tennis
Why the Reds have got the blues
Not so much the hair dryer: more a gentle home perm. Contemplating the increasingly less youthful visage of Ole Gunnar…
High life
Around 20 or so years ago I had a point for match point on a perfect grass court at Fort…
Can we talk about Emma Raducanu’s Christianity?
I’ve just been looking at photographs of Emma Raducanu again, this time focusing on her upper chest. She usually wears…
Blue-tick Twitter is spoiling Emma Raducanu’s victory
How do you take the pleasure out of something so marvellous and joyful as Emma Raducanu’s US open victory last…
Emma Raducanu can save tennis
Something perfect at the death of summer: Emma Raducanu in full flight, smoking winners up the lines and progressing without…
Busted flush
Forgive the personal question, but how long does it take you to, you know, go to the gents, ladies, non-binary?…
In defence of Novak Djokovic
Why does no one like Novak Djokovic? If Roger Federer is the player that even non-tennis fans can’t help but…
Why do the Japanese still seem so ambivalent about Naomi Osaka?
It had all started so well for Naomi Osaka. Dressed in the colours of the Japanese flag, the tennis star…
A lot of bottle
The question is surely destined to become a pub quiz staple: ‘Who moved a bottle 18 inches across a table…
High life
New York It’s party time in the Bagel, or at least private party time. Yours truly is an extra man…
Barometer
Game, set, chat Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open after being fined $15,000 for failing to…
In defence of Naomi Osaka
‘Kawaisou’ or ‘wagamama’ (poor thing or spoiled brat)? That’s the question Japanese tennis fans have been asking ever since world number…
Dear Mary
Q. Our neighbours have a tennis court which, under the property’s previous owner, we enjoyed playing men’s fours on. The…
Tennis racket
How grunting helps players win
High life
Wolfsegg, Austria I have finally understood what’s wrong with the modern world: motorways. These dehumanising slabs of asphalt covering our…
Anyone for a self-isolation Olympics?
In Mr Alton’s absence, I thought readers might want a column about sport. The problem is that I’m largely indifferent…
High life
Desperately boring times but very healthy ones. No parties, no girls, not too much boozing, lots of smoking and reading…
High Life
Gstaad Lenin Moreno is in trouble, despite his very unchristian first name. For any of you unfamiliar with the name,…
Coco Gauff won fair and square, but she played terrible tennis
Martina Navratilova has never been shy about telling it like it is. She came out when other athletes were hiding…
What the new generation of tennis players could learn from Rocket Rod Laver
A chum was in Waitrose a year or two back, and was bending down with some difficulty to look at…
Boris is the only one who can save the Tories
A lady once offered to go to bed with me if I could ensure that she would write The Spectator’s…
My hero Roger Federer
Asked how he was feeling as he was about to give a speech to a ladies group, Mark Twain, looking…
Is it possible to draw Serena Williams without being racist?
I have spent the morning trying to draw a cartoon of a black person without it being racist. It’s bloody…
My faux pas at the Duke of Beaufort’s bash
A letter from a reader in South Africa mentions that the writer’s father insisted a white dinner jacket was permissible…
High life
Taki 3 July 2021 9:00 am
Wimbledon is here at last, after its absence in 2020. What struck me watching the French Open on television a…