Lynn Morrell of
Kids Play For Good has passed along the exciting news that Mitchell Krueger of Texas is in the running for the
Sports Illustrated Kids Sports Kid of the Year. He is the only tennis player of the ten nominees, so please support Mitchell and junior tennis by casting your online vote for him
here. You have until September 22nd, but please, do it now, so he can move on to the next round.
As a commenter mentioned yesterday, David Foster Wallace, a novelist and essayist who has written brilliantly about tennis, died over the weekend. The tributes are pouring in, from all whose lives have been touched by his dense, hilarious, often exasperating and fiercely intelligent writing. I've written before about his essay in
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again that centers on Michael Joyce, who, in the mid-90s was qualifying for ATP events, not coaching Maria Sharapova. It is hard to overstate the depth and insight that piece contains (sorry, no link available), but it isn't the only tennis writing he did. He discusses his junior tennis career in the same collection of essays, and
Infinite Jest, his masterpiece novel, which I confess I still haven't gotten around to reading, has a tennis academy as one of its main locations. Two years ago, he wrote an appreciation of Roger Federer for the New York Times
Play magazine, that is, fortunately,
available online.
Tom Tebbutt of the Toronto
Globe and Mail gives a brief and considered tribute, using mostly Wallace's own words
here.
