Au revoir Paris, bonjour Flushing Meadow!
It probably is a shock to all other than the most ardent of tennis fans that the US Open starts next Sunday with its qualifying rounds....
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From The Sidelines
Don't miss a shot!
When a Grand Slam is not on, but I am bursting to share my thoughts, you will find the articles here.
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sideline articles
lydiajulian1
Aug 46 min
Marchons! Oui, Marchons- one week down, one left at the Olympics
Today, 110 years ago, World War One begun. Arguably the defining moment of modern history, the Germans thought they could reach and...
108 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Jul 224 min
He can bide his time no more...
Well, well, well. The inevitable has occurred. Joe Biden has succumbed to the relentless logic of politics. His party do not believe he...
142 views2 comments
lydiajulian1
Jun 306 min
Wimbledon is on my mind
Does anyone go to work on a Friday anymore? In this post-Covid world the relative absence of foot and car traffic at the end of a...
100 views1 comment
lydiajulian1
May 95 min
From Adelaide to Rome to Paris- the West is still worthy!
Last weekend I was treated to time in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. An underrated city, often overlooked by being in the...
137 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Apr 95 min
First in Tasmania, then for the rest of us?
Tasmania is Australia’s smallest and only island State within the Federation. The nation’s smallest State, it is close in the size to...
119 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Mar 246 min
Prying eyes, camera lies and unclear images
In 1948 George Orwell wrote an ominous novel predicting the destinies of citizens in the post-War world. In the same year photo-finish...
43 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Mar 107 min
Three double faults can cost a player a game; three double standards can cost all of us
A spoiler warning: the following comments are not designed to offend. Please read in the cause of commentary not controversy. Sometimes...
117 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Feb 206 min
'It's still the same old story...the fundamental things apply as time goes by' , or do they?
I suspect many would agree that the current world is one where the practice of old certitudes has never been less guaranteed. Be it the...
104 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Jan 277 min
Davis Cup form is good form as Djokovic is denied!
Reluctant as I am to use contemporary expressions that may not be understood by all, may I begin by offering the following ‘spoiler...
92 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Jan 226 min
The seeds have been drawn and now 'quartered'- what happens next at the Australian Open?
The Australian Open has six days to run and the openings for Australian success have closed in the Men’s and Women’s draws. Yesterday’s ...
70 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Jan 98 min
Let another Grand Slam year commence!
Isn’t it remarkable that, notwithstanding all that has come before, the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve generates a collective...
66 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Dec 2, 20236 min
For every action there are legacies
For my sins, but with constant delight, I have taught Australian students for over 30 years about the structures and processes of its...
85 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Nov 12, 20235 min
'Tis the season to be perturbed
The Christian season of Advent is nearly upon us, beginning on 3rd December, and marks the promise of something new and beginning with...
136 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Oct 15, 20236 min
A predictable, if overly one-sided result?
It is the fear of every tennis player to lose a set six games to love. If a player loses a traditional best of three sets match 0-6 0-6,...
229 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Sep 22, 20237 min
In the multitude of voices, wisdom is found or so we thought....
Tomorrow in Australia at 4.49 p.m. is the spring equinox in the southern hemisphere. After then, days south of the equator will have more...
193 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Sep 14, 20237 min
"Two dozen to go for one and one to start for another"
“Speaking of Serena, America’s Coco Gauff, fresh from an indifferent summer won the Women’s title at Cincinnati. Often touted as...
75 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Aug 23, 20237 min
The sweltering September slam awaits
The forthcoming first day of September in the southern hemisphere is heralded as the first day of spring, whilst for Americans it is the...
75 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Jun 26, 20236 min
Whenever I gaze at Centre Court, I am in paradise! (apologies to The Kinks)
So, another Wimbledon is about to begin! How it can be two years since Roger Federer played his final match on Centre Court, let alone...
61 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Apr 24, 20236 min
Giants, fallen and falling...
We are told there are very few certainties except the oft quipped duo of death and taxes. For what seems the living memory of most the...
140 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Apr 2, 20237 min
To say Yes or No, that is the question, but we have many a SUBtext to consider!
Halley’s comet have many across our stars once every 76 years. Its next scheduled appearance will be in 2061. Down here on earth there...
160 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Mar 9, 20235 min
And the hits keep coming...
After the self-serving outpourings of Harry and Meghan and Novak Djokovic’s demonstrative implosion after the Australian Open Men’s...
44 views1 comment
lydiajulian1
Dec 29, 20227 min
Destiny, destiny- who is to know?
As a new year beckons, it is inevitable that individuals and societies consider what their destiny may be in the months ahead....
105 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Nov 30, 20227 min
And it's an end-of-year wrap!
This week Canada scored its first goal in World Cup history in Qatar and won its first ever Davis Cup in tennis in Malaga. The World Cup...
108 views1 comment
lydiajulian1
Nov 1, 20226 min
Transitions- all aboard?
Was it only eighteen months ago that the world was living in a state of Covid anxiety without a war in Ukraine, England’s Queen was...
57 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Oct 12, 20227 min
Sixty years on-from the Cuban missile crisis to a crisis of faith
In one of the final scenes of the movie, The Queen, her late majesty is seen encouraging Tony Blair to conduct their weekly audience...
113 views1 comment
lydiajulian1
Sep 12, 202210 min
Changes of crowns and games of thrones across the Atlantic
Well, the last thing I should have thought was that the 2022 US Open might be another predictable chapter in the game’s history. Too many...
113 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Aug 25, 20228 min
The US Open is about to start and when it closes much that is grand will be gone...
Can you have two epiphanies in a week when writing about politics and tennis? As we prepare for the beginning of the final Grand Slam of...
93 views1 comment
lydiajulian1
Jun 27, 20229 min
We focus on Centre Court, but everywhere else the centre seems hard to find!
Wimbledon starts tonight. All eyes of tennis fans will turn to its famous Centre Court whose flawless grass surface, only played on in...
75 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Jun 7, 20228 min
A Platinum Monarch, a new PM, painful Post-Mortems in America and Parisian tennis matches
Few probably realise that the French Open has provided Central America with its first ever Grand Slam champion. Marcelo Arevalo from El...
95 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
May 22, 20228 min
So, what do we now know?
When, in a fortnight’s time, the finals of the French Open are played the respective champions will be awarded their trophies because...
205 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
May 19, 20226 min
Forty eight hours to go!
Some days you remember more than others. 21st August 1983 is one of those days. In peaceful, democratic Australia, the newly elected...
103 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
May 8, 20227 min
Less than a fortnight to go and it's not a game- this is our future!
With less than two weeks until polling day in Australia, we can be more certain about events after the election than its outcome. We know...
138 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Apr 13, 202211 min
Nous tous! Australia and France go to the polls and then we focus on Roland Garros
The political terms left and right wing were coined when what became known as the Tennis Court oath was taken during the French...
146 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Jan 12, 20226 min
Guess who's coming to the tennis?
The question is, would the character played by the much loved and recently departed Sidney Poitier in his 1963 movie be more welcome to...
135 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Jan 6, 20225 min
Djokovic v the World: no vaccination, a contested exemption, a denied visa and a court appeal!
It just keep’s happening! A new year and the overlap of politics, world affairs and Grand Slam tennis continues. One of my holiday reads...
127 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Jan 1, 20226 min
Tremors!
It says something about the potent ubiquity of Covid-19 that it continues for most to be the only topic in town as we begin the third...
55 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Nov 29, 20216 min
Two end of year playoffs, a summit in Glasgow and a ‘sext’ for afters…
So, the tennis year is officially over, well apart from the Davis Cup which has become such a desiccated version of its one great self,...
74 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Oct 1, 20219 min
Is there honour amongst our governors anymore? Is there any hope of buying a home?
It is just over a fortnight since the end of the US Open. Former English Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously quipped that “a week is a...
95 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Aug 30, 20216 min
When will all of US be OPEN?
Sometimes, you just cannot believe the timeliness of events and poignancy of words. Tonight, (Australian time) the US Open commences. All...
69 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Aug 9, 20219 min
New York, here we come!
Start spreading the news I'm leaving today I want to be a part of it New York, New York And If I can make it there I'll make it...
84 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Jun 15, 202110 min
Farewell Roland Garros 2021: Thank you for more of the old and more of the new!
Even the most ardent Republican tennis fan living in the southern hemisphere must acknowledge the fortuitous nature of the Queen’s...
79 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
May 23, 20216 min
Paris awaits!
So, is some of the world is returning to normal? Qualifying rounds at Roland Garros start tomorrow, with the tournament proper starting...
66 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Apr 18, 202111 min
Have we won the war against Covid-19, but are now fighting post-pandemic skirmishes?
Countries are never entirely at peace with themselves. There are always social, economic and political fault lines that are shifting and...
55 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Mar 14, 20219 min
News travels quickly from the West!
Yesterday was the 28th anniversary of Paul Keating winning the “unwinnable Federal election” against John Hewson. It was the Federal...
158 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Mar 6, 20217 min
And the winner is?
Yesterday was especially bittersweet. It was the 38th anniversary of my first vote in a Federal election in 1983, which saw the election...
163 views2 comments
lydiajulian1
Feb 28, 202111 min
Melbourne's Grand Slam closes , but controversies remain open
Perhaps more than ever this year’s Australian Open confirmed how Grand Slam tennis is often an unwitting barometer of the political and...
78 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Feb 15, 20217 min
Australian Open champions set to be unmasked, like the rest of us!
In 1988 when the Australian Open was played for the first time at its new venue, then called Flinders Park, history was made when mid-way...
59 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Feb 7, 20218 min
An Open and shut case?
Tomorrow, competition at the Australian Open is set to commence. The gates will be open, but even after the first ball is struck there...
72 views0 comments
lydiajulian1
Jan 25, 20219 min
A fortnight to go, but what to celebrate before then?
Tomorrow, January 26th, Australia and India have national days of celebration. For India it is their Republic Day, which commemorates...
76 views0 comments
The Grand Slams
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