LEAGUE WATCH: When You Accidentally Figure Something Out

I'd been feeling so good about my game this summer. I had a bumpy start to the season, but I joined a singles league in addition to league, and was playing at least weekly. It felt like my game and confidence was starting to settle into another level. 

The last match I played before league started was in mid-July in Florida and it was at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Yes, this was a very bad idea. I was in full control of the first set and about to win the second when the heat began to weaken me. Observation: It's kind of bizarre to be so heat-affected that you can watch your mind leave you. Like, you understand that you're not thinking straight and there's nothing you can do about it. I came back and won, and felt good about that, and then didn't play until my first league match of the season - some ten weeks later. I don't know why I thought it would go well. 

It went so badly that I signed up for a one-day tournament to get in some matches. I met a bunch of cool tennis women (one of whom almost definitely rope-a-doped me in our match) and managed to knock off a good amount of rust. So when it was time for my next league match, I felt like I wasn't back to summer form, but I was close. 

When I got there, my captain told me I was playing first singles. Let me say how grateful I am for my team and their short memories. Bless them so much.

My opponent had a similar game to mine, I realized. The only advantage I had was that I was a bit faster and able to run down her angled shots and flat forehands down the line. And nearly two hours later, when I stood at the baseline to serve out the match, I noticed that everyone from both teams were watching -- we were the last ones on the court. Usually, when everyone's watching like that, the match is hinging on your result. 

So no big deal. Still, and unrelated I'm sure, I was down 0-30 quickly, and the nerve wave came. It's just a league match, I tried to tell myself. You're doing fine. Just keep going. Your daughter's fine. (My kids tagged along and were waiting to leave as soon as we got there.) But none of those fake-outs worked. My heart was still pounding, my hands were still shaking, I still had the urge to drop everything and leave. 

And then I figured out why I do meditation in the first place. Seriously. Right there at the baseline. 

I do some general sports writing on the side sometimes and wrote about how to incorporate mindfulness into your tennis game, and in my research learned a bit about meditation. And with some other upheaval in my life, I thought: Why not? I use Great Meditation on YouTube right now, and there's one common device many of these routines use. It's identifying the hard feelings and letting them wash over you for a minute or two before using breathing to manage them. And I swear, standing at the baseline, I realized that I wasn't supposed to talk myself out of feeling this way. I was supposed to manage it. So I stood there, everything jangling in me, and let it be. Then I took a deep breath, and kept going. It almost felt like using the nerves as fuel towards the end. It was there, but I was able to think about how I was going to win this game and get those kids home already. It's hard to explain. I was still jittery, but also clear about what I wanted to do and was able to execute. And I won that game.  

So I'm going to go ahead and endorse meditation as a good habit, tennis or no. The thing is, you can't control the result -- of your match, of your situation -- but you can control your response to it. 

That feels like a good place to close.

U.S. Open From the Couch: I Don't Know Who's Going to Win and I Don't Care

 The thing that cracks me up about Novak Djokovic is the dichotomy. The man nakedly wants to be loved by a crowd, seems to crave it to the point that it throws him off if he feels he's being rooted against. Yet, on the cusp of history last night, in front of a crowd who loved him (for now), he needlessy chimes in on the Stefanos Tsitsipas bathroom controversy -- in support of Tsitsipas! OK, look. What Tsitsipas was doing was gamesmanship. You can do it, and as Djokovic noted last night, the rule is unclear. So why not just slide right through that loophole? You can. You definitely can. And then you have to be OK with what it says about you.

My mouth was sort of hanging open after that sidebar in Djokovic's post-match interview, and then he started talking about how great a person his opponent is! 

A CHOICE.

Alexander Zverev has been accused of physical and emotional abuse by a former girlfriend (writer Ben Rothenberg broke the story not once, but twice) and we have known this for months now. Again, you can align yourself with Zverev as an ally, someone who can vouch for his character. You can do that. But you have to be OK with what that says about you. Listen, there's credible evidence against the guy and he's fortunate because he happens to play in a sport whose governing body is a model for how to look the other way. What can we do, they say. Our rules don't cover it. 

So a young tennis player's dad/coach is routinely crossing the line of abuse, and yeah, we see it and yeah, it makes us feel weird, but what can we do. She's an excellent player. Just off the top of my head I can think of Mary Pierce and Jelena Dokic. You can probably think of a few more.

That's part of the problem with tennis in general (the ATP and the WTA are two different entities) because without a definite charge or investigation, Zverev's case can stay in the gray space and leave tennis commenters unsure of how to talk about him. Even if they know the abuse is happening, even if it's happening to minors, what're you gonna do. 

Djokovic, for all the dichotomy, picked at least the best place for it -- a stadium likely full of fans who follow tennis once a year, and perhaps only on that very day. But the rest of us have long memories, bud, and we're still trying to get over the COVID Open tournament he held. 

So for that reason I say: I don't know who's going to win and I don't care. (I don't have a problem with Medvedev, but I am fascinated by his Gumby-like game. How is he doing that?) The thing is, I feel the same about the women's final, and for completely different reasons. 

I have no idea what's going to happen between Leylah Fernandez and Emma Raducanu, both of whom I clearly expected to make the final. 

The difference is that this is a good story. (Speaking of dads, Leylah's dang near melted my cold heart when he talked about what it meant for his daughter to play for Canada.) Honestly after Raducanu's retirement at Wimbledon, in which she acknowledged dealing with nerves, I wouldn't have expected her to follow up with a run to the final of the next major. And Fernandez? I mean, I felt like she had a nice draw to make it to the third round. Clearly she felt otherwise. 

If I had to choose, I'd have to give Fernandez a bit of an edge. Her draw has been a LOT tougher. Plus Raducanu had to go through qualifying. And I think Fernandez has the ability to vary her game when things aren't working. But I'm excited to see it anyway. It's a pleasant surprise, and a show of the true depth of the women's game. 

All right, I gotta go make popcorn and watch this. 

U.S. Open From the Couch: We Don't Have to Encase Naomi Osaka in Bubble Wrap, OK?

Man, who told me to go onto Tennis Twitter (TT) yesterday during the Naomi Osaka and Leylah Fernandez match? To be fair, I think it surprised a lot of us in at least two ways. First, as talented as Fernandez is, I was not really expecting her to take a set off Osaka, let alone two. Careful observers pointed out that Osaka has had a lot of difficulty with left-handed players, and ... OK, that tracks. Still, Osaka looked like she was playing herself into form, and in her second-round match against Marie Bouzkova, she was making devastating shots and angles. She was looking good! 

The second thing that surprised me is how Osaka reacted to the second set getting competitive. I think I literally gasped when she threw her racquet for the first time. And then I rolled my eyes because I knew what was coming on TT, and yeah. Actually, the commentators beat them to it by pointing out that it was this vaunted court where Osaka won her first major and a reminder that it was, uh, a tense situation. It took 10 seconds for people to start the comparisons to Serena Williams' racquet abuse in the 2018 final. So let's take this on first, because I have a lot of thoughts and am trying to weave them into one piece because I don't feel like separating it into two or three, and also Twitter is not the place for the nuanced situation that this is. So.

Yes, Osaka maybe should have gotten a warning. But she didn't. The only reason she didn't is because there were two different match umpires in 2018 and last night. I wrote about this in 2018 and was accused of gaslighting, of being a racist, a sexist, and I'm sure I'm missing something. I left a Facebook group over that piece. But anyway. Here we are. Two umpires saw the same violation and reacted differently. As I said in 2018, I don't care a lot about racquet abuse. It's a racquet, and what's more, it's your racquet. If you took your opponent's racquet and smashed it into oblivion, well, sure, now you have a point. 

It's also worth noting that the 2018 debacle unraveled a bit more differently. I won't waste digital ink here, but the first thing that happened there was that Carlos Ramos called Serena's coach for match coaching, which is not allowed, and I feel a little more strongly about this one, because it's what sets tennis apart from other sports. I'm going to leave a pin in that one for today. Then things went more and more sideways from there. Her coach was, by the way, signaling. That's a fact. But that doesn't matter as much either because there is one other factor that made those matches different, and that is how Naomi Osaka managed her own anger.

The reason that Fernandez was able to truly enjoy the fact that she had just beaten the third-ranked player in the world on a large stage is because of the way Osaka managed her anger. Fernandez deserved to enjoy her moment because she earned it -- she played well and didn't quit when she was down. The reason we, as fans, could really get to appreciate her performance is because of the way Osaka managed her anger. We're going to get to the anger, but the management make the comparisons moot in my mind. Meaning, I don't want to hear the comparison because it's not there. I don't want to see the footage of Serena talking about how her situation in 2018 might make it easier for women to be angry on court. The comparison is not there. 

Listen, you have to take responsibility for your actions in general. If you're a functioning adult who is accountable to others, you do. Anger does not have to be a train you hop on whose destination is unknown, but you are along for the ride and oh, well, who knows where it will take us. Anger (at least about a tennis match) is manageable and Osaka did unto others as she would have probably liked it done unto her. I don't want to give her cookie over this or anything, because functioning adults do things like this all the time. They blow off steam, realize they messed up and apologize and try to correct. Now, Osaka did look at times like she was not going to throw her racquet but that she was going to throw that match. I mean the first couple games in that third set, I was like, whoa, this is worse, Naomi! But she corrected and she might not have fully recovered, but she held on to play a match I feel she'll be proud of later, even though she didn't win.

The last thing here is how her anger was discussed by the commentators, on TT and on TV.  Something nipped at me about this last night, the way the commentators linked her outburst to her mental health struggles. Today, I know what it is, even though I'm not sure I can give it the best words. Anger, and throwing a racquet (that belongs to you) is not indicative of a mental health problem! What the hell, people? Conflating these things makes it harder to talk about mental health, because now a (fairly) normal reaction to frustration, performed by a person who was brave enough to share her mental health struggles with the world, becomes something truly, like, gross. It's like coddling to do this. It's like treating Osaka like a fragile baby who can't handle life. That's not what the racquet toss was. It was a legitimate show of emotion. It would be one if Rafael Nadal had done it and it's one in this case. Full stop. 

This actually reminds me of how the commentators talked about Osaka's commitment to talk about black people being targeted by the police last year. Some insisted on tying her stellar play then to her social stance, which to me felt like, welp, OK, weird. But this is very similar and this one bothers me more. The thing is that those things are separate and a racquet toss isn't a sign of a mental breakdown and everything she does does not have to be seen through the prism of mental health struggles.

Naomi Osaka is more than her mental health. Maybe respect her enough to treat her as the whole individual she is. How about we try that? I guess that's what I'm saying.

Having said all of that, Osaka did indicate that she is struggling mentally on the court in the post-match conference. To my ear, it sounds like she needs to find/rediscover her love of tennis and for our sake, I hope she does. Her sister has already retired from the game and I could see her doing it, too. If she decides she'd rather climb Mt. Everest, then teach high-school biology for the rest of her life, I mean, I'll personally be crushed, but if that's where the love is, that's where she has to go. I do think she'd be a really good teacher.

U.S. Open: From the Couch

If you had asked me to predict one month ago what I'd be doing today, I would have told you that I'd packing for my trip to New York this coming weekend, ready to return to my country's Slam in the best city in the world. (I would have been very excited, thus the excess. But I'm not wrong.)

If you'd asked me a week later, as COVID cases spiked in Florida while the U.S. Open was announcing plans for a full house -- without proof of vaccination to enter the grounds -- well, it became clear that I was probably not going to make that return trip. And I didn't. And I'm bummed about it. It didn't feel worth the risk, and even now, knowing they reversed course on the vaccination proof, it still feels dicey. I hope it works out for everyone, including my buddy Lewis, who's covering the event this year, and was at the ready to secure tickets for me. Like I said last year, Lewis, maybe next year.

Anyway, dammit. Let's take a look at these draws:

Women

*: denotes "Wow, this is a first-round match?"

?: denotes "Oh, so did you see where ...?

This women's first-round draw almost certainly means I'm going to be very sick today and tomorrow and unable to report to work. It turns out I'll only have energy to grip my remote and switch between matches. *cough*

Among the highlights: Danielle Collins v. Carla Suarez Navarro, a battle of two players coming back from medical challenges, although Collins definitely has the edge. But could be an emotional one. 

Simona Halep v. Camille Giorgi: You know, a nice, easy match to start for Halep.

Madison Keys v. Sloane Stephens: This is a first-round match. Yes, the same two who played in the final just a few years ago. OK, then. Confused, but watching it. Obviously.

Alize Cornet v. Ons Jabeur: LOL, popcorn, please, along with tall glass of drama!

OK, so Coco Vandeweghe. First of all, that ridiculous warmup a few weeks back and her ridiculous explanation for it. I don't know. 

But then did you see where she managed to pull in Sania Mirza as a doubles partner? It's always good to see Mirza on the court and I hope that other players remember her? Like, she can do better than Vandeweghe, right?

Also, just wanted to note that Sara Errani is still in these streets!

As far as the draw itself, Ash Barty has been looking pretty dang unbeatable this summer after stumbling at the Olympics. Who's going to beat her here? It's hard to imagine anyone in her half being a big problem if her form holds up. Petra Kvitova hasn't looked solid this summer. Bianca Andreescu won the Open already, but also struggling to regain her game. The bottom half, though? Naomi Osaka and Aryna Sabalenka are the standouts, and I sort of think Sabalenka is about ready for her breakthrough. 

Men

*: denotes "Wow, this is a first-round match?"

Phillipp Kohlschreiber, man. Takes a licking ...

I believed in Andy Murray before it was cool and you never know. 

Congrats to Roberto Bautista Agut, whose No. 18 seeding gets him a first-round against Nick Kyrgios. You know, just to ease into the tournament

I'm not going to lie, man: I'm a little annoyed about Novak Djokovic's chances, especially with the absence of Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal. But there's enough young talent left to suggest that he could still be pushed around by the kids. Djokovic is walking around talking about his confidence level being through the roof, which may be true, but it's not going to be easy to claim a men's record-breaking Slam total. This blog is a Rafa stan account, so I don't want to see it, but I am still prepared for this eventuality: 

Still, there are opportunities for others to slide in: Alexander Zverev will be a tough opponent for Djokovic potentially in the semis, and Matteo Berrettini before that, in the quarters. I actually almost picked Berrettini in this one -- I think having faced Djokovic in the Wimbledon final and coming closer than most, it might help this time around. 

Daniil Medvedev's game has been spotty since his run at the U.S. Open a couple years back, and his draw looks good for another (don't judge me for my heart wanting to see Cilic do some damage, but then facing reality). He did OK during the U.S. Open series, after all. 

Stefanos Tsitsipas. He's been taking some rough Ls lately, and some of it looks like he's blinking at the finish line. So I don't know about a major for him right now, although his game is close.

Wimbledon '21: It's True, Tho

At the risk of inciting hate, I'm going to posit that the best Wimbledon final was the women's doubles. Not only did it feature one of my favorite unorthodox players, Hsieh Su-Wei, but it was against one of the best doubles players around, Elena Vesnina. And it had drama! We're talking match points saved, then a third no-tiebreak (yes!) set where Hseih and her partner Elise Mertens were having to break at 6-7 to continue the match. Just amazing stuff. Whew. Just the all-court points of it all? I remember when I was starting out playing tennis, and even in pro tennis, it was all about all four players getting to the net. Now, everyone's scrambling all over the court, working all the angles. It's one of those progress moments that make you proud.

Wimbledon '21: The Quarters

I just heard the term "Manic Monday" as applied to Wimbledon's second Monday of the tournament for the first time. I'm sure it's been used before but man was it true yesterday. There were so many questions.

How did Paula Badosa manage to lose that match, especially that first set? 

How are you Karen Khachanov on grass and having trouble holding serve?

Is Aryna Sabalenka intentionally injecting drama into her matches just to see if she can come out of it?

Who is more adept at opening his mouth and removing all doubt: John McEnroe or Piers Morgan? 

And finally, do you like roller coasters? Then you loved Andrey Rublev and Marton's Fucsovic's match, right? My favorite thing from the Internet yesterday was that "Call the ambulance" meme featuring these two. I cried. But I didn't like it, so it's now swept away in the flood that is the Twitter feed. Anyway, it was funny.

So, the quarters are underway and so far, Karolina Pliskova is locking down her spot in the semis and Daniil Medvedev is having a slow start to the continuation of his Round of 16 match. Pretty slow -- down 2-4 in the fifth, so. 

Of the matches coming up, I'm excited for Ons Jabeur v. Sabalenka, about to commence shortly. Jabeur earned the OG tag when she puked on court before upsetting Garbine Muguruza. Sabalenka can basically run the table in any match because of her power, but she's not yet put it all together at a major. This one could be dicey. This has to go three sets, right?

I think Ash Barty is a lock for her quarterfinal. Aja Tomljanovic looked good most of the tournament and against Emma Raducanu in her previous match. (Sidebar: OK, am I the only one who would also be trying to catch my breath after long, tortured rallies against a veteran player? What is this drama?!) But Aja has struggled in just about every other match. Barty in straights.

I would love to say Angelique Kerber is an easy lock for the semis, but I am literally still wondering how Karolina Muchova even won her Round of 16 match. So who knows.

Whoa snap, Medvedev is already out! Well then. 

Wimbledon '21: Off-Road Pre-Current View

I filled out most of my women's draw on a plane yesterday. Not to London, sadly, but on a well-deserved vacation nonetheless. I went through this practice knowing that it might have turned out the way my French Open draw turned out. 

I didn't get to finish the draws until Monday morning and in the spirit of full disclosure, I was already watching Wimbledon, rooting for Monica Niculescu to make it more of a match against Aryna Sabalenka (she kinda did). So it would have been easy to pretend that I had perfectly predicted the first-round winners, but I am an honest woman. And I'll own what I really thought was going to happen even though my version of reality had already been imploded.

But here we are. What can I say? I keep forgetting that Sloane Stephens likes to lure us into underestimation and then she shows up at Slams and beats a former Wimbledon champion. 

And then there was the men's draw.

What can I say? I'll always show my work, even if it's a little wonky.

Let's talk about what's left, then. Like Frances Tiafoe. Does he actually have a shot here? Or did Stefanos Tsitsipas have a bad day? It seems a little odd to me to that the French Open runner-up never bothered to change his game much when Tiafoe's obvious play was attacking the net. And Tsitsipas just ... let him. Will others do that? It's possible, because the high seed left in that draw is Roberto Bautista Agut. I'm just saying.

So what can Tiafoe get away with here?

Same applies to Sloane, I guess, but I'm even more curious about Sabalenka. The only reason I picked Maria Sakkari for an upset in the fourth round was because Sabalenka has these great run-ups to majors and then probably the nerves get her. She can totally beat Sakkari -- Sabalenka's game is pretty overpowering -- but the stage might get her. Heck, it almost got her in the second set of her first-round match. But if she's going to have a breakthrough, it feels as if the best place might be on a surface where shorter rallies are more the norm. 

So, now I'm all caught up, back to sneaking tennis scores while poolside with the kids. Things could be worse. 

French Open 2021: That Was a Ride!

As usual, that French Open went just the way I personally had telegraphed it. In fact, I'm going to live on the edge and just suggest (as many players do now anyway!) that there be no warmup clay-court tournaments. What's the point? These are the tournaments where players get practice and develop their form, hopefully in time for the big one. And they do! Aryna Sabalenka looked great coming in, as did Ash Barty and Iga Swiatek. Coco Gauff. And then what happened. Honestly, like the same thing that happens every year at the French Open with the women. With the men, either Rafa or Djokovic and with the women? I don't want to call it a crap shoot because what results isn't crap.

Anyway, some observations:

1. I didn't get too much into the Naomi Osaka dustup because mental health isn't really my subject of expertise. I can say that I think she mishandled the rollout of this policy to not participate in press conferences and that her team should have helped her out a bit more. I don't know what that looks like, but it shouldn't look like a 22-year-old standing by herself trying to change the bones of tennis without proper support. (I'm assuming the lack of support by the lack of preparedness for the blowback she received. I don't think Osaka's plan was to break this news, play one match and go home.) 

But if you believe that mental health is a part of the whole health of a person (most people do not even though your brain is super important to how you move through this world and definitely to how you play tennis), then the Slams should have thought about whether they could be doing something different instead of fining her $15,000. And to have the nerve post-tournament for officials to say they tried to work with her? Also, I think I missed Roger Federer's fine when he announced after a tough match: "Yeah, I actually feel OK, but I don't feel like playing *this* tournament any more. I'm going to pace myself for Wimbledon. So long!" It's the same thing! Two players looking out for their wellbeing. Only one launched a thousand think pieces. 

Osaka also announced this week she wouldn't play Wimbledon either -- along with Rafael Nadal this time. So I look forward to a dozen more think pieces about one of these withdrawals. 

2. The idea that Novak Djokovic could be closer to catching Serena Williams' Slam titles than Rafael Nadal or Federer actually bothers me. It makes me wonder what being a GOAT means. Years ago, when Rafa and Fed were running up their numbers, I was happy to let the final figures determine who was the best between them, but Djokovic's ascendance made me realize something. I don't really root for Djokovic. It literally takes him playing a MAGA player for me to get invested. The subject of his popularity came up during his French Open final, where I believe Jim Courier noted that he wasn't as well-loved as Nadal or Federer and Mary Carillo answered: "Not in Serbia." Well, congratulations. I would hope my own people would root for me. It's everyone else that would really be nice. 

I guess I'm saying all of this to say that it can't just be the numbers that determine the GOATs and I freely admit I'm moving the goal lines for Djokovic. 

3. So I hear Barbora Krejcikova won the singles and doubles for the first time since Mary Pierce in 2000. Looks like it's time to bring back one of my all-time favorite GIFs: 

(Believe she won that point.) 

French Open 2021: The Men

I hate to say that the men's draw was boring as hell to fill out. But I checked my email about 30 times throughout. I mean, it shapes up, but man, who are these first-round people?! 

Actually, though, when you look at it, it's kind of cool, the way they split it into the old-man half and the youngster half. I wouldn't have thought of that!

Anyway, the draw and legend:

Legend

Happy face: There aren't a lot of things I am 100 percent here for, but I am always 100 percent here for watching Tennys Sandgren lose. 

Cane: Oh my goodness, here we are in May of 2021 and we have a first-round match with Phillipp Kohlschrieber and Fernando Verdasco. I'm impressed.

French Open 2021: The Women

 

So, I had a lot of fun filling out the women's draw. Here it is -- and a legend! 

Legend

*: How are we getting this match in the first round?! 

(sad-face emoji): I don't know. Given Venus' recent results, not seeing this year being that breakthrough into the second round against a seeded player. Sigh.

!: OK, yes, Sofia Kenin is ranked fourth, but is having a bit of a rough time of it. She gets Jelena Ostapenko in the first round? Where she gets an opportunity to develop a rhythm as the match continues, no doubt. Yikes!

Plus, Azarenka vs. Kuznetsova right out the gate?! 

(squiggly-face emoji): Kaia Kanepi and a seeded player in the first round. LOL

The Evolution of My Thinking on Osaka's Press Policy

Me, ten minutes after reading Naomi Osaka's tweet about ruling out press conferences at the French Open: 

"This feels like too much. Her press conferences are usually pretty boring anyway."

Twenty minutes later: "Not allowing journalists access is pretty dangerous ground to stand on. I hope she's thought this through ..."

Twenty-two minutes later: "Social media is much worse for mental health, amirite?"

Thirty-two minutes later: "How many times, Naf, have you said yourself how wild it is to have to answer for a match immediately after playing it?"

Thirty-five minutes: *Remembers when Rennae Stubbs asked Osaka about which dead black person's name she would wear on her mask in her next match and winces*

One hour: "Maybe this will force the media to actually work to write their stories. How many times do they ask stupid questions, get a stupid/weird/confusing answers and turned it into a viral headline on Twitter?"

Social media really is a cesspool, but if you can use it as a tool to bypass a process that is damaging to your mental health, then I'm with Don Draper: 

Meaning, "here, fine me! I can afford it!"

I didn't get here right away. I'm being honest -- that was my process. But what made me take a step back from my perspective as a journalist was this line: "We've ... been asked questions that bring doubt into our minds and I'm just not going to subject myself to people that doubt me." 

I mean, this is 100 percent 2021 energy, first of all. But second of all, she's not wrong. The crazy part is that the journalists don't even mean to do this most of the time. Many of them are asking questions off the top of their heads, making observations based on their limited knowledge of the sport and its strategies. The stories that come out of press conferences aren't about how Osaka beat someone like, say, Serena Williams. It's about the drama around them. The truth is that sports journalists in general get away with a lot of laziness. They use these press conferences for a nugget they can use to carry a whole story instead of being a student of the game and using that knowledge to write compelling stories. I swear, I haven't seen a damn thing about Phil Mickelson winning the PGA Championship on Twitter, but I have seen Brooks Koepka rolling his eyes at some dude I've never heard of. That's what I mean. Viral, but lazy. I have said this for years: If tennis writers actually wrote about tennis and not about the random stuff said in post-match conferences, there would be more tennis fans. 

I assume Osaka is not bypassing all media interviews. I bet she'll sit down with the reporters she knows who do the work. And let me be clear, I am all about drama in tennis, but not at the expense of someone's wellbeing. So I'm about this new policy and would like to give props to Venus Williams for starting it all a couple years ago. 

Side note: I'm sitting here trying to think of anyone who has done so much with her status as a top-tier player, things no one asked her to do, things that could change the game for the best. I don't think that I would have ever seen a "Black Lives Matter" sign on a tennis court in this country if Osaka hadn't said something. Why would the tennis powers that be have done that without prompting? Osaka has come to the conclusion that not everyone is going to like what she does, so she might as well follow her heart. It usually takes most people a lifetime to figure that out. 

Tennis with Notions!

Hi, I found my dress-in-progress! I, uh, had forgotten that I had to do some recutting. But at least I'll have something to multitask with during the French Open! (Draws coming!)

Aussie Open: Go to Your Rooms! No, Seriously

Part of me thinks it's pretty noble, trying to play an international tennis event in a pandemic. If they can have the Super Bowl, right? 

Even if the event goes off without a hitch, there are players who aren't going to have fond memories. Several players had to lock themselves in their hotel rooms for two weeks of hard quarantine after a case arose on a flight to Melbourne. First, let me congratulate Australia for taking a pandemic seriously. Not everyone has. (In America, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just recently issued a mask mandate on public transportation and flights. We're almost a year into this thing and that would have been useful advice about a year ago.) A few players who flamed out early are blaming this hard quarantine -- they literally couldn't leave their rooms to practice -- and yeah, it's a tough situation. You can't bend the rules for one group and not the other, but on the other hand, these people came here just to play in a tennis tournament and they're not being allowed to practice? You can see both sides of it and there's no easy answer -- except to not play a Grand Slam right now. Obviously, no one is going that route.

This quandary has led to several early-round losses that are a surprise -- Angelique Kerber and Victoria Azarenka among them. Both directly cited the quarantine as a problem. Then again, so did Tennys Sandgren, but ... well, I don't know how else to say this, but when you don't exactly have a reputation for being very good, claiming that quarantine hampered your prep sounds more like an excuse than a real reason. 

But presuming no one gets sick, I am here for this version of the Australian Open. I just need to retrain my body for this tournament. You know, staying up until 3 a.m. in the early rounds to watch Novak Djokovic get pushed to the limit by Frances Tiafoe, then chugging copious amounts of coffee to achieve baseline usefulness at work. I just need, like, one more day to get adjusted. 

I never did get around to doing predictions for this tournament, but I realized that the first Slam of the year usually is a waste when it comes to forecasting. Usually, the one thing you can predict is early-round drama in a Stan Wawrinka match and that thing had more twists than fame achieved via TikTok. (I told you I've had no sleep.) I mean how do you come from the brink of defeat to force a tiebreak, gain a huge lead in the tiebreak and then just drop the tiebreak? Well, at least it was entertaining? 

It wasn't as entertaining watching Venus Williams last night. And everyone here knows Venus is my girl. But there is persistence and there is stubbornness. If you can barely walk on a tennis court, where's the nobility in saying, "Hey, at least I finished the match?" when you are not mounting a real challenge? Sure, her movement seemed to loosen up after rolling her ankle, but it was never enough to play the way she did in the first round. Where's the wisdom in risking further injury? I always wonder if she does things like this because she knows she's going to retire soon, but I've had this thought for three years, so I'm thinking sheer stubbornness. And also, like, where did Sara Errani come from again all of a sudden?  

Speaking of throwbacks, I just finished reading this Stephen King book called Revival. Pretty good book. The premise is that there's this guy, Jamie, who keeps running into this other guy throughout his life. Jamie refers to this person as his fifth business, as a person who isn't part of your everyday life, or even someone you randomly encounter in a coffee shop. No, this fifth business person's role is to simply bring drama to your doorstep. Kaia Kanepi is the fifth business for top-tier women's tennis. There you are, being Sonia Kenin, the Aussie Open defending champ, and you walk into your second-round match to encounter a very unseeded player. Sixty-four minutes later, you're done, having lost to the woman who has snatched the likes of Naomi Osaka, Petra Kvitova, Caroline Wozniacki, Angelique Kerber, Sam Stosur and Justine Henin out of tournaments at the height of their games. Kanepi is 35, so she's developed a bit of a reputation for this kind of drama, and no one knows what's happening at this tournament anyway, so it does feel like this is a good time and place for fifth business-y antics.

Therapy with TWA: The Opponent

Sometimes, after a tennis match, I’m approached by opponents or match observers who tell me that they liked my serve, my groundstrokes, my defense, whatever worked that day. And for most of my nearly 20 (!) on court, I have poo-pooed those compliments, even taken the opportunity to point out my flaws. I’ve thought that my tendency to do this was due to this voice in my head that said that I wasn’t very good and that any good shots were a result of luck. Recently, I came to realize that that voice didn't originate in my head, but it was nestled there, pretty deeply. 

That voice came from someone who has been saying for years that there’s something not quite right with my forehand, that my second serve is weak and no different from my first, that I don’t have enough topspin on my groundstrokes. I believed these things about myself despite all the evidence otherwise -- regularly having to restring my racquets because of all the topspin I was hitting, what others said about my game and winning matches (sometimes). That commentary from that person – a real person – has been running on background loop in my brain ever since I started playing tennis and it’s part of the reason I can’t take a compliment. I thought, for years, that there was something not quite right about me -- on the court and off. 

This person wanted me to be a carbon copy of him and if I wasn't doing it his way, then it wasn't right. I was deemed unteachable -- because I'd rather not be told what to do after every. single. point. He'd give me lessons and stopped because I questioned some aspect of the practices we did -- I was branded "uncoachable" and he actually told other people this, while I was playing. I could hear him on the sidelines, mocking my groundstrokes, my net game. Once, I played a match against this person's doubles partner and after I lost, he virtually ignored me at court side, ran to her to tell her how great she was, and spirited her away. I left the court alone and humiliated. It has taken years to acknowledge that first of all, that hurt, and second, that this person wasn't always right -- and he wasn't right about me. 

It’s going to take a long time to silence that voice because even though I’m removing that person from an active role in my life, I have actually believed these things. So now I have to unlearn them and that's not going to be easy. A few of weeks ago, I played in a round-robin event with 11 other women, and when one told me I was a strong player, the criticism from myself about myself came out so quickly that it didn't make sense. It was embarrassing.

So anyway, I have been trying to teach myself to believe in my abilities and that came in really handy in a recent match. Anyway, our opponents started slowly and we started fast. I had my kids with me and after the first set, I was optimistic that I'd have them home pretty quickly. You know what happens when you start looking ahead. Of course, the second set was a dogfight and for a stretch there, no one could hold their serve game. 

There was a point where I'd made a really dumb unforced error at a key stretch of the game. I was about to fall into the you never win the close ones mindset when another thought planted itself: You can stop doing stupid things right now at this very moment. You can do that anytime you want. I admit, I took myself aback here. Whoever this was sounded very smart and someone I should get to know. And she calmed me down, even as we advanced to a tiebreak. And I found myself standing at the baseline, serving for the set, which is never a situation I like to find myself in, especially because I think I might have hit somewhere around 10 double faults that night. But I stepped up and hit two solid serves to win the match. It only took about two hours! 

Why am I saying this. Sometimes, as a writer, if you don't tell the truth at top of mind, you become unable to say anything else. Also, this is a tennis blog. The head game is approximately 92.54233 percent of tennis and if your mental game is off, well, so goes everything else. In addition to that, something tells me that I'm not the only person who's had someone in their lives who spews negative toxins with no regard of where it lands. I'm here to tell you that you are really good at what you do. People who take the time to attempt to dismantle you do so because it's easier than taking out their own garbage. Just remember that.

The other thing is that removing this person from my life has sort of taken the priority right now, so my dress project is in a box somewhere, and I don't know where that box is yet. I'm settled enough to watch tennis clips on YouTube and still trying to decide if I think Pandemic Slams are a good idea. I'll probably have a better idea of that by this weekend, when I'll post my picks (assuming the tournament happens). 

So, uh, rather belatedly, Happy New Year!