Ben Rothenberg's Avatar

Ben Rothenberg

@benrothenberg

Please do check out my tennis writing, BOUNCES, at benrothenberg.com

7,292
Followers
100
Following
1,193
Posts
04.07.2023
Joined
Posts Following

Latest posts by Ben Rothenberg @benrothenberg

Preview
The "Women of Tennis" Calendars, Now and Then A look back at how the WTA wanted to be seen on the world's walls decades ago.

Had a lot of fun turning back the pages of time, literally, to what women’s tennis wanted itself to look like in the 1980s.

We talk about the tennis calendar all the time; this time it’s different.

Free for all to read at Bounces, but please subscribe!

www.benrothenberg.com/p/the-women-...

06.03.2026 23:27 👍 5 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
How I Became A Target For Right-Wing Freaks At The Australian Open | Defector Before I went to Melbourne in January to cover the Australian Open for Defector and a couple other publications, I spent some time in New Zealand with my family. We lived there for five years when I…

How I became a target for right-wing freaks at the Australian Open:

05.03.2026 16:51 👍 67 🔁 13 💬 0 📌 4
Preview
How Tennis Players Are Escaping the Emirates Players including Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev, and a whole host of Challenger players have mostly been successful at finding ways out of the UAE.

Happy to have some good news to share about the war in the Middle East, at least through the very narrow lens of tennis players and personnel finding recent success in escaping from the UAE amid the conflict.

Read at Bounces:

www.benrothenberg.com/p/daniil-med...

05.03.2026 06:32 👍 14 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Update today from the ATP:

04.03.2026 18:32 👍 9 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 0
Preview
Flight From the Fight: Tennis Amid the Iran War "The negligence from ATP is crazy," a player told Bounces as a Challenger was aborted amid nearby explosions from the war.

After a Challenger was aborted in UAE amid war, players were furious at ATP's response.

"The negligence from ATP is crazy," a player in Fujairah told Bounces.

Plus, an update on how Russian singles stars escaped Dubai while doubles players couldn't:

www.benrothenberg.com/p/tennis-ira...

04.03.2026 00:11 👍 27 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 1

Very glad to hear!!

Always glad when anyone can still find and read the book, I remain proud of it.☺️

03.03.2026 16:23 👍 10 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

I reached out to ATP-WTA 500 Washington tournament owner Mark Ein about this; amazingly, he told me he’d had zero contact from the WTA before today about a new stateside tournament joining his existing week of the calendar.

02.03.2026 20:26 👍 12 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Still pending, I hear!

02.03.2026 20:14 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

After years of absence, a WTA 250 is returning to Memphis, this time to be played on outdoor hard courts. Takes the Cleveland sanction.

Bafflingly, WTA 250 Memphis was put in the same week as ATP-WTA 500 Washington; the week before that would've surely be more logical.

02.03.2026 19:35 👍 16 🔁 2 💬 4 📌 0

Not yet. Last I’ve heard, all tennis personnel have been waiting for UAE airspace to reopen.

02.03.2026 18:13 👍 17 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 1
Preview
As War Erupts, Tennis Is Grounded in a New Reality As war breaks out in the Middle East within range of the tennis tour, a new normal for this global sport is undeniable.

Wrote about the increasingly unignorable collisions between world politics and the tennis tours, this time with players and personnel in Dubai far too close for comfort to the newly exploding situation in Iran.

Read at Bounces:

www.benrothenberg.com/p/iran-war-t...

02.03.2026 03:00 👍 33 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 3

With her points coming off for not defending her WTA 500 Merida title, next week will be the first week since May 2023 in which Emma Navarro is not the highest-ranked Emma in the WTA rankings.

After a detour through the wilderness, Emma Raducanu reclaims the throne of Top Emma.

28.02.2026 05:10 👍 25 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

Very, very excited to get more of @avarwallace.bsky.social in tennis!

www.nytco.com/press/the-at...

26.02.2026 16:06 👍 22 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 1
Post image

Frances Tiafoe won this tennis match

26.02.2026 05:33 👍 19 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1
Preview
Ever Ambitious, Craig Tiley Makes His Next Move From Africa to Australia to America, Craig Tiley has kept his eyes on the horizon for chances to advance. Next stop: the U.S. Open.

Will be very interesting to see how it works with a guy who likes to throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Excellent post by @benrothenberg.bsky.social #tennis

www.benrothenberg.com/p/craig-tile...

25.02.2026 02:38 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Thank you!

25.02.2026 00:18 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
Ever Ambitious, Craig Tiley Makes His Next Move From Africa to Australia to America, Craig Tiley has kept his eyes on the horizon for chances to advance. Next stop: the U.S. Open.

Lots of thoughts about Craig Tiley, his legacy in Australia—the successes and the failures—and how his leadership style might translate to New York.

Free to read at Bounces, so please read and share and enjoy!

www.benrothenberg.com/p/craig-tile...

24.02.2026 23:42 👍 15 🔁 6 💬 2 📌 3

Wonder if you can see how long it’s been Level 4? Might be years.

24.02.2026 21:58 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
February: Schedule Woes, Alcaraz, Pegula, Serena, and More

Audio of the new NCR is out now:

open.spotify.com/episode/5Bfw...

24.02.2026 19:37 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
NCR Video! February, Featuring Alcaraz, Pegula, Schedule Woes, and More | No Challenges Remaining Get more from No Challenges Remaining on Patreon

New NCR video episode is up on Patreon now; audio version will be out a bit later:

www.patreon.com/posts/151564...

24.02.2026 19:00 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
Bagel Bites: The struggle is real Perfect screengrab?

Back to Bageling.

Sub for free.

forty-deuce.ghost.io/daily-bagel-...

23.02.2026 20:55 👍 19 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 1

I think that warning has been there for a long time? At least I saw it shortly after I had gone there last year.

23.02.2026 21:28 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

There’s more visible security there than usual, I have been told by a couple players there, but so far no disruptions to the tournament otherwise. Hopefully things are calming down.

23.02.2026 21:12 👍 12 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Preview
Seeing Tennis Reflected in the Ice and Snow At the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, hockey, figure skating, curling, skiing and more all reflected back onto my tennis-trained eye.

I watched a whole lot more of the Olympics than I did tennis in the past few weeks, but was struck by the parallels and crossover lessons that tennis can take from the athletes, stories, formats and technologies on the ice and snow.

Read at Bounces:

www.benrothenberg.com/p/winter-oly...

22.02.2026 22:13 👍 19 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Post image

Happy Serena Williams Reinstatement Day, everybody!

22.02.2026 18:47 👍 48 🔁 8 💬 2 📌 3
Post image

By the way, a reminder on Jack Hughes, since the grifters are already trying to hijack his postgame interview
www.vogue.com/article/meet...

22.02.2026 16:26 👍 1001 🔁 275 💬 13 📌 23

Insanely good hockey game.

Absolute crime that Bettman denied us this in 2018 and 2022.

22.02.2026 15:57 👍 29 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Don’t think I’ve ever seen tempo this high in a hockey game, f’in heck.

22.02.2026 13:23 👍 12 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 1

It's weird that Brady and Jack have their first initials on the backs of their USA sweaters, but Matthew and Quinn don't, right?

20.02.2026 20:20 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Williams has taken a wildcard into the Indian Wells main draw.

Venus* Williams, as it now needs clarifying.

20.02.2026 18:01 👍 39 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0