Full-time tennis writers?

CFC:

Baseball is tougher, and it's not even close. First off, no paper travels to every tennis tournament. If the tournament is not a major or close to home, the paper almost certainly will skip it. If you're the tennis writer and you're not covering the tournament that week, you're writing a notebook once a week--if there's space, that is.

 

well shit, i can see how that weekly notebook can really bog a person down.

keep your chin up man. maybe you can skip the notebook ... next week.

 

Baseball beat is much tougher, I agree. I know plenty of writers who have done that and it sure doesn't have the same allure as maybe it once did.

Does anyone at least think that AP golf writer Doug Ferguson (and yes, I know that he has his enemies on this board) has a difficult gig? I'm not sure who AP's full-time tennis writer is, but I know they don't travel nearly as much as DF does for golf.

 

I think tennis is a longer season than golf, because at least the golf tours kind of shutdown for November and December and maybe even part of October.

 

Baseball's the beat that would drive me out of the biz. But don;t underestimate how tough the NBA beat is. The travelling schedule seems to be set up by dartboard -- Milwaukee, Phoenix, Houston, Portland anyone? -- and all the travel takes place in the middle of winter, guaranteeing that everybody has the lfu by March 1.

 

I'd just like to take this moment to point out that along with being the worst hockey beat writer in the history of sports journalism, Rachel Nichols was also a terrible tennis writer. But a wonderful addition to ESPN's stable of telegenic reporters.

 

I had dinner with Doug's predecessor, Ron Sirak, one night in Orlando. Ron had the AP golf beat for 2 1/2 years and he termed it "an absolute meat grinder." He marveled at how long Doug has been able to do it effectively.

Two stories a week (notebook, column), sometimes three (equipment). Traveling to all four majors and writing your ass off before, during and after each one. Venturing to the WGC events, some of the LPGA majors and other events (Wie's pro debut at Samsung last year, for example). Making sure you're up to date on Tiger's happenings (ducking the tomatoes I know are coming)... it's a grind, albeit one of the better grinds in the biz.

That, in turn, puts into perspective Sirak's predecessor, Bob Green. He had the beat for more than 35 years.

BTW, speaking of Sirak, he's one of those rare writers who has never written a bad story.

 

I probably should correct something I posted earlier. While the "regular tour" golf season might not be as long as tennis, the late fall events and made for TV golf events probably would make it a harder job for somebody like Ferguson compared to someone who did similar work in pro tennis.

 

Yeah, and Tiger does usually play in a few of those silly season events, including his own charity event in Thousand Oaks which also has many of the top names in the game. I think golf would be the best beat in head-to-head competition with baseball, tennis and NBA (taking into account that NBA players are playing right now in world championships in the NBA offseason).