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Another Greatest Tennis Match of All Time

On By Teresa Merklin

I am suddenly obsessed with literary and media claims of “The Greatest” tennis matches. It was a natural next step as my examination of Strokes of Genius concluded. Strokes of Genius was published in 2009 with the phrase in the subtitle “The Greatest Match Ever Played.” By sheer coincidence, a second book was also published in the same year with a similar phrase in the subtitle. Consequently, “A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played” is the next book which will be tackled by this site. It is the most natural progression.

1994 and Coco Gauff

On By Teresa Merklin

1994 was a profoundly important year for Coco Gauff. It is an odd claim to stake for a player that wasn’t born until 2004. The events that unfolded in Women’s professional tennis in 1994 triggered a cavalcade of commissions and panels to study the long term effects on the lives of girls who played on the professional tennis tour while still in their early teens.

Best of Five and the WTA

On By Teresa Merklin

I was sitting at a computer in my local public library when realized that this project had transformed from a casual hobby into borderline obsession. For the first time I was compelled to step up the research beyond materials that I either owned or could access directly on the internet. “Best of Five” set matches for women was the topic that precipitated that transformation.

Strokes of Genius

On By Teresa Merklin

Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played is a book by Jon Wertheim about the 2008 Wimbledon Final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. It would be weird if it were about a match between two other players. While Strokes of Genius is ostensibly about the match, in reality it is a portrait of the rivalry between the Federer and Nadal as it stood at that time.

Rolling Along with Wheelchair Tennis

On By Teresa Merklin

When this sequential march through the ITF Rules of Tennis was first initiated, I anticipated that discussion of wheelchair tennis might be omitted altogether. However, after the backlash against the USTA for attempting to eliminate the wheelchair tennis from the US Open in 2020, it became a topic that was impossible to ignore.