Tag: Wimbledon

Wimbledon 2023 Concludes

On July 16, 2023

“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.

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

By Cranky Lesbian

On July 3, 2023

In Tennis

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.*

Wimbledon Ends with a Whimper, Not a Bang

By Cranky Lesbian

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.)