If every picture tells a story then imagine the stories a man shooting decades of distinctive pictures has to tell.

If you’ve spent any length of time at the U.S. Open during the past two decades, you’ve probably come across one of tennis’ most unique story tellers.

He’s the man who wore the Nikon for a neck-tie (trading it more recently for a Canon to shoot digital), is clad in lived-in clothes that look so completely creased you might think Detective Columbo moonlights as his dry cleaner during breaks in cases. He’s the guy with the slightly stooped shoulders, the glint in his eye as if he’s got a secret he’s dying to share with you while trotting toward the tennis court with a sort of sideways walk that looks like his legs are operating in two different directions: the left intent on legging it out to the Grandstand court with the right rapidly running toward Arthur Ashe Stadium. (more…)

Sustaining a consistent daily tennis schedule in New York City can be like wandering in through the out door of a subway station during rush hour: you’re sometimes scrambling to find elbow room amid the mobile mass of humanity before you can even begin to embark on the necessary steps to get to where you need to be.

If you accept the premise that environment can shape personality and performance — Chris Evert once said she felt one of the most underrated influences on her career was the fact she grew up playing in the heat of Fort Lauderdale on clay and consquently built exceptional endurance playing in extreme heat and slow conditions — then consider the intensity New York City can infuse in its players.

“I grew up in New York and that intensity and energy New York City has certainly influenced my game and to have someone like me six-feet and 165 pounds able to hold my own with the bigger, stronger guys is perhaps due in part to that, ” Hall of Famer John McEnroe told Tennis Week in an interview earlier this month. (more…)

Katrina’s cross winds terrorized Terri Sisk, tossing her around the sky in a sidewinding spiral that was scary enough to make a plane full of passengers consider the end was imminent.

Now, the 36-year-old college coach has set down roots in New Orleans convinced she can help create a wave of revival at a former traditional tennis powerhourse.   

Sisk signed on as the new coach of the Tulane women’s tennis team — a program that was suspended after Hurricane Katrina hit southeast Louisiana on August 29, 2005 ravaging the north Gulf Coast area in its wake.

It’s been quite a ride.

Returning home to Alabama from her annual trip to the U.S. Open, Sisk and fellow passengers aboard Delta airlines found themselves tossed around in terrifying turbulence as their flight, caught in the cross winds caused by the category 3 storm, degenerated into a hellacious horror ride. (more…)

There’s a certain sense of serenity that can be created through the repetitive rhythm of a sustained rally.

Complete concentration on the approaching ball,  timing your swing and finishing your follow through over and over and over can clean the cobwebs from your consciousness and fine-tune your focus to the point where the distractions of the world around you dissolve distilling the moment to one primary relationship: you and the ball.

In tennis terms, an extended rally seldom lasts longer than the length of a commercial.

Unless, of course, the flying Rossetti Brothers — Angelo and Ettore — identical twin teaching pros from Connecticut happen to be the pair trading shots in which case a calendar can be used to measure their epic exchange that spanned the length of a mini-series. (more…)

U.S. Davis Cup teammates Andy Roddick, James Blake, and Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan often hear Boyd Tinsley in their heads before stepping on court to play their matches.

For the past five years, Tinsley, the violinist for the Dave Matthews band, has shared the sounds and sights of tennis with both pros and kids without crowding the craniums of his buddies on the Davis Cup squad, who listen to DMB tunes on their iPods before playing. (more…)