What Challengers understands about tennis
This is more than a sports movie – but it's also a film that grasps how uniquely competitive the tennis…
ByTennis
Will Emma Raducanu always be an enigma?
Backing up her early success means the star must withdraw from the public.
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Watching Carlos Alcaraz at Wimbledon, I witnessed something startlingly new
From ball one the 20-year-old was in ebullient battle mode – tearing up the grass and flipping defiant defence into…
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How Dele Alli exposed the trauma that accompanies success in elite sport
We are increasingly discovering the mental cost of the pressure the sports industry places on its stars.
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Why MPs are fleeing Westminster
Also this week: Rage at Wimbledon and Tory snobbery over “Mickey Mouse” degrees.
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When war comes to Wimbledon
As Russian competitors return to SW19, the Ukrainian player Sergiy Stakhovsky continues to fight on the front line.
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Gods of Tennis took me back to when the players were rock stars
So much hair and testosterone, and yet, really, they were only little boys.
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First we canonised Emma Raducanu – then we hounded her off the tennis court
Since her US Open victory, the 20-year-old has been pursued by a hurricane of hype not remotely of her own…
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I just might have been a top tennis player but my teenage body had other ideas
When after two years of lessons I still lost to my brother I gave up – not recognising the impact…
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The unbreakable spirit of Andy Murray
The Scottish tennis player has achieved a late-career grandeur and nobility.
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The last days of Roger Federer
The tennis giant’s departure will take a generation of fans with him, but his retirement may also spare us a…
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Serena Williams has been a tennis player like no other, and perhaps the greatest of all
Williams’ legacy lies not only in her extraordinary success and mesmerising on-court energy, but in the path she forged for…
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John McEnroe: “You don’t win every time, no matter how good you are”
The former professional tennis player on his sporting heroes, his friend Taylor Hawkins and being painted by Andy Warhol.
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Djokovic vs Kyrgios was the perfect final for these discomforting times
Wimbledon gave us a moral quandary in the guise of a tennis match, promising to settle everything while in reality…
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From the NS archive: Wimbledon the wacky
1 July 1988: Wimbledon is a testament to all that is English – it is decent, proper, undemocratic and unfair.
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Cries of a “woke Wimbledon” show that it can’t avoid the culture wars forever
The All England Club has historically lacked an overt world-view – but this constitutes a world-view in itself.
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Can Emma Raducanu survive her super-brand status?
After winning the US Open aged 18, Britain’s wunderkind has suffered a loss of form – but her honesty is…
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Geoff Dyer: How to grow old in America
A tennis injury – and a spell in the US healthcare system – helped cure my delusions of youth.
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The secret to Iga Swiatek’s dominance in tennis is not just winning, but enjoying it
In a sport that drags its athletes in a hundred directions, Swiatek has succeeded by prioritising her mental health.
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How Peng Shuai exposed the limits of China’s power
The sinister case of the Chinese tennis star reveals the choice confronting Beijing: coercion at home, or soft power abroad?
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