{"id":20933,"date":"2025-07-19T07:15:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T07:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/20933\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T07:15:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T07:15:09","slug":"emptying-the-wimbledon-notebook-by-ben-rothenberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/20933\/","title":{"rendered":"Emptying the Wimbledon Notebook &#8211; by Ben Rothenberg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thank you to everyone who read and subscribed during my third major tournament for Bounces! It\u2019s been a ton of fun being at tournaments and writing stories that seem to be resonating. I\u2019m hopeful that with more people supporting Bounces as subscribers, this place can steadily build into a sustainable outlet for covering tennis for years to come. <\/p>\n<p>Bounces is not quite there yet, but I think and hope that it\u2019s getting there. If you\u2019re enjoying my work here and want to see it continue, please do consider becoming a paying subscriber.<\/p>\n<p>As is tradition here after a major, it\u2019s time to empty my notebook of all the dangling thoughts and tidbits from my weeks at Wimbledon. <\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!9bd2!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F63f28484-5662-4613-b0d0-7413922628ef_4032x3024.jpeg\" data-component-name=\"Image2ToDOM\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"image-link image2 is-viewable-img\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/63f28484-5662-4613-b0d0-7413922628ef_4032.jpeg\" width=\"1456\" height=\"1941\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/63f28484-5662-4613-b0d0-7413922628ef_4032x3024.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1941,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:3610517,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image\/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/i\/167663098?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F63f28484-5662-4613-b0d0-7413922628ef_4032x3024.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}\" alt=\"\"   fetchpriority=\"high\" class=\"sizing-normal\"\/><\/a>The notebook, in action while I was on BBC Radio during Wimbledon. (Can you guess the match?)<\/p>\n<p>Here is a rundown the topics this time around to close the book on Wimbledon:<\/p>\n<p>McEnroe Fatigue on the American Airwaves<\/p>\n<p>Talking to the Oracle of Wimbledon, VenusGauff <\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s Changed at Wimbledon in Recent Years<\/p>\n<p>Digesting the Double Bagel Discourse<\/p>\n<p>The Wimbledon fines lists<\/p>\n<p>Jannik Sinner, Superstar<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s Not the Heat, It\u2019s the Rigidity<\/p>\n<p>Junior Sweets<\/p>\n<p>Brunch at Wimbledon is Even Tastier<\/p>\n<p>Hall of Infamy: The Bill Ackman Wildcard Debacle<\/p>\n<p>Meet (Cute) Me Over at Learned League<\/p>\n<p>Spoiler Alerts for Bounces?<\/p>\n<p>The Latest Zverev v Rothenberg Update From Berlin<\/p>\n<p>Here we go! <\/p>\n<p>Sally Jenkins wasn\u2019t at Wimbledon this year, but her column for The Washington Post\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/sports\/2025\/07\/10\/john-mcenroe-wimbledon-broadcast\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cTennis fans deserve better than John McEnroe\u201d<\/a>\u2014still created a lot of chatter in the Wimbledon media center. <\/p>\n<p>Jenkins roped Patrick McEnroe into her complaints, saying that the pair \u201chave given the viewer about as much information as a couple of air compressors, complete with the irritating hissing.\u201d Here\u2019s more of the gist:<\/p>\n<p>Responsibility for this lies with cowed producers and frictionless network chiefs who have enabled the McEnroe monopoly despite their shallow blandness \u2014 and who have allowed John in particular way too much diva license. He calls virtually all of the top matches, from ESPN to NBC to TNT, and cuts out to do cameos for BBC and Tennis Channel, without doing a lick of ostensible homework.<\/p>\n<p>Here are my two cents on the McEnroe monopoly on US tennis broadcasting:<\/p>\n<p data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/subscribe?&amp;gift=true&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Give a gift subscription&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}\" data-component-name=\"ButtonCreateButton\" class=\"button-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/subscribe?&amp;gift=true\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"button primary\" target=\"_blank\">Give a gift subscription<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/subscribe?group=true&amp;coupon=e328333c&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Get 20% off a group subscription&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}\" data-component-name=\"ButtonCreateButton\" class=\"button-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/subscribe?group=true&amp;coupon=e328333c\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"button primary\" target=\"_blank\">Get 20% off a group subscription<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thank you to everyone who read and subscribed during my third major tournament for Bounces! It\u2019s been a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-20933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}