By Alexandra Willis in Melbourne “Does Wimbledon have an extreme heat policy?” It was a perfectly innocent question. But if you’ve ever been to Wimbledon, you will understand why it was an amusing one. Rain delays, rather than heat delays, are a fact of SW19 life. The skies darken, the clouds let rip, the court […]

. Andy Murray’s obsession with self-improvement has propelled him from promising Scottish kid to one of the best tennis players in the world. In Hugh MacDonald‘s long-form essay ‘Murrayball: how to gatecrash the golden era’, we learn about his commitment to ‘marginal gains’, which is the process by which an athlete makes small improvements in many […]

By Nick Harris 24 June 2013 As tennis’s most prestigious grass court tournament begins at Wimbledon today, the presence of one particular American qualifier in the men’s singles draw highlights the sport’s deeply complex relationship with match-fixing, doping and whistle-blowing. Wayne Odesnik, 27, is the world No107 and has previously been ranked inside the world’s […]

By Sportingintelligence 31 December 2012 From everyone at Sportingintelligence to every who has taken time to visit the site and read any single piece we’ve produced in 2012, thank you. Wishing you all a healthy and prosperous, and robustly opinionated new year, here are the stories on this website most read in the past 12 […]

* ALEXANDRA WILLIS is a multimedia tennis journalist who flits between Wimbledon, SportingIntelligence, the TennisSpace and a few other outlets, while tweeting copiously and trying to improve her backhand in her spare time. If you happen to bump into her court-side, she’ll probably tell you that she went to Oxford (and not just shopping). . . By Alexandra Willis […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 13 February 2012 The three-way rivalry in men’s tennis between Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer is the closest to perfection the sport has ever seen, according to new analysis by Sportingintelligence of every result in the 175 men’s singles Grand Slam tournaments of […]

. By Sportingintelligence  9 January 2012 . This article is a companion feature to the article posted here today about tennis players’ earnings. . In 2011, Novak Djokovic’s on-court earnings in tennis were $12.6m, which made him the Barcelona (highest earners in football) of the tennis world. Using the same logic, comparing a player’s on-court […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 9 January 2012  The most lucrative Grand Slam in tennis history is nigh, with the Australian Open singles winners due to collect Aus$2.3m each (£1.49m), which is more than any Slam singles winners to date. For triumphing in the doubles, the winning couples will split […]

By Sportingintelligence  5 January 2012 A tennis coaching document used at one of the world’s most famous tennis academies – Nick Bollettieri’s in Florida – recommends breathing out when hitting the ball in a manner that naturally leads to punctuation with a grunt, it has been revealed today. While the academy and Bollettieri – who […]

By Alexandra Willis 27 October 2011 Nick Bollettieri has offered his support to the Women’s Tennis Association in their battle to contain the presence of grunting on the tennis tour, revealing that he and his team are already exploring the ways to teach young juniors not to grunt. Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Bollettieri, also […]