NEW YORK – “…and so here I am…” Where is “here”? For the young American speaker, Beatrice Capra, the word had geographical and geneological meaning. She was very unexpectedly taking up space in the third round of the year’s last major tennis championship, the US Open. Wearing a No. 371 ranking, she sent No. 20 Arazane Rezai home to France, 7-5, 2-6, 6-3, … [Read more...] about IS NO. 371, CAPRA, GOING TO BE THE NEW OUDIN?
US Open
THE COMING AND GOING: HARRISON AND YOUNG
NEW YORK — You are 11-years-old, and you’re trying to beat your old man on a tennis court. He shellacs you. No mercy. But this is no casual backyard scuffle. It’s for the men’s championship of Shreveport, Louisiana. “I wanted to win more than anything in the world at the time,” Ryan Harrison, now 18, is saying after causing the first real shakeup in the young US Open. … [Read more...] about THE COMING AND GOING: HARRISON AND YOUNG
BENNETEAU SALUTES ANNIVERSARY OF SAMPRAS SPILL
NEW YORK — Lose your lunch but win the match. It isn’t easy, and some might say it takes guts, and the ability to stand up when you’d just as soon lie down and take a 10 count. You never know when the whim-whams will strike, but yesterday they did on the 14th anniversary of Pete Sampras’s historic US Open spill. A Frenchman named Beneteau joined Pete’s exclusive club by … [Read more...] about BENNETEAU SALUTES ANNIVERSARY OF SAMPRAS SPILL
US OPEN SWEETHEART, MELANIE, KEEPS GOING
NEW YORK – From the sea-breezed grassblades of Rhode Island’s Newport Casino in 1881 to the steaming blue asphalt slabs of Flushing Meadows, the planet’s longest-running tennis show has settled in again for a fortnight’s duels with gut-strung cudgels. Oh, yes, I know that Wimbledon is four years older, but was dark nine years for World Wars I and II. Anyway, some call this … [Read more...] about US OPEN SWEETHEART, MELANIE, KEEPS GOING
THE US OPEN — NO LONGER A SPLIT PERSONALITY IN FLUSHING’S BIG TENT
NEW YORK – As the 43rd season of the chase for dollars rolls toward its crescendo in Flushing (who will come out of it most flush?), few tennis junkies are aware that this monstrocity called the U.S. Open was once-upon-a-time a split personality. It was in a day when something amusingly labeled as “amateurism” held sway, and room-and-board was a prized goal on the tournament … [Read more...] about THE US OPEN — NO LONGER A SPLIT PERSONALITY IN FLUSHING’S BIG TENT