Four more days and it will be 2021. Calendars are only ways of keeping track of tennis dates, but still you feel a new year means a new chance for making yourself better and public affairs more civil. Surely we…
The theological banter with Giovanni was not on Christmas Eve but on the day before. Christmas Eve this year in Washington, D.C., was warm and too damp for tennis, but the day before was cold and sunny; his suggestion was…
Giovanni, a Rose Park tennis pal, sent me a picture of the Trevi fountain in its nocturnal serenity. I shot back: bellissimo! We communicate by gadget since he went home — Sicily, but he works in Rome. He sends me…
We were approaching the last weekend of October when Oumi, my better half — better three-quarters, Mr. Thornberry reminds me — took a dive. She has an important job keeping people supplied with health and other basics, and also she…
Anything can happen in tennis, but the two-set trouncing of Simona Halep by Iga Swiatek was a shocker. The teen from Raszyn, which is a little village near Warsaw (the capital of Poland), put an end to the top seeded…
There was not much to say about the match between Simona Halep and Sara Sorribes Tormo other than that the señorita from Castellón de la Plana gave it the old college try and the mighty mite (five-six) from Constanta never…
If a pitcher steps off the mound after giving up a two-run homer that blows his lead and throws a ball at an umpire, you can expect they will eject him. You can look it up in the rules, and…
The rain came in the evening as we were warming up last week, and when it let up a bit I biked home, figuring the courts would be too wet and night would be falling. I also figured it made…
When in doubt, or even when not, turn to the classics. One of these is Gwendolyn Brooks, whose depth and lyrical charm and sure vision is always understated. A Chicagoan, she did not fear to bring verse to a fearsome…
