something about great tennis

The New Yorker published "Without Fans, the Drama of the US Open Came from Within," a great piece, right after the 2020 US Open; the commentary includes this passage:

There were moments when I asked myself what this was all for. So much effort, and such high stakes, for what? The tournament was taking place against the backdrop of tremendous unrest in the United States—the unfathomable spread of a lethal disease, continuing protests against racial injustice, profound civic distrust, and soaring unemployment. What is the U.S. Open when it is sealed off from New York? What does a championship signify, if some of the top contenders don’t come? What does it mean if fans aren’t there to ratify it? What’s the value of sport right now?

Some of those questions are unanswerable, but not all. In most respects, the U.S. Open was a success. It happened safely. Two deserving champions were crowned. The quality of the play was, for the most part, remarkably good. And, by the end, something strange was happening, at least for me: the event seemed to become more meaningful, not less, for being so stripped away.

The New Yorker piece details the men's championship match—the final match of the tournament, the match perspective played the net and won.

I remember agreeing that this match became more meaningful for me than most previous US Open championships.

I had wondered, when the tournament decided to carry on without fans, whether the 2020 results would have an asterisk in people’s memory. Because of how it played out, it doesn't.

Tennis players are not supposed to get coaching or have any communication with the people in their player’s box; the player is out there alone, fighting himself and his opponent, often buoyed or rejected—especially in big matches on big stages—by the crowd. In this match, the isolation, the loneliness, was heightened to an extreme, and I really felt for them, felt the struggle, felt empathy.

Note: The Australian Open concluded today with an instant-classic match between Rafa Nadal and Daniil Medvedev.

 

something about a progressive post-hardcore album

Over Opiated in a Forest of Whispering Speakers, the new album from Seven Nines and Tens, introduces vocals to the Vancouver band’s blend of progressive post-hardcore and shoegaze. The vocals debut on album opener “Popular Delusions” and sound like a softer version of an Alice in Chains-style harmony over thick, cotton-sonic waves of thunder.

“Throwing Rocks at Mediocrity” again rolls out a controlled, tapered vocal harmony, but this time over picked-out single notes that sheen over a stuttering beat. Then a dramatic guitar and bass figure diverts the song into a confident strut that sets your head nodding yes. The song slows, expands, explores until it finds enough room to explode in slow motion.

I wondered if the vocals were too consistently restrained. But, with a little time, “Throwing Rocks at Mediocrity” turns its attention outward, then upward, reaching cruising altitude after 3:35. The drum work rounding out the song’s finale not only sounds great, it feels great.

The album’s promotional copy notes that, when writing the record, Seven Nines and Tens performed live with bands like Alcest and Pinkish Black. I can hear those bands’ influences, and I hear the influences of bands including Tool, Alice in Chains, and Black Sabbath.

The fourth song, “Let's Enjoy the Aimless Days While We Can,” starts softly, “You’re everywhere and nothing. Don’t tell me we can’t pull this off. It’s a far cry from a factory life. Permanence of the firmament.” These fever-dream lyrics lead to a churning riff overdriven with fuzz, a tentative, plodding bass and drum fall in behind, and the song labors, barely able to lift its lids. Heavy reverb blurs the edges of the vocal, which struggles under the subsea tones of the guitars. The song is a sailing stone.

But “Edutainment” offers a dramatic lift. The rhythm section engages with a syncopated beat and challenging bass line—together, they complement the even, chanting vocal harmony. The verse returns with guitars added to the arrangement. Then the song transforms, and by Jove, at 3:15, the album hits a second high, lifted by the surrender in the lyrics and vocal, “It’s going to end just like it started.”

Over Opiated in a Forest of Whispering Speakers was released January 7 and is the third album from Seven Nines and Tens. For this release, the band signed to metal label Willowtip Records.

 

something about Novak Djokovic and his 2022 Australian Open quest

The Australian Open starts next week. Heading into it, the big story is how Novak Djokovic's anti-vaccine stance is jeopardizing his Australian visa status. Djokovic is the top men's tennis player in the world now.

For a while, tennis had the Big Three—Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic, the youngest. But Djokovic, unlike Federer and Nadal, has never been a fan favorite (outside of Serbia, where he is loved, of course). Fans tend to root for Djokovic’s opponents.

Why he is disliked is sort of a mystery, and some sportswriters have explored the question. He actually seems to feed on the negativity during matches, though, and he will no doubt one day hold the record for winning the most Grand Slam tournaments. Over the last two years, with Federer and Nadal not playing as much, I noticed that fans seemed to finally start to come around to Djokovic. But right now, he is everywhere and for the wrong reasons, and he will be booed if he plays this tournament.

He won last year’s Australian Open, so he wants to defend his title. And if he won this tournament, it would be an incredible fuck you because he would win it in a country that did not want him there while pulling ahead of fan favorites and his rivals Nadal and Federer in the ranking for most Grand Slam tournaments won, thereby making him, effectively, the Greatest of All Time. Incredible.

His status is still in limbo, and he is running out of time to deliver maybe the biggest fuck you in sports history.

 

something about “Standoff: Race, Policing, and a Deadly Assault That Gripped a Nation,” a nonfiction book by Jamie Thompson

Standoff counts down the minutes of July 7, 2016, the punishing summer night when a lone gunman waged war on police amid a Black Lives Matter rally in downtown Dallas. That night, protesters, moved by the recent murders by police of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, marched in cities across the nation to demand policing reforms and accountability. Dallas police were monitoring the city’s peaceful protest when a black, young man in a bulletproof vest, armed for battle, murdered five officers and wounded eleven other people.

A chaotic gun battle in the streets moved into a downtown community college, where police cornered the shooter. As a negotiator tried to talk down the gunman, whose cause was sick vengeance for racial injustice in America, the SWAT team armed a robot with a bomb, directed it to the gunman, and blew him to bits.

The author of Standoff, Jamie Thompson, cycles chapters through perspectives—on events and on the issues—from the officers, from family, protesters, a doctor, and the police chief and mayor—people whose lives changed that night.

Aside from the negotiator, who is black, the officers, in Thompson’s telling, all have the colorless view that police decisions should not be questioned—and the officers’ views are the ones most frequently expressed in Standoff. The officers are also portrayed as heroic or tragic. They were.

Note: Jamie Thompson won an Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in writing for her coverage of the gunman’s ambush of Dallas police in July 2016. Thompson originally covered the shooting for The Washington Post and later wrote about it for The Dallas Morning News. She has also contributed to D Magazine, Texas Monthly, and the Tampa Bay Times.