Late to the Ball in the Era of Sinner and Alcaraz

Award-winning American journalist and author Gerald Marzorati, who came to tennis in his fifties, explores a sporting passion anchored in the profound search for solitude and reflection. "All sports are now played by men and women who are stronger and faster than what we’ve ever seen before." Marzorati talks about Sinner, Errani, and Vavassori. Read the conversation with REKH MAGAZINE

Tennis ball (Wix Pics)

By Primavera Fisogni

Late to the Ball (2017) is probably the book that motivated me to come back to the tennis court. I started playing tennis in my childhood, when Italian champion ADRIANO PANATTA won both the Internazionali d'Italia, in Rome, and the Roland Garros tournament, in 1976. Then I completely left it behind. GERALD MARZORATI, the former editor-in-chief of the New York Times, tells us that it is never too late to play a sport that is primarily a point of view on life, and on ourselves.

Gerald, you started playing tennis at age 54. Your engagement in your first tournament was at 61. From spectator to player: how has your approach to tennis changed?

Watching tennis and playing tennis are, for me, two very different things – related things, but different. Professional tennis is a world away from what I play. It’s like I read Proust and I write about tennis.

The title Late to the Ball can be read both in relation to life experience and to the "timing" of the game itself. Modern tournament tennis is played at a breakneck pace. Do you think today's players are losing some aspects of the game's beauty?

All sports are now played by men and women who are stronger and faster than what we’ve ever seen before. There is still beauty to be glimpsed – the fifth-set tiebreak of last year’s French Open men’s final, for instance. And it’s good to keep in mind that tennis has always been beautiful not as a matter of course but in moments. Was Jimmy Connors’ game beautiful? My main concern about how tennis is played at the highest level today is the toll it is taking on the players’ bodies.

A particular passage in your book struck me. Reflecting on your first time as a spectator at Wimbledon, you write about being alone but never feeling lonely. How do you interpret the inherent solitude of tennis?

My whole life, beginning as a child, I have mostly been a reader. It was really the only thing I did well. Later came writing a bit, too, though writing is in a sense a form of reading, too. Reading is done in solitude. And my love of reading is maybe something that drew me to tennis: The solitude of singles tennis.

Playing tennis is all about competition. You mention that during your career as an editor, you were never ultra-competitive. How has this personality trait shaped the kind of player you are today?

 I still lack a strong competitive drive, including on the tennis court. A strong drive to win. I want to play well, of course. But mostly I play against younger players who are going to test me, which I enjoy, but which means I am going to lose most of the time. That doesn’t matter to me. Now, in my 70s, I’ve come to think of playing tennis, especially doubles, as something I do to socialize, and also a place I go to struggle. Maybe it’s strange, but I find that having these hours set aside each week to struggle a sort of comfort.

Gerry, you write that taking up the game late in life means coming to terms with your own body. Do you follow a specific training regimen and diet? Has tennis changed in some ways also your life?

 Thanks to tennis, my desire to play tennis, I am in better shape relatively as a 73-year-old than I was as a 43-year-old. I play tennis three, four times a week, do strength training and aerobic training, and eat no meat or dairy (my family has a history of heart problems). So yes, oddly, I am an old man unfolding his days not onyl as a reader but as a kind of athlete.

Tennis as a sport is studied for its mental component. In your opinion, what sets it apart from other sports when it comes to concentration and strategic analysis?

Tennis is just so all-encompassing: It requires quickness, endurance, strength, hand-eye coordination, sharp reflexes, constant decision-making. There is no other sport like it.

You have written about Serena Williams and, as a journalist, you have met many champions. What stands out to you about Alcaraz and Sinner?

They are a gift to tennis and to us. Brilliant players and, it seems to me from the little I’ve been exposed to them in press conferences, fine young men. Alcaraz is as magical an in-point improvisor as there has ever been – a jazz musician playing a tennis racquet. Sinner is as pure a ball striker from both wings as I’ve ever had the privilege to watch. May their rivalry go on and on.

I’m curious: what do you dislike about modern tennis?

The season is too damn long.

Your book beautifully captures the poetry of tennis—that quality of being a sport of "gestes blancs" (white gestures/elegant movements), as the late Gianni Clerici put it, the journalist and writer whose name is in the Wimbledon Hall of Fame.

Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say. Sports is where we go, beyond books, to encounter the poetic.

How do you view doubles tennis?

 I love doubles, and I think the tournaments and television have not done enough to promote doubles. The mixed-doubles at last year’s US Open was the highlight of the tournament for me. Errani and Vavassori were amazing! What other sport can offer men and women playing the same game together? Tennis should be making more of that.

Do you enjoy seeing female tennis?

Yes, of course. Coco Gauff is among the players I follow most closely. I saw her very first tour match on a field court at the Miami Open in 2019. And talk about going on a tennis court to struggle! Her struggles are epic. I also am full of admiration for the many terrific Ukranian women players who have continued to play and to call attention to the wretched war that Putin has unleashed on their country.  

What is your take on the ongoing disputes between the Top 10 players, representing their peers, and the Grand Slams?

Like others, I would like to see more money for the players outside the Top 50. Unlike most players, I suspect, I am not sure that any tennis player needs to earn $100 million in prize money over the course of a career. Those millions earned at the top of the game are paid for by ever-increasing ticket prices at the majors – prices that increasingly mean that only the elites get to experience a Grand Slam match in person.

Playing on clay, hard court, or grass shapes an entirely different style of tennis; the ball lands and bounces differently. What is the surface you like the most? Have you ever played in Italy?

I prefer clay – or my ageing knees and hips do. I would love at some point to play tennis in Italy. I’ve seen photographs of the red-clay court at Passalacqua on Lake Como…someday.

The interviewed

Gerald Marzorati is an accomplished journalist, author, and former magazine editor. Over a career spanning more than 30 years, he held prominent editorial roles at The Soho News, Harper's Magazine, and The New Yorker. Notably, he served as the editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine from 2003 to 2010 and as an Assistant Managing Editor for the newspaper until 2011, later transitioning to its publishing and new initiatives side before retiring in 2015.

As a writer, Marzorati frequently covers tennis for The New Yorker and Racquet. He has authored two notable books: A Painter of Darkness (1990), which won the 1991 PEN/Martha Albrand Award, Late to the Ball (2016), a memoir detailing his journey into competitive senior tennis (It: Tardi sulla palla, Add), and Seeing Serena (2021) (It: Serena Williams. La regina del tennis, Baldini + Castoldi)