Tag Archives: tennis

Lit in Andre Agassi’s Life

In his autobiography, Agassi cites two literary works that come to his aid at difficult moments.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments closed

Serena and Venus Transformed Tennis

Serena Williams changed tennis, as this Tony Hoagland poem makes clear.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , | Comments closed

Rogers, Covid, and Atlas Shrugged

Quarterback Rogers’s favorite book, “Atlas Shrugged,” helps explain his Covid resistance.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , , | Comments closed

Tennis Fiction and Osaka’s Brilliance

Literary fiction that mentions tennis can raise our appreciation of the game, including the play of figures like Naomi Osaka. Nabokov, Roth, and Wallace have all written about tennis.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , | Comments closed

Using Tennis and Roth to Assess Character

Tennis professional Petkovic uses Roth’s “Goodbye, Columbus” to arrive at an important insight: to assess someone’s character, play tennis with him or her.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments closed

Flowers for Algernon, Parable on Aging

With regard to my improving tennis game, I see my present–and my future–in the Daniel Keyes novel “Flowers for Algernon.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments closed

Farewell to Serena’s Dominance?

Friday It was only a quarterfinal match at the Australian Open, but when Serena Williams lost a match in which she was serving at 5-1, 40-30 in the deciding third set, we had a second pillar teetering amongst those that have been supporting the tennis universe.. To borrow from A. E Housman, it felt like […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments closed

The U.S. Open as a Toni Morrison Novel

The tempestuous match between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka reminded me of the Nel-Sula drama in Toni Morrison’s novel.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , | Comments closed

Federer and Father Time

In which I compare Federer’s upset loss to the final stage of an up and down disease, such as that described in Turgenev’s “Fathers and Sons.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments closed