Tennis
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There is an old adage about there being two activities that bring out the best and worst in people — war and sports.
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I’ve never been to war or even covered one, though I’ve never been able to find anyone willing to argue against that statement. I have covered a lot of sports though, especially inside tennis and Olympic competition, the two areas I’m best known for. And that adage, not only is it spot on, it’s also the reason I joined The Athletic.
When I decided to try to become a sportswriter nearly 25 years ago, I didn’t do it for the good seats or to hang around celebrities. I did it because of a growing fascination with what makes the human heart and mind tick and tremble the way they do.
Blame my mother for this obsession — she’s a Freudian psychoanalyst. Growing up in my house, “How are you?” was often not a simple greeting but rather the opening of a far deeper exploration of what hopes, dreams and insecurities might be coursing through my brain.
It was a crash course in thinking deeply about the human experience. Once you start thinking that way, you don’t really stop, and as something of a sports obsessive, I had this sense that watching and talking to people about the games they played would provide me with the truest manifestation of that — the best and the worst.
More than two decades into this, I haven’t doubted that belief for a moment, especially when I am covering sports that double as both athletic pursuits and MRIs of the soul. I’d argue that the Olympic sports I’ve gravitated towards, namely running, swimming and both Alpine and Nordic skiing, fit that description and, of course, so does tennis.
There are so many ways to experience a tennis match, especially now we have smart cameras taking video and spitting out high-tech data in real time. Analysis of how to hit a killer backhand or a 145mph serve, or take apart the tactics of an opponent, is as advanced as it has ever been. It can also be an almost unmatched display of grace and athleticism, but also a test of will and perseverance and an opportunity for self-expression in ways that are both good and bad. Tennis is at a pivot point, a once-in-a-generation transition from the Federer/Nadal/Djokovic/Serena era into something we don’t yet know. The Alcaraz/Gauff era? The time of Shelton/Swiatek?
Watching Novak Djokovic — and maybe even a revived Rafael Nadal — try to fight off this shift and Father Time during the next few years should be one of the great spectacles in all of sport, a rare generational duel in a game that moves so quickly. Two years ago, it looked like Naomi Osaka and Emma Raducanu were poised to take over. Now they are set to mount comebacks from long layoffs due to pregnancy (Osaka) and injury (Raducanu), though both players also struggled with the heat of all the attention they garnered.
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The American men are desperate for a new prince. Can one emerge from the current stable or is everyone going to have to wait for Darwin Blanch, a 16-year-old already getting the “next big thing” treatment and who has become a favourite practice partner for Carlos Alcaraz? Arthur Fils of France may be the second coming of Yannick Noah, the star (and matinee idol) of the 1980s.
I came to The Athletic because of its commitment to cover the sport — and, really, all sports — on all of these levels because there is no other way to do it and do it well.
At The Athletic, there is an understanding that sports are not some quirky off-shoot of the human experience but rather a reflection of it. If you wanted to design a pursuit almost guaranteed to drive its participants mad, it might look a lot like modern elite tennis. Players have to start pursuing it practically to the exclusion of everything else by the time they are 10 years old. Many grow up isolated from friends and family, experiencing school on a computer screen. Nearly every player has a story of winning a match in juniors and watching a “tennis parent” smack their child for losing.
It’s incredibly expensive, forcing most families to make a long-shot bet that their children can ultimately hold one of perhaps 60 good “jobs” that exist worldwide at any one time, as their children head into a life without a safety net or a backup plan, sometimes willingly, sometimes not. Even reaching the sport’s pinnacle hardly guarantees salvation in a sport replete with players who walked away at the top of the game, with so many “good” years possibly left in their careers.
But then the sport throws up these revelations. Alcaraz’s gasp-inducing forehand. How does it possibly go that fast? Coco Gauff, one of the greatest pure athletes to ever pick up a racket, chasing down ball after ball after ball until there are no more balls to chase. Djokovic winning as no one has won before, his eight-year-old son sitting courtside, dreaming of the day he might somehow measure up, his six-year-old daughter glancing up occasionally from her colouring book to smile, giving her father a little extra juice when he needs it most.
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What do you want to read about? Feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] or, far easier, leave your suggestions below in the comments. And don’t forget to click on this link and follow the sport. I promise to deliver the kind of coverage that will bring you inside and above this cruel and beautiful sport.
I’m here for all of it. No place else I’d rather be.
(Top photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images, Julian Finney/Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson)
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Matthew Futterman is an award-winning veteran sports journalist and the author of two books, “Running to the Edge: A Band of Misfits and the Guru Who Unlocked the Secrets of Speed” and “Players: How Sports Became a Business.”Before coming to The Athletic in 2023, he worked for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Star-Ledger of New Jersey and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He is currently writing a book about tennis, “The Cruelest Game: Agony, Ecstasy and Near Death Experiences on the Pro Tennis Tour,” to be published by Doubleday in 2026. Follow Matthew on Twitter @mattfutterman
