Tennis Excellence

I am not a huge fan of The Color of Money as it is nowhere near as good as The Hustler.  Still, the film has a lot of good moments.  I especially like Eddie Felson’s line “pool excellence is not about excellent pool.”  Nick Kyrgios still lacks tennis excellence.  I am not sure how doggedly he…

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Another Conversation with Tim Mayotte: The Kinetic Chain

This past June I was fortunate enough to have a second interview with Tim Mayotte.  Mayotte is an incredibly nice person with a lot of well-rounded interests.  In that conversation, we discussed multiple things, but when it came to tennis Mayotte explained that the Big 3 in men’s tennis all share certain commonalities in how…

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The Complex Case of Rick Pitino and Basketball in Kentucky

Complete with hyperlinks and endnotes News of dueling books about Rick Pitino as well as stories surrounding the lawsuit between Rick Pitino and the University of Louisville regarding the recruiting scandal that led to his firing in 2017 have me reflecting on Rick Pitino’s time in my beloved home state of Kentucky.  Kentucky cannot make…

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The Self-Similar Nature of Tennis

Tennis can be thought about at a number of levels, but each level is of a similar complexity to the level above or below it.  I will look at 3 of these levels. The Level Most People Talk About: Individual Skills One’s technique when hitting the ball, one’s movement on the court, and one’s conditioning…

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John Isner and Intentionally Slower Surfaces

Wimbledon decided to look into slowing its courts down and increasing the length of points after the 1998 men’s final.  The rest of the tour tended to follow Wimbledon’s lead as outdoor and indoor hard courts were slowed down, indoor carpet events went away, and tennis balls were slowed down too.  It may not be…

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