Tag Archives: tennis

Samuel Beckett’s Tennis Advice

Beckett, a tennis fan, has some lines that can bolster tennis players. Or at least get them through long slogs.

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Lit in Andre Agassi’s Life

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

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Serena and Venus Transformed Tennis

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

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Rogers, Covid, and Atlas Shrugged

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

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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 […]

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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.

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