Cranky Lesbian

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Tag: Tennis Page 1 of 4

Second Serve: Vanessa Redgrave Plays Doubles in Richards Biopic

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On July 20, 2023

In TV Movies

Vanessa Redgrave in Second Serve.

There is initially something jarring about Vanessa Redgrave’s performance as Renée Richards, the pioneering transgender athlete, in Second Serve. Her unconvincing male appearance pre-transition conjures memories of Jean Arless as gawky Warren in William Castle’s Homicidal, a classic Psycho knockoff with a memorable gender gimmick, and you worry this 1986 CBS adaptation of Richards’s autobiography might cheapen a complex story. But it doesn’t take long for the magnetic Redgrave to draw you in, particularly when filmed in medium-closeups that remove her hips (which, like Shakira’s, don’t lie) from the equation.

We’re introduced to Renée first as Dr. Richard Raskind (changed to Radley for the film), and Redgrave exudes an Anthony Perkins quality—lanky, haunted, alternately reserved and impetuous—that suits the character well. You suspect she understands Richard, whose private struggles with gender dysphoria aren’t immediately revealed, more intuitively than director Anthony Page (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden) and screenwriters Gavin Lambert and Stephanie Liss. Yet there are limits to her powers of empathy. You’d never guess from Redgrave’s vaguely WASPy characterization (and sometimes thinly-suppressed British accent) that she’s playing a Queens-bred Jew.*

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Wimbledon 2023 Concludes

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On July 16, 2023

In Tennis

“You could’ve cut the sexual tension between Billie Jean King and Kate Middleton with a knife…”

“Are you crying?” It’s the three-word question my wife asks at the conclusion of nearly every Grand Slam tennis tournament, and this afternoon she posed it after coming downstairs to find me crumpled on the living room floor just seconds after the men’s final ended. The answer, of course, was yes.

“Juan-Carlos Ferrero is crying, I think his dad is crying… His mom and I have been crying since match point,” I replied. (During his post-match interview, even Novak Djokovic was in tears of an unhappier sort.) My favorite women’s player, Iga Świątek, was bounced from Wimbledon in the quarterfinals by Elina Svitolina, a better showing than last year’s and cause for great optimism about her chances in 2024. And now my favorite men’s player, Carlos Alcaraz, #1 in the world and barely 20 years old, was climbing into the stands to embrace his family ahead of the trophy presentation.

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Wimbledon 2023: The ‘Stop Asking Me if Świątek’s a Lesbian’ Edition

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On July 3, 2023

In Tennis

“Why’s everyone looking at me?”

It happens every Slam, and during Masters tournaments, too — there’s an uptick in traffic to my half-assed tennis posts as Googlers descend, having searched some combination of “Świątek + lesbian” that points them here, hopeful detectives chasing dead ends. I regret to inform every last one of you that you’ve been duped. Because this site has the word ‘lesbian’ in its name, and because I often mention Świątek, my favorite active WTA player now that Serena Williams has retired, you’re nudged in this direction.

But I don’t publicly traffic in gossip about whether tennis pros are gay — I save that for message boards and private emails with friends, like a gentlewoman. And I know nothing of Świątek’s personal life anyway, though I’d suggest that as the world #1, with tens of millions of dollars in endorsement deals hanging in the balance, she has little incentive to swing open the closet door in the prime of her career if she’s hanging out in there. (You know she’d be up to something geeky in the closet, like reading with a flashlight.) An openly gay #1 isn’t unprecedented — Amelie Mauresmo did it — but it’s rare in any sport.*

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“God, It’s Killing Me”: Federer’s Final Match

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On September 23, 2022

In Tennis

You can all decide which of the Big Four are represented here as you please. I think Roger’s Dorothy and Rafa’s Trudy.

The match is over. Federer’s competitive career is over. The way he chose to go out, playing alongside Rafael Nadal, his fiercest rival and close friend—and in a team setting, no less (his European Laver Cup team also included the rest of the ‘Big Four,’ Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray)—was perfect.

People joke about Federer’s egocentrism because he’s so matter-of-fact in discussing his accomplishments. But the enormous respect and remarkable friendship he shares with Nadal, and their abiding belief that no one player is bigger than the sport, is a moving testament to the character of both men.

Nearly a half-hour after the post-match ceremony ended, my heart still feels as though it’s gripped in a vise. I had a hard time on the night of Serena’s retirement, but this was markedly worse for reasons that are impossible to articulate. Few things in my life ever meant as much to me as watching Roger Federer play tennis.

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Dixie Carter Sings the Springsteen Songbook

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On September 23, 2022

In Bad Decisions

Roger Federer’s final competitive match, a doubles pairing with Rafael Nadal, will be underway shortly at the Laver Cup, as soon as Andy Murray’s clash with Alex de Minaur concludes. I’ll turn up the television’s volume once Federer takes the court, but until then I’m trying to distract myself with music and, while perusing my tablet, landed on Bruce Springsteen.

Today is Springsteen’s 73rd birthday, a shocking number to a kid who grew up in the ’80s and still thinks of him as the energetic young rocker whose tight ass (her words, not mine) my token straight aunt ardently admired. In my younger days I listened more to his earlier work, and even crooned “Rosalita” to a girlfriend who indulged such nonsense despite my inability to carry a tune in a bucket.

As a woman lurching uncertainly toward middle age, I prefer his ’80s output, some of which—like “Brilliant Disguise” and other tracks from Tunnel of Love—is far more devastating to 39-year-old ears than it was to a clueless 20-something. My favorite Springsteen song comes from that decade: “I’m on Fire,” also known as “the creepy one.”

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Federer’s Long Goodbye

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On September 15, 2022

In Tennis

Longtime readers know how I feel about Roger Federer. Newer readers know how I feel about Roger Federer. Alien life forms probably know how I feel about Roger Federer.

My phone buzzed this morning with a few messages from people wondering how I was “handling the news,” somber phrasing that initially alarmed me. Had someone died? Announced a terminal diagnosis? Fortunately, it was nothing that dire.

Federer had finally acknowledged what was widely suspected already, that he was retiring after next week’s Laver Cup. Months ago, when Federer posted a ‘delfie’ with his family’s newly adopted dog, I felt certain it was over. The player who famously traveled the globe with a wife and two young sets of twins was now comfortably settled at home. It was a logical progression.

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Wimbledon Ends with a Whimper, Not a Bang

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On July 10, 2022

In Tennis

“I have a dinner date with Dame Maggie Smith after this.”

My excitement at the start of this year’s unusually controversial Wimbledon carried into the second week. Even without Serena Williams and Iga Świątek, who suffered early-round losses, there were intriguing matches to take in. (There was also the matter of Roger Federer appearing at the Parade of Champions, dressed in formal wear that was winkingly accentuated by white tennis shoes.) But the tournament has culminated in a championship weekend unlike any I can remember: I don’t particularly care about the outcome of either match.

On the women’s side, there’d been a sense of inevitability for the last week or so that this was Elena Rybakina’s for the taking. Wimbledon had banned players representing Russia and Belarus as a result of the Ukrainian invasion, but the ban didn’t take into account that matters of nationality are hopelessly tangled in tennis. Players with the option of playing for multiple countries (and there are many such wanderers) align themselves with whatever nation offers them the greatest support in developing their talent.

Naomi Osaka and men’s semifinalist Cam Norrie are prominent examples of players whose similar decisions greatly boosted their prospects. And now Rybakina’s the global poster girl for this phenomenon. She’s a Russian who circumvented the ban by way of a (rather dubious) affiliation with Kazakhstan established four years ago. Whether you find it laughable, maddening, or both, it’s tennis in a nutshell. (It’s also Russia in a nutshell. Parts of my family came to the US from Imperial Russia, but if you want to be more specific, they were from places like Ukraine.)

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Superstition Ain’t the Way

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On July 2, 2022

In Tennis

Muriel models my freshly laundered socks.

We’re nearly a week into Wimbledon and I woke up this morning as excited as I was for the start of tournament. On the men’s side there’s a third round meeting between Nick Kyrgios and Stefanos Tsitsipas with blockbuster potential. Nadal’s due to play Lorenzo Sonego, and Jack Sock faces off against Jason Kubler. Sock, who a long-suffering friend can attest is my perennial dark horse pick at every Slam, is up two sets to one as I write this.

On the women’s side, Harmony Tan, conqueror of Serena Williams, dismantled Katie Boulter with such efficiency that the match ended before I was awake (and I’m an early riser!). Coco Gauff takes on her compatriot, Amanda Anisimova, and Qinwen Zheng vs. Elena Rybakina is quite promising. Simona Halep, a personal favorite due to her ethereal movement, will also take the court. (At the peak of her marvelous footwork, her shoes rarely seemed to touch the ground.) She already gave us one of the best moments of the tournament with her emotional sendoff of Kirsten Flipkens; I’d love to see her in the second week here.

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Wimbledon 2022 Begins

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On June 27, 2022

In Tennis

“My favorite Wimbledon warm-up is Queen’s Club, if you catch my drift.”

Stan Wawrinka’s 2014 Australian Open championship run meant more to me than any tennis victory besides Federer’s 2017 Australian Open triumph. It wasn’t just the thrill of him finally breaking through against Djokovic (who’d beaten him 14 times in a row) in the quarterfinals, or the distinctive sound of his ball strikes, or the lethal beauty of his one-handed backhand. It was Samuel Beckett.

Wawrinka’s now-famous arm tattoo of a Beckett quote read “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Those were words I needed to hear then. Even now, I think of Beckett, and of Wawrinka’s dedication to failing better, quite often. And I have tried, with mixed results, to fail again, and fail better, myself. I like to imagine I’ll never stop. Wawrinka certainly hasn’t: In an era thoroughly dominated by the Big Three, his Grand Slam singles total stands at an astonishing three.

As I write this, Wawrinka, now 37, is heading into the third set of his first-round Wimbledon match against Italy’s Jannik Sinner. He’s in the twilight of his career, which he, like Andy Murray, is struggling to finish on his own terms after being repeatedly sidelined by injury. (Murray’s another sentimental favorite of mine, someone whose on-court negativity stands in sharp contrast to his off-court decency and honor.) If either man advances to the next round, I will be quite pleased, even though deep runs are unlikely.

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“JAAAAA!”

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On June 4, 2022

In Tennis

Victory is sweet.

Do I think Casper Ruud actually screamed “JAAAAA!” at Holger Rune in the locker room after their Roland-Garros semifinal clash? No. But did I yell it in my living room after Iga Świątek won her second major title today? Yes.

And then I retrieved from the freezer the same pint of ice cream I’d tossed in the grocery cart during a Ben & Jerry’s sale four weeks earlier. “This is for when Świątek wins the French,” I told my disinterested wife that day. For Wimbledon maybe I’ll mix things up and get some cookie dough ice cream instead.

Tomorrow I hope to celebrate a Coco Gauff win in doubles, and for Rafael Nadal to further extend his lead in Grand Slam singles titles over Novak Djokovic. As a Federer purist whose second-favorite player for many years was Djoker, that’s a strange situation to find oneself in. But Djokovic’s attitude of late has made him difficult to support, and I think there’s a decent chance Nadal retires before the end of the weekend, so let’s make hay while the sun shines.

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